Hardcover Books on KDP

A while ago, I was notified by Amazon that hardcover versions are now available for my books – but that this was still in beta and I wasn’t supposed to mention anything. Now, hardcovers are officially here and Dave Chesson, aka Kindlepreneur, has published...

Hello, Kindle Vella

Have you heard the news? Amazon just announced the Kindle Vella system. This is sort of “Wattpad on Amazon,” as a quick recap will show you: You publish your book, one chapter (“episode”) at a time. Episodes are between 600-5,000 words long....

How Amazon Plans to Conquer the World of Publishing

This is a guest post by Nisar Ahmad, a digital marketing expert for Media Hicon. As you know, I put most of the blame for the current condition of the publishing world on traditional publishers, whose policies Amazon has cleverly used to its advantage. Nisar instead...

The Future of Barnes and Nobles

The Passive Guy recently shared a post by Jane Friedman on the future of Barnes & Noble; a topic you may remember from my earlier post, “How Amazon Destroyed Barnes & Noble.” Quite frankly, Jane’s post made me sad. The latest chairman, James...

The Problems with Publishing

Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch recently shared a must-read post about today’s state of publishing, aptly titled Trainwreck, Fall Edition. As she explains, she tried in June to order a copy of a book she liked for her sister. However, she wouldn’t get the book...

Book Sales COVID-19 Increase

Since March 2020, PublishDrive has been generating digital book sales reports, compiling hard-to-find data from various outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play Books, libraries, regional stores, and more. They have now published their stats for...

How Libraries Are Coping with the Pandemic

I recently published a post on how the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be affecting publishing. While that article focused on publishers, we now have some interesting data on how it has affected libraries, thanks to NPR (many thanks to my author friend, Elle Boca, for...

Internet Archive Faces Lawsuit Over Free E-Books

As Elizabeth A. Harris of the New York Times reported on Monday, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Wiley accused the nonprofit Internet Archive of piracy for making over 1 million books free online. A group of publishers sued Internet Archive on...

A New Normal for Publishing?

How do people and firms respond to the pandemic lockdowns? One particularly interesting example comes from Books-A-Million. As The New Publishing Standard reports (shared by Passive Guy), America’s second-largest bookstore chain, Books-A-Million, is readying for...

COVID-19 Enhances Amazon’s Reliability and Credibility

The Covid-19 pandemic has upended our lives, forcing us to live digital lives rather than physical ones. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Amazon.com Inc. reported soaring quarterly sales because of a surge in online orders from homebound customers contending with the...