Summing it Up

That title for this post doesn't necessarily mean this will be the last post, but I think it's getting close to that point. I haven't posted in quite a while, largely because I've been working on writing another book -- another camera guide. This time it's not one that I'm going to publish mysefl (let alone print, bind, and ship from home!). One very positive result of the Leica D-Lux 4 book project, and one that was not intended at all at the start, was that I was able to use that book as a sample of my writing, and I ended up getting a contract to write a book about a different camera. I can't discuss the details at this point because of confidentiality provisions in the contract, but it was a great opportunity, though very intense. I've been working just about non-stop in every available hour since Christmas, and finally finished my part (I'm writing with another author) this afternoon -- unless there are changes to be made.

Now I finally have some time to reflect a bit more about our experiences with the Leica D-Lux 4 book. I know Clenise is relieved that the home-based printing aspect is over. I think she and I both enjoyed some parts of that process, because it was exhilarating in a way, but it was really exhausting and stressful, and it was not at all good for her arm, which she used repeatedly to work the binding machine. Now her arm is recovering, and we're both breathing easier.

One point I don't think I made very strongly is that, overall, what turned out to be the system that saved the day for us was the ability to use Lightning Source, the print-on-demand company, to take over, in effect, the whole project. Looking back now, it seems almost miraculous how things have changed.  One day Clenise and I were working ourselves to a frazzle to manufacture and ship the books, and deal with customer-service issues. The next day, once LSI took over, we could sit back and do nothing, if we wanted. I need to do some more work to publicize the book, but other than that, there's not that much to do. LSI gets orders from Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, and quite a few other online booksellers, then prints the books and ships them to those sellers very quickly. Every once in a while I log into my LSI account and find out how many books have sold. As of earlier today, the report said they have sold 165 books so far in January -- not bad for a small self-published book.

If I were to self-publish any more books, I would not hesitate to set them up from the start through LSI, and get them sold through Amazon, et al. It really is a great system. This whole strategey is the subject of a wonderful book by Aaron Shepard called Aiming at Amazon. Aaron is the guru of this method of self-publishing, and he really understands the print-on-demand business and the workings of Amazon in great depth.

The Kindle edition has been available on Amazon for a couple of weeks now, and as of yesterday it had sold about 12 or 13 copies, I think. Those go slowly, but there's no hurry.

I still need to do an update for my whiteknightpress.com web site about the firmware upgrade for the Leica D-Lux 4 camera.  I hope to get to that within the next week or so.

Monitoring the Situation

The atmosphere around the house is very different now that Clenise and I are no longer printing, binding, and shipping books. Not that things are quiet or restful - I have moved on to another book project that turned out to have a very tight deadline, so I've been working pretty steadily since Christmas. The good news, in a way, is that I have to be done with my draft by about January 18, so maybe there will be some breathing room at that point.

In the meantime, I've been monitoring sales of the book about the Leica D-Lux 4. I discovered a way to check on the Lightning Source web site to see how many books have been sold through their print-on-demand operation, and it said that about 215 sold in December, and about 82 in January. That's not bad for this sort of book, in my opinion.  Of course, those are probably the biggest sales times of the years, because of the Christmas holidays, when a good number of people may have gotten the D-Lux 4 camera as a gift and then wanted the book to help them learn how to use it.

There still are not many reviews of the book on Amazon.com.  Yesterday the first somewhat negative review appeared, saying the book is "not very informative"; the reviewer said he was disappointed based on his expectations after reading the earlier reviews.  That's fair; I imagine he is a more advanced user, and wanted more advanced advice. But most readers have reacted favorably; I think more of the people who want camera books are looking for more basic advice. Several of them have left me positive feedback through Amazon Marketplace, because they bought the book directly from me through that channel. I hope some of them may eventually leave reviews on the main Amazon site, where more people will see the reviews.

Today I again suspended my Google AdWords campaign, because, at $25.00 per day, the expense adds up very quickly, and I am not sure how much good it was doing at this point. I'm going to wait and see how sales are affected by stopping that campaign.

Starting the New Year Quietly

Things are fairly quiet, as you might expect for New Year's Day. I have had a few people send me messages through the White Knight Press web site asking how to order the book about the Leica D-Lux 4, so I guess I don't have that information displayed clearly enough on the site. I will need to work on that at some point. I have put up on the site an announcement that the book is available on the Kindle. The Amazon search engine now finds the D-Lux 4 book, Kindle edition, quite well; at first it didn't find it. The Kindle edition now has an Amazon sales rank, but pretty far down; the last I checked it was in the 27,000 range. But my understanding is that, once it has some sales rank, that means at least one Kindle copy has sold. That, of course, is good news, because it doesn't cost anything to produce more copies of the Kindle book.

I realized today that there is a way to check my account with Lightning Source through their web site. I did so earlier today, and found a report that the D-Lux 4 book had sold at least 215 copies since it first became available there in late December. That was pretty encouraging news, since that's a decent number of sales for just a couple of weeks. I'm not sure, though, if that figure includes the 16 books I ordered for myself or the 16 books I had shipped to camerabooks.com in Oregon. But even without those 32 books, the sales total for December 2009 would not be too bad.

D-Lux 4 Book Becomes Available on Kindle

Today the people at Amazon.com sent me an e-mail message saying they have published my book about the Leica D-Lux 4 book on the Kindle. It took a bit longer than I expected, but now it is available, though I had some trouble finding it in searches. One issue is that the Kindle edition is not linked to the print edition, so you have to search for the two editions separately.  I'm hoping that will automatically be fixed, but if it isn't, I will send a message to Amazon asking that they be linked.

Not much else to report right now.  It's somewhat quiet at home without all the hubbub of printing and binding books, but I have to say that, as of now, I don't miss it, though I'm glad we did it.  I know Clenise is glad that phase is over, because now she has time to work on her own tax preparation business.  She has various webinars to listen to and lots of IRS information to read, as well as estimated payments to prepare for clients, so she can finally catch up on a lot of her own work.  And I am trying to move on to some other projects, while still, of course, monitoring sales and progress of the Leica D-Lux 4 book.

All Is Quiet

An aura of peacefulness has descended, which is appropriate for the holiday season. I've been able to clean up my home office to a large extent, because we're out of the business of printing, binding, and trimming, at least for now.  Today, the guy from the local graphic-arts company came by to install our newly sharpened blade. We had a nice chat, and then he left. The last time he was here, about a month ago, things were in a state of relative turmoil, and Clenise and I were racing against the clock every day to produce enough books to stay one step ahead of the orders.

So, we're both relieved, I have to say.  Clenise has straightened up her office, and again has time to take tax courses and webinars about her new tax software. Things are much more relaxed, and I don't miss the excitement.

With regard to the Leica D-Lux 4 book, I'm still waiting for it to become available on Amazon's Kindle. I think I've done everything necessary to that end; I responded to Amazon's latest request for more information, and I hope it shows up on the site for sale in the near future. I do get some inquiries from people asking if the book is available in an electronic format.

Oddly, there have not been any more reviews of the book on Amazon in about the past week, and only 4 altogether.  At least those have all been favorable.  I had a glitch with Google AdWords earlier today, because I deleted the ordering page from my whiteknightpress.com site now that the book is available directly from Amazon, but I forgot that that page was tied to my ads on Google AdWords. Luckily, that deletion triggered a warning message from Google, and I quickly fixed the problem, so the ads are running again now. I plan to keep them running for a while, though they are costing me about $25.00 per day, and I don't think it makes sense to continue at that rate indefinitely. Eventually I'll cut down on them and see how that affects sales on Amazon.com.

Waiting for Kindle

Yesterday I uploaded the final version of the D-Lux 4 book formatted for the Amazon Kindle.  Today I received an e-mail message from Amazon saying they want to make the book available on Kindle, but first they need to have me submit some assurance that I am the owner of the electronic rights to the book.  I replied quickly, giving them the number of my pending copyright registration case and stating that I own all the rights to the book.  I hope those assurances will suffice, and that the book will be made available in Kindle form as soon as possible.

I had one inquiry today from a gentleman who would like to buy the book in electronic format, such as a .pdf file.  I replied that it will be available on Kindle soon, and may be available in other formats as well.

Both Clenise and I feel very relieved that we don't have to keep cranking out copies of the book.  We both have plenty of other activities to occupy us, and even without printing, binding, and shipping books we're both quite busy, so the switch to production by Lightning Source came at an opportune time.

I'm not sure how much more I will be adding to this blog.  I probably will stop making daily entries for now, and may make entries only when something of particular interest happens.

Christmas Activities

It's a rainy, but still white from recent snow, Christmas afternoon. We're getting adjusted to the new phase of book publishing, in which Lightning Source does the printing and distribution, and we sit back and wait for payment. So far, so good; the D-Lux 4 book climbed somewhat steadily up to an Amazon sales rank in the 3,300 range, though it has now slipped back down into the high 4000s. I'm finding it somewhat hard to keep from checking the sales rank; I don't need to check it so often.

In other news, today the book was finished in its format for uploading to Amazon.com in a Kindle electronic version. I have checked over the formatting, which looked good, and have uploaded the Kindle version. The Amazon site says it may take a couple of days before the e-version is checked over and approved to be made available for purchase on Amazon. I set the price at $9.99, on the theory that people generally wouldn't want to pay more than that for an electronic book about a camera. I considered setting it at $14.95, but decided I was likely to lose too many potential sales at that price.

Things are otherwise quiet. I'm hoping the D-Lux 4 book will start to sell some more copies fairly soon after Christmas, to those people who have received the D-Lux 4 camera as a Christmas gift.