Tip O'Day #322 - Try a Kindle

Guest blogger Rod Lindsey on leaving the Luddites behind.

I'm a caveman stuck in modern times and I admit that my embrace of technology roughly equates to pacing the dirt floor in my cave, my trusty club on my shoulder, knowing there are better clubs available out there but unwilling to let go of the balance and feel that I'm used to.

Take my library, for example, a few hundred books that have meant the world to me. I can't remember how many times I've packed them up and moved them, how many shelves I've built for them, the collection always growing. I like to read and re-read them. I like to just sit and look at them, remembering and imagining all the thoughts and ideas they contain. Then I think of ancient libraries, of parchment rolls and hieroglyphs carved in stone and my library begins to seem a bit...heavy.

This brings me to my new Kindle - I've resisted getting on board the e-book rage until a couple of weeks ago simply because a book has always been a book to me, but I've got to admit that I really enjoy reading (fiction, at least) on the Kindle. Maybe a book is really the characters, ideas, and secrets contained inside.

Check out Rod at his blog.

Tip O'Day #202 - "The Undead"

Guest blogger Glenn Gamble says “Print is Not Dead.”

Although it’s not my preferred method of publication, the print medium is not dead. I’ve seen statistics that e-books account for less than 15% of all book sales despite their phenomenal growth. I haven’t done in-depth research on my own, but the fact remains that I’m leaving 85% of sales on the table. “Why?” you might ask.

As many mid-list authors have discovered, e-books are more cost-effective and less expensive than print. I had previously self-published a book in 2009, but then didn’t publish one for the next two years due to the expense of a print run. Discouraged by the results of my first attempt at self-publishing, I stopped publishing period. My sales didn’t justify the costs and I had neither the time nor money to do the needed legwork. Another author suggested publishing on Kindle, but I dismissed the idea because Amazon only paid a 35% royalty.

Two years later, that same author is making a nice living selling her books on Kindle, and I… I’m starting over because I didn’t share her foresight on the Kindle Revolution. However, missing out on this opportunity has reinvigorated me. Since May of this year, I have released three books - four in a few days - and I’m currently working on a prequel to the Jim Money series. I didn’t have such drive two years ago, but I’m hungry now and looking forward to getting my work out to readers. Kindle provides the easiest and most cost-effective way for me to publish my work. This is why I choose to miss out on 85% of print sales.

Glenn’s books are available on Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gamble/e/B002BMGSVK and Barnes and Noble Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Glenn-Gamble?keyword=Glenn+Gamble&store=allproducts and Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/glenngamble and most recently in the iBookstore.