Ebooks

Does giving away free Kindle ebooks work? Every self-publishing author asks this question. In my case, I think I have asked myself this question at least one thousand times. Over the years, I must have given away more ebooks than I dare contemplate. I have used Amazon KDP Select and Smashwords and even turned a…

Ebooks do not need DRM. Authors do not need it, and neither do ebook readers. When you buy a DRM ebook, you never own it. Worse, ebook retailers using DRM can wipe your ebook from your device. Why DRM is bad A warning signal about the evils of Digital Rights Management (DRM) came as far…

For new authors, free ebook giveaways seem like a sensible idea to attract readers who find free ebooks tempting. It is natural to think that the whole world is using search engines to find something for free. In the early days of ebooks, this tactic worked to some degree, if only to get a few book…

Do you prefer free reading apps or a dedicated ebook reading device? Both options have advantages and drawbacks, so choosing depends on your preferences and needs. Dedicated ebook readers, like Kindle or Kobo, have a long battery life and are lightweight, making them perfect for long reading sessions or travel. However, you can install reading…

You can find pirated copies of books online in a few seconds, but do you think about malware in free PDF ebooks? Free ebooks abound in many perfectly legal forms in PDF, Epub, Kindle Mobi, and RTF. So why are there now so many “download ebooks for free” sites offering free PDF books? In some…

Selling ebooks is easier if you learn how to promote Apple books. If you have ebooks and audiobooks available on the Apple Book Store, are you using links to help potential readers buy them? It is straightforward now because there is no longer any need to create links to the iTunes Store. You only need…

Kindle Unlimited (KU) has one big flaw. It’s the Kindle word count. Amazon cannot count the Kindle words per page readers read, the number of pages readers flip, or the time readers spend reading an ebook. For avid readers who read a lot of books per month, using their 30-day free trial or spending $9.99…

Is there an ebook pricing strategy to sell ebooks and get Kindle Unlimited reads? Since Amazon introduced Kindle Unlimited (KU) in 2014, the number of Kindle ebooks available on KU is now around 1.5 million and growing every day. Of these available titles, the vast majority are by self-published authors who have enrolled in Amazon…

Do readers prefer short ebooks to read? Do novellas sell well? I’ll try to keep the answer short. By chance, I was looking at the Amazon Kindle Store and clicked on an ebook listed in the top twenty bestsellers. I scanned the book’s details and was surprised to note that Amazon lists the ebook as…

Technology never stands still. Because self-publishing uses technology, it will always change and evolve. But will the use of Blockchain to sell ebooks work? In the not-too-distant future, it could be a game-changer for self-publishing. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are in the news. But they are not even remotely connected to ebooks, books, and self-publishing at…