Since a few weeks I have my first book up in the iBook Store (Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture). I've of course put up a link on the book's web page and it has been announced here and there. But I was wondering if there are publicity channels especially for iBooks which I could contact?
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Core i7, 27"
yes there are plenty. seems like i get perhaps a handful of emails from them each week. they must be slipping in their duties if they have not contacted you yet.
but they don't work for free. enter publicity for books and more than you ever wanted to look at will pop up. funny, the two which contact me regularly could not be found on the first few pages of the search engine. but i only used one search engine and for e-commerce sites, i find the search engines biased.
some will be articles of whether they are worth it or not. my own opinion, even though it is worthless, is that it is a waste of money. i spent plenty on ad words when they first came out back in the medieval age. since then, i view these types of things just to be a means to separate you from your money. however, you might have a different experience and reach a different conclusion.
i looked at your book and it says that it was published in jan 2015, which seems inconsistent with your statement of "since a few weeks..." is that the date of another format of the book? in any case, good luck with sales.
1. e4
Thanks for the reply.
Indeed, that was another format. The paperback was published in Jan 2015, the iBook was published a few weeks ago.
i'm a bit glad that i replied to your question, even though it was likely not much help to you. it motivated me to look and see what your book was about and see what you were doing in the critical marketing arena. i had a preconceived notion that it wouldn't be much, but likely because i think that is the norm. i was surprised to find out otherwise.
here are some of the positive things you are doing, i had thought about some but not all of these things. i have begun to realize over my lifetime that marketing is all important, not only for books but for other aspects of life - e.g. getting chosen for that all important job, making sure you are recognized as a cut above the herd, finding a wife, etc. some of these i have done well. others i am a miserable failure at.
1. you have progressed well into making your book available in multiple formats. i lament your tale about kindle and the cut they take. it is a reminder of the pre computer era when all books were print. the only one that made money was the book publisher. the author got peanuts for each book, unless you were a mass volume author, like the dan brown type. in my day, the name would have been issac asimov. i never see his name come up much anymore but perhaps he has a cult following or i travel in the wrong circles.
2. you have put in the effort of a website for the book and a blog, although i took only a quick look. your did a nice job on the website. i had not thought much about doing a blog for my books. a well read blog, as you state you have, certainly brings in the foot traffic that ought to be translated into sales. i have to think about doing one of these myself. i had already decided to give a new look to my website
3. i was not familiar with the distribution company you mention in your website and i must investigate them myself. i'm not crazy about creating a pdf version of my books because right or not, i think that makes it even easier for the pirates. i hear your lament about piracy. i wish i had the definitive solution. i knew about turning off printing (although my books are so large and graphics and color intensive that it would cost several times as much in paper and ink to produce than just to buy it. back in the days before iPads when content was on a web page, i created a version of my first book (written circa 1969) as a pay per view website and paid some russian software guys to port a mac version of software they created that disabled copying and printing web pages. but i was unaware of the stamped version containing an email address etc. but this only works if you can intercede in the sale. i always wished that software allowed one to place a unique serial number in each downloaded book. seems that should be very doable by apple. i should not say this but i wish the ebola plague on any pirate. i guess that might wipe out all of mainland china.
4. you don't seem to have unrealistic expectations about your book, although everyone wants to maximize sales. most books have weak sales because there is not a large audience for the topic. even so, if you have a passion for your book, i think one should write it if only to document their thoughts. some stories just need to be told and not go to the grave with you. i think things like being an author on a technical topic like yours will be a positive thing to help build a career and advance in your field. i advanced faster in my field, i think, due to a part time night job teaching at a well known university. your resume certainly identifies that your are doing well in industry. perhaps the book will catapult you to cio of the company, if you are not already there.
so here are a few ideas that i didn't see you mention.
1. get a part time job at night teaching as an adjunct in a city that has a large population of computers. teach your subject matter related to enterprise architecture and make your book required reading.
2. locate the cio of all the companies in the world that face these issues and send him/her emails about your book. they might pass them onto the enterprise architecture guys who might buy them.
3. hawk your book as the must read book for the computer guy who wants to rise to the lead enterprise architecture person in his company. every big company has them.
4. those focused on the monetary reward part of book writing have to focus their attention on some novel idea that is of interest and need of the masses. that might not be your purpose.
another idea i have i will someday send to you via your email address on your web page. it is not a biggee.
as an aside, i found your career path to be interesting to me as it closely resembled mine. instead of physics, my major was chemistry. i would have ended up as a professor teaching chemistry if i had not been sidetracked into the military for a few years. after i got out, some might say alive but that is debatable,, i decided on a career change into data processing when data processing was in its youth. my specialty was solving enterprise wide computer software problems with operating systems and major db/dc subsystems, etc rather than your path as an enterprise architecture professional.
good luck with your book.
iBooks Store 'new releases' channels?
