Authors Electric

One of the advantages of being an independent author or micro-publisher is you get to choose and control your sales channels. One of the disadvantages of being an independent author or micro-publisher is you get to choose and control your sales channels. If you have an e-book to sell then the obvious place to go and tout your wares is Amazon. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing has an easy upload platform, good opportunities for testing the product before finally clicking Publish, global storefronts and facilities for tweaking the book page via Amazon Author Central. Happy days. Amazon even offers a couple of promotional schemes if you give them 90 days exclusivity and join KDP Select. Up to 5 days of Free Book Promotion (would you want to do that? Debate is never-ending on the subject) or the Kindle Countdown which gives a time-based promotional discount for your title. Why does Amazon offer these benefits in return for exclusivity? Because other channels do sell e-books. If yo...

E-publishing is going to change publishing and change always evokes excitement in some and worry in others. There are challenges to it being successful in India, but its adoption will happen, primarily due to the growing popularity of smartphone and other electronic platforms. To illustrate it I would first like to share some anecdotes. One: A well-known TV journalist and blogger has been writing miniature stories within the 420 character spaces allowed by Facebook wall posts. His stories are serialised. Every time he posts a new episode in the story on his wall, it is lifted as is and published in Hindi dailies around the country. He is then sent a cheque by the newspaper for having printed his story. Although the payment is minuscule, it is a continuous and steady relationship, illustrating how a social media space can be monetised effectively. Two: A school principal from a small town on the outskirts of the capital, Delhi, told me recently how excited she w...