Scattering Seed Ministries sells great, vintage Christian books at auction to support the spread of the gospel to unreached people. These aren’t reprinted books. These are actual first editions of doctrinally sound works.
Category Archives: Bookselling
Apple Settles Its Ebook Case
Apple has been fighting the accusation that it conspired to fix ebook prices unfairly. I believe I remember this class action lawsuit being wage on behalf of Capital Hill politicians who hadn’t felt properly, shall we say, appreciated by Apple over the years. Had a little more corporate lobbying taken place, maybe they wouldn’t be having to answer for themselves.
Now Apple is settling. The company is “also appealing the antitrust ruling against it for the same issue of price-fixing.”
Amazon vs. The World: Next Episode
A few days ago, we pointed out the news that Amazon was not taking pre-orders and delaying orders for books from Hachette. We’re talking books you have heard of, possibly read already, or may be looking forward to, such as J.K. Rowling’s next crime novel. (Read an excerpt through that link.)
Here’s a quick fact list on the Hachette dispute.
Now Amazon is refusing to take pre-orders for The LEGO Movie and other DVDs from Warner Home Video because of a contract delay.
Writers David Streitfeld and Melissa Eddy suggest the biggest bookseller on the planet actually needs the money: “Amazon hasn’t really explained what it is after, but here’s one compelling theory: The company just doesn’t have enough money to finance everything it wants to do. Rather than trim its ambitions, it is putting one side of its business through the wringer to pay for another.”
Amazon Plays Hardball with Publisher Hachette
In 2010, Amazon disputed its arrangement with Macmillan on ebook prices and removed the publisher’s books from its site. Today the largest book dealer on the Internet is refusing pre-orders on new books from Hachette and delaying shipment on existing titles. Stephen Colbert is one of the authors with un-new books on the shelf, and he isn’t amused by the delay of what he says could be 30 of his books sold in a year. J.K. Rowling’s new book is coming out soon, which means thousands of readers would have pre-ordered it through Amazon by now, but cannot–not for ebook or print.
Since Amazon has 65% of the ebook market, working a deal with them is important to any publisher, but they aren’t the only ebook dealer. Barnes and Noble, Powell’s, and others are available, and maybe conflicts like this will make any argument for DRM pointless. If I have a Kindle and want to buy an ebook, do I need Amazon to sell it to me?
11 Ways to Support Your Local Author
“Anyone can support an author’s book release by doing different things to help the book sell and get noticed,” writes Chuck Sambuchino. He has 11 fairly obvious ways to do it, but these points need to be made because people on the Internet don’t have much sense–can we all agree on that?
His points include buying the book for yourself and others, reading that book in public, posting selfies of you reading that book in public, posting photos of you reading that book in “private” (the more sensational, the better), and rearranging bookstores.
I personally attest to this last point. Several times I stuffed a few Harry Potter books into the Star Wars collection in order to make room for a few of Lars’ books on the Hot New Reads by J.K. Rowling display. Once I got the store manager shouting about it, which is great publicity I tell you.
One great way to support a book that Sambuchino doesn’t list relates to hard-bound books only. If the book you want to promote has a dust jacket, you can swap it with a great NY Times bestseller’s dust jacket for increased crossover sales. It’s hard to recommend a best time to try this bit of good-hearted subterfuge, because customers and managers alike tend to rat you out. Maybe if one person starts a fire in the Survival Tech section, another person will have the time to swap dust jackets.
Christian Book Awards
Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem
That Self-Published Book is a Bestseller
Author Robin O’Bryant writes, “I self-published my first book in shame. I was disappointed that after two years of work with my top tier literary agent in New York, editors still didn’t think I had a platform large enough to sell a book.”
That book lived for about two years before hitting multiple bestseller lists, due in part to her tireless promotion. Now, Ketchup is a Vegetable and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves, is re-released, and Mrs. O’Bryant has a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press.
“Give me an E!”
I wasn’t aware of this until recently, but my novel West Oversea has been made available in e-book form, for Kindle or Nook, by the publisher, Nordskog Publishing. It’s not on Amazon at this time, but you can get it from Nordskog here.
Clive Staples Award Finalists
The Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction has three titles for this year’s award: A Cast of Stones by Patrick W. Carr, Truth Runner by Jerel Law, and Dragonwitch by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.
Are you familiar with any of these? Learn more through the link. (via Speculative Faith)
NoiseTrade Music and Books
Are you familiar with NoiseTrade? It’s a site where you can download a large variety of new music for free and leave a tip for the artists at your discretion. I recently downloaded an album from Christian rapper Propaganda. It’s strong stuff, not my thing really but I’m stretching myself. I also listened to a little Indie trio named Joseph. If you’re up for a great sound in worship music, listen to the sampler by As Isaac, a Chattanooga-based band.
Musicians say NoiseTrade is a great promotional platform. When you download music, you are invited to share your activity on your social networks. You also fork over an email address to get your download code, which allows the band to thank you or tell you about new music later on.
This year, NoiseTrade has launched a book service on the same model. Some of the title look like free ebooks you would get anywhere, but many of them look great. Random House is offering these titles at the moment. In Mysteries and Thrillers, you can see Ted Dekker has a promotional chapter available. Author Cliff Graham is racking up in the top download today. Are you a voracious enough reader to dip into this service? Let us know.