This post began being written a couple of weeks ago when I recalled some specific misplaced expectations I had for the self-publishing revolution and started to ponder why things happened the way they did in recent years. It turns out a big part of the answer I was looking for provides clarity that extends far […]
The utility of examining the text of a book to find search terms for SEO
The first two things to understand about optimizing book copy for SEO that I’ve learned from Logical Marketing partner Pete McCarthy are: 1. Copy always used to be written based on “knowledge of the book”. It should now be written based on “research into the audiences”. 2. Copy from publishers was almost always B2B, intended […]
Getting books more retail shelf space is going to require a new approach
That bookstore shelf space is disappearing is a reality that nobody denies. It makes sense that there are people trying to figure out how to arrest the decline. There has been some recent cheerleading about the “growth” of indie bookstores, but the hard reality is that they’re expanding shelf space more slowly than chains are […]
What I was thinking when I said that wild stuff
At our Publishers Launch Conference on the Wednesday of BEA, Michael Cader and I introduced a new feature we think will become regular at our events: a candid 1-on-1 conversation between us. It went well. In fact, it went so well that what reads like a pretty damn accurate verbatim account of much of it […]
Borders Crosses the Last Frontier
The end of Borders took place within a larger context. I was in Italy for the IfBookThen conference last February when Borders’ impending bankruptcy was a rising expectation. Somebody in the audience asked me if I attributed Borders’ difficulties to ebooks. I said: “When the flu hits town, the old and sick die first.” Ebooks […]