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Amazon.com has created a new purchasing program called Kindle MatchBook. You can purchase the Kindle version of qualifying books that you purchased from Amazon.com in print.  You’ll pay between 0 and $2.99 for the matching Kindle versions.  Going forward you can buy the print book along with the Kindle version for $2.99 or less.  This means that authors make more money when Amazon.com promotes the bundle.  As an author with a book in print you have to enable your participation in the program.  For more information visit Amazon.com.

Joanna Penn has a guest on Jane Friendman’s blog about selling more books by optimizing your metadata.   Metadata is information like categories and keywords on a book sales site.  Jane recommends the book “Let’s Get Visible” by David Gaughran.  The description on the book page of Amazon.com says:

“Take your sales to the next level! The author of the award-winning, bestselling Let’s Get Digital is back with an advanced guide for more experienced self-publishers.

There are over 1.5 million books in the Kindle Store, with thousands more added every day. How do you get yours noticed? Visibility isn’t a challenge that can be bested once – it requires continual work. But there are tools and strategies to do much of the heavy lifting for you.

In Let’s Get Visible: How To Get Noticed And Sell More Books, you’ll discover how to:

• Leverage Amazon’s famous recommendation engine to take advantage of the various opportunities it provides for exposure
• Position your books for discoverability on other sales venues
• Minimize the time you spend promoting so you have more time to spend writing
• Promote in a cost-effective way that actually works

On October 30, 2013 Amazon.com announced that it would begin offering a digital literary journal weekly.  Their plan is to publish fiction-including work from debut authors and stories from around the world translated into English-and poetry. Day One will showcase one writer and one poet per week.  Day One will be priced at $19.99 a year and publish direct to Kindle or the Kindle app.  You can learn more about this brand new literary effort by Amazon here.

Amazon.com has started cracking down on authors who publish erotica.  This popular niche has blossomed in the past year with writers literally coming out of the woodwork to write these racy tomes.  In the past Amazon.com published any and all original erotica stories but a backlash has started.  In an effort to clean up their catalog some erotica stories are getting unpublished and blocked.

According to erotica authors there are ways to avoid having this happen.  The key is to create an inoffensive cover, title and cover.  Then add a disclaimer to the description about the book contents.  If this doesn’t work pick up the phone and call Amazon.com.  Many authors are reporting that a simple phone call can clear up many problems.

Your book listing on Amazon.com, the biggest bookseller in the world, is critical.  So long as you follow the rules you can make it as robust as you want.  Although you can no longer add pictures to your description you can add special formatting using html to make your description stand out.

In your description consider adding:

An actual one or two paragraph description of the book and characters.
Table of contents for a non-fiction book.
Editorial reviews.
Testimonials or reviews that won’t show up on Amazon.com.
Links to your social media sites.
Your biography.

This space on your Amazon.com description is like gold.  Use it wisely!

Book Power will teach you how to harness the power of Amazon, the greatest retail giant on Amazon so your content will be seen. Use Amazon as a search engine and optimize your book in a way that will drive more leads than pay per click or search engine optimization. Stop wasting money trying to drive traffic and let them do it for you. Understand the power of Amazon’s massive e-commerce empire and use it to drive pre-qualified traffic, bring more dollars to your business and more clients to your door.

You will learn:

• Why You Want to Publish on CreateSpace AND Kindle
• The Benefits of Being a Published Author
• Proper Formatting Techniques
• Book Cover Design
• How To Create An Outline
• Choosing the Right Title
• The Benefits of Aligning with Experts
• What a Platform Is – And Why You Need One
• The Importance of Consistent Branding
• Secret Strategies for Writing Your Book Description
• How Amazon Is Primarily A Search Engine
• How To Put Your Book Into Four Categories for Maximum Exposure
• What A Sales Funnel Looks Like
• How To Promote with Book Tours
• How A Book Helps You Reach More Markets & Drive More Sales
• Why You Want To Think About A Book Trailer Video
• Cross Pollinating Your Social Media for Best Results
• The Importance of Consistent Branding
• Optimizing Your Author Central Profile
• The Best Ways To Promote Your Book
• How To Use A Book To Gain Media Exposure
• Using Your Book As a Lead Generator
• Getting It Right The First Time
• Engineering A Best Seller
• Using Categories To Your Benefit
• Keywords, Categories And Book Description SEO
• How To Create Content Fast
• The Authors Secret You Did Not Know About
• Gamifying the Creation of Your Book

Have you ever used the Barnes & Noble Pubit self publishing system?  In order to better compete with the Kindle self publishing platform B&N have changed the way self publishers submit their books.  The new system, Nook Press, allows authors to write and edit within the system rather than uploading a Word document.   Authors that used to use the Pubit system need to create a new account in Nook Press.  To learn more visit Nook Press. Make sure you read their contract as it has some clauses in it that are new.

In the article “As E-Book Sales Rise, Apple iPad Bests Amazon Kindle” Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos says “After five years, e-books [are] a multibillion-dollar category for us and growing fast—up approximately 70 percent last year. In contrast, our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a book seller, up just five percent.”

This is great news for indie authors who publish only on Kindle but it looks like Amazon.com has to contend with the rapid growth of the iPad.  You can read the entire article here.

They both wish to redefine the publishing industry according to David Streitfeld.  Streitfeld writes about the collaboration between Amazon.com and Tim Ferris in the New York Times Bit column.  Amazon.com is the publisher of the latest Ferris 4 Hour books “The 4-Hour Chef”.  According to the article bookstores aren’t carrying the book because they don’t want to help Amazon.com continue to conquer the world.  Read the article and tell us what you think!

HarperCollins is the first of three publishers who has negotiated new, lower prices for e-books for Amazon and other e-retailers.  A federal judge approved a settlement in early September between three big publishers and e-retailers.  The NY Times Media Decoder blog has an article with all the details.  You can read about the settlement itself here.  What does this mean for authors?  It means that they will make less per e-book sold but they may very well sell a great deal more now that prices are more affordable.  More books being read is always a good thing!