Barnes & Noble just announced they are creating a distribution platform for independent authors to sell self-published books on the B&N website –- e-books only.

Smashwords allows anyone who can create a MS Word document to self-publish and distribute on nine platforms including Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Apple, and the Smashwords site itself — e-books only.

Of course, Amazon has offered e-book distribution through the Kindle for what seems likes ages now.

So there are many ways to sell and distribute an independent book as long as it’s an e-book.

But if you want to sell a p-book –- that’s a traditional paper book — as a true self-publisher, you have limited options: your own website and Amazon. That’s about it.  Only Amazon offers a program to allow easy sales and distribution of paper books, books that still make up at least 95% of all book sales.

The Amazon program is pretty simple. For $29.95 USD per year, you can have a seller’s account on Amazon.com and your book is listed in their search engines. They won’t keep many copies in stock, so your sales need to drive their purchase orders. But they guarantee you 45% of the retail price of your book. Not great, but manageable. When you start to sell in volume (i.e., you’re shipping them cases of books rather than one or two books at a time), it starts to pay off. They pay you each month with a direct deposit to your bank account. Plus they are the largest e-tailer in the world, so there is value in the exposure you get.

Oddly, as everyone rushes to compete in the emerging digital market, they are leaving Amazon to its monopoly on p-books for the self-publisher. No one wants to challenge the mighty Amazon? Really?

One of the challenges publishers and authors face with e-books is that no one knows what anyone’s reading. Without eye-catching book jackets displaying the author’s name prominently, the potential for word-of-mouth marketing is virtually lost.

GelaSkins, a company that makes covers for every imaginable mobile device and all the major e-readers, could offer a solution to the branding dilemma of e-books. You can currently buy ready-made GelaSkins for devices, or custom design something unique; the options for design are endless.

An author could create a GelaSkins cover of her latest book and offer it as a giveaway to readers. Or publishers could host a contest, like an iPad draw, and cover the prize with a custom-designed book skin. Authors could also sell skins alongside their books to generate extra revenue. With any of these scenarios, the consumer gets a visual cue as well as protection for their e-reader, and the author and publisher get their names displayed for the world to see.

At about $20 per skin this isn’t exactly an inexpensive option, particularly since e-books still come in below that price. But if e-reading continues to grow like it has, authors and publishers will be looking for creative ways to brand their books. GelaSkins might be a product to do it.

Give us your take: Would you pay $20 for a skin that looks like your favourite book cover?

Image credit: Bookshelf design for Kindle 2 by Colin Thompson

High on the wish list for many of our clients are books that can be read in 2-3 hours, tops. With Twitter conversations and other online articles talking about this very thing, it seems our clients aren’t alone. This is definitely a trend authors and publishers, both traditional and online, should pay attention to.

With the average Canadian working nearly 40 hours per week and our neighbours to the south even longer,  there isn’t a lot of time left over for things like reading — especially a traditional 300-page business book that could take hours and hours to finish. So if authors and publishers want to get non-fiction works into the hands of consumers, it could be strategic to significantly prune those longer books.

Quicker to write and get out to market, this easily digestible style of book could compete with magazines and online publications, allowing consumers a quick and timely read, but still with substance. However, these shorter-format books need to feel sizeable enough, both in terms of experience and takeaway, to justify the price.

The challenge will be to find that sweet spot: the point where price, value, and length all come together to create a book that flies off the shelves and opens an entirely new niche market.

What’s your take? Is short and sweet a better model for non-fiction?

My Kobo Reader arrived this weekend.  And wow, it’s a very nice light reader — almost Star Trek:TNG-like. It makes my Sony PRS-505 Reader seem heavy and cumbersome. The contrast reminds me of the difference between Mac and PC. And at only $150, it’s a great entry-level reader for people new to e-reading technology. It’s not the golden $99 price point yet, but getting there.

The Kobo doesn’t have the wireless capability that comes with a Kindle, but then my Sony doesn’t have wireless either. Plug and load is still a great way to get what you want to have on the go. The Kobo interface is simple and easy to use, with the only disappointment that I can’t load ePubs that I’ve purchased from other stores.

Then the “a-ha” moment arrived. The Kobo isn’t really competing with Sony or any of the other readers on the market. Kobo is going after Amazon. The Kindle reader isn’t really the “thing” that Amazon is interested in selling. Amazon wants to be the source for content — much like iTunes is the source for music and video and Apple happens to sell the device you can play them on. Kobo wants to play too.

Kobo has focused its efforts on content delivery over multiple platforms. You can read your Kobo books on your Blackberry or iPhone, on your desktop computer, on other readers (including the Sony), or now on its own portable reader. So the hardware solution doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be cheap, cheerful, and easy to come by. (Though the Kobo is very cute, with the soft blue rubber navigation button on front and grey quilted back. Plus the 100 pre-loaded free books sure help the open-the-box, get-started ease.)

No, the real money for Kobo will come from selling content that can be used anywhere a consumer wants it. With multiple platforms available for reading what I buy, I’m going to do all my e-book purchasing at Kobo from now on. And that’s just what they want to happen.

P.S. It makes a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.  My 68-year-old mother LOVED it as soon as she touched it. Not sure what she’ll do with her collection of fabric book cover protectors and bookmarks, but she’ll surely find some way to make the Kobo even more homey than it already is.