Xlibris New Book Marketing Service Product - All About Search Marketing

Apparently Xlibris can win over Google with their new marketing services product for your book. Xlibris places ads on search results pages (SERPs) of Google for specific keywords that are related to your book.

The motive here is to drive visitors and would-be book buyers to your website or the bookstore that sells your book. The requirement here would be that you will need an online purchase location for your book. If you don't have one then this product will be rather useless to you.

Xlibris did not mention how much the product cost in their email - which must mean this might be expensive.

iUniverese's Publishing Promotion

Promotion Description:

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Save $100 off the regular price of a Premier Publishing Package ($899 NOW ONLY $799)

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Save $50 off the regular price of a Select Publishing Package. ($599 NOW ONLY $549)

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Amazon Bullying The Publishing Market?

There have been news that Amazon is taking out the icon "buy now with 1 click" for several publishers. How important is this one button? Here's an explanation from the International Herald Tribune:

The button allows registered users to purchase titles instantly, with free shipping. Customers can still buy the affected books, but they have to navigate to an open marketplace that links them to third-party sellers of new or used books. And they have to pay for shipping.

Just recently it has disabled this button for British Web site with hundreds of books published by Hachette Livre UK, from back-list Stephen King novels to, naturally, "The Hachette Guide to French Wine."

According to Hachette's CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson, Amazon - one of the biggest online retailers, he said, was demanding a bigger slice of the "cake." Publishers traditionally sell books to retailers at a discount off the recommended retail price, but Amazon was demanding more than its existing 50 percent.

"Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours," Hutchinson said in the letter. "If this continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties."

For now, the dispute remains unresolved. So the buy buttons are missing from older titles like "Labyrinth" by Kate Mosse or "Duma Key," by Stephen King, who still managed to get favored treatment for titles in his "Dark Tower" series. Many of Hachette's titles have also been dropped from Amazon promotions suggesting additional titles for customers in their favorite genres.

The dispute with Hachette is not the first in which Amazon has resorted to removing the "buy now" buttons for certain books. In the spring it started disabling the icons for some small publishers in the United States who resisted Amazon's demand that they use an Amazon-owned company, BookSurge, for print-on-demand services. Amazon is the dominant seller of such titles.

I used to admire Amazon a lot, specially the business model that Jeffrey Bezos put together. How they were consumer centric and user friendly. But now it seems it's all about the money.... tsk tsk tsk

Christopher Ciccone, Spills On Madonna In His Tell-All Memoir, "Life With My Sister"

I believe in every endeavor, it is to your advantage to have an edge versus your competitors. I think Christopher Ciccone found that edge by using his sister - world's one and only Madonna, not only is she an actress, she's a singer, fashion icon - she's THE celebrity. It's unfortunate that he's about to tell the world what she's really like. It would have been nice to retain that same image of Madonna, specially at this stage of her career.

I think Madonna will weather a character attack, should that be present in Christopher Ciccone's book, "Life with my sister."

The publishing house, Simon & Schuster, has ordered a monster first printing of 350,000 copies of Life With My Sister, set to hit shelves July 15.

It will sell a lot I'm sure. Madonna advocates will want to see what he has to say and Madonna critics will be excited to learn about the dirty little secrets it may have against Madonna.

Xlibris Launches New Website With New Features

Well if you haven't seen it yet, try checking out Xlibris' new website. It has some cool new features that you may enjoy.

• Change font size feature - you can increase the main text fonts so that they become bigger or smaller depending on your taste
• Easier access to their bookstore. You can click through to search their bookstore. Their bookstore isn't new though.
  
• They had their "look inside an Xlibris book" before, but I still say it's a cool thing to have - the flipping book thing
• An author's center that has lists of events, author resources as well as freelance experts that can help with publishing

I haven't gone through the whole site intensively, but if you find something else that's interesting, let me know.

iUniverse Publishing Promotion - Cash Discounts

iUniverse is taking a Daddy's deal offer this month to celebrate Father's day on June 15th - although their offer ends on June 17.


Promotion Description:

• Save $200 off the regular price of a Premier Pro Publishing Package. ($1,299 NOW ONLY $1,099) Code: 200JUN
• Save $150 off the regular price of a Premier Publishing Package ($899 NOW ONLY $749) Code: 150JUN
• Save $100 off the regular price of a Select Publishing Package. ($599 NOW ONLY $499) Code: 100JUN

J.K. Rowling Speaks At Hogswart er Harvard

Harvard felt much like Hogwarts when their commencement exercise had none other than J.K. Rowling as main speaker.

It's weird when certain personalities are asked to speak in events like that. Harvard most of all has the most extravagant taste in celebrities, everyone from Paris Hilton to J.K. Rowling I suppose have guested there.

Nevertheless, even non-Harry Potter fans appreciated J.K. Rowling's message during the said affair, most of which devoted to the power of imagination, specifically the human ability to put oneself in another’s place. The author discussed her stint working for Amnesty International and how the letters sent to the office taught her about the horrors many suffered in distant places. Rowling then encouraged the graduates to use their intelligence and privilege to better the world.