Show Notes: Kindle and Google and Nook, oh my!
Fine announced that Amazon will be incorporating Facebook feeds into its author pages (amazon.com/author available to any author who has anything for sale on Amazon), as well as making Kindle sales figures available to authors on Amazon imprints.
He noted that Amazon’s Search Inside The Book feature is a boon for discoverability, making books that use the feature much easier to find in searches (on Amazon).
Fine also gave a bit of solid, if blunt, advice, regarding upkeep of metadata on the Amazon landing page for most any book: “You may have an amazing website on your own. Your publisher may have an amazing website. But right now, this is your book’s home page on the web.”
•Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute (and who’ll be running November’s Content Marketing World conference in New York) gave a Tuesday morning presentation that turned a lot of conventional wisdom on its head.
“Most publishers are working with a flawed model,” said Pulizzi, noting that publishers are too consumed with channels: books, ebooks, etc. “Focus on being the leading information provider in your niche,” regardless of what channel you’re publishing in.
Pulizzi’s message was to focus on niche, suggesting that general interest publishers focus on specific audience groups and market to them. “If I were a big publisher, I’d chop it up and focus on audience groups.”
He provided a 99-to-1 ratio of free content to paid content, noting that free content creates social presence, building a publisher’s image as an expert. Once expertise is established, events, books and consulting can be sold.
He also gave a prescription for social media success, something he called Social Media 4-1-1, the idea being that of every six items you share on social media, the first four should be sharing content from your followers/influencers, one should be your own content and one should be a sales offer.
