Posts Tagged ‘Amazon Kindle’

Is Proprietary Or Open Source Better For Business?

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

There has been a lot of talk this week about how the late Steve Jobs changed the world. He was, indeed, a pioneer in technology. Many people continue to use his computer systems in an open source world despite their distinct proprietary nature.

To be sure, there is a huge prejudice in some circles against proprietary systems.

Some people would rather use the Barnes & Noble Nook over Amazon Kindle simply because the former uses the ePub format for its books, which is open source. Amazon’s Kindle is totally proprietary. Just like Apple’s Mac and iPhone.

Facebook is also proprietary, but it’s the most popular website online. Google’s open source Google Connect can be found on many websites, but it is far from being anywhere near as popular as Facebook.

So which is better? Is it proprietary or open source? I think it depends.

For many small businesses, proprietary works just fine. A large number of small businesses operated just fine for years with an Apple MacIntosh. Many more survived on the PC. Many publishers will likely do well publishing for the Kindle. Others will focus on ePub. The wise publishers will do both.

You have to look at the needs of your business and your customers. Don’t let anyone railroad you into using tools that aren’t right for you. Life’s too short.

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »

The New Face Of E-books

Saturday, October 8th, 2011

Amazon recently announced its own version of the tablet PC – a competitor to Apple’s iPad. It’s called Kindle Fire.

The astonishing thing about the Kindle Fire is its price. For less than $200, anyone can hold a PC in the palm of their hand. You can watch videos, listen to music, download your favorite apps, read e-books and store all of your entertainment on Amazon’s cloud. It’s clearly the best value for the money in the tablet PC market.

Why is that important? I think it’s extremely important for small business owners because it unleashes a new opportunity in e-books.

Pre-orders for the Kindle Fire are off the charts. Its official release date is November 15 and it’s selling in the millions. Of course, that’s good for Amazon, but it’s also good for small business owners.

The ease of publishing a book in Kindle format is phenomenal. You can write an article in one hour and publish it to the Kindle in ten minutes without needing an ISBN. You don’t even have to know any code. That means you can effectively have a string of white papers that you sell through Amazon on the Kindle and if you price them right they not only can serve as an additional source of income, but they will also boost your reputation – just like quality articles always have.

E-book marketing has always been good, but it just got better – thanks to the Amazon Kindle Fire.

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Posted in Article Marketing | 4 Comments »

Why The Prospect Is Looking Good For E-books

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Amazon has announced that e-book sales has outpaced print book sales. So, how significant is that news?

I think it’s very significant, but it isn’t omni-significant. In other words, print books aren’t going to be extinct any time soon.

Note that these sales do not represent a book-by-book comparison of print-to-digital sales ratios. It’s an aggregate total. For the past three months, Amazon.com has sold more e-books than print books. That doesn’t include free book downloads.

The real significance of this news is that Amazon has been selling print books for 15 years. It’s been selling digital books, or e-books, for less than three years. Given that, I think we can expect that print book sales will start to decline while e-book sales will start to increase. This may be gradual over time (how gradual is anyone’s guess), but it’s a reasonable expectation.

So does that mean you should publish an e-book? Should you publish an e-book and forget about the print book? Yes. And No.

Yes to you should publish a book, e-book or otherwise, if you have something to say. You should publish it as an e-book if you want to reach the Kindle market (and I think the Kindle market is quite different than your ordinary print book sales market). But if your book is truly worth publishing then you should consider publishing as a print book as well.

I’m looking forward to the future of e-books. Aren’t you?

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

The E-book War Is Well Underway – Are You In?

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Barnes and Noble recently announced the opening of an online store for e-books. This puts the largest brick and mortar bookstore in direct competition with Amazon’s Kindle, which has been all the buzz for e-books the last couple of years. The bright side to Barnes and Noble’s offering is that you’ll be able to read e-books on any device – except a Kindle. That’s a pretty good selling point.

Even better, if you are a small business person looking to expand your business and catch a few extra sales with a solid product, why not write an e-book? It looks like the market is ready for it.

A year ago, if you wrote a book you could get it listed on Amazon and format your book for the Kindle and perhaps catch a few extra sales. My bet is, once Barnes and Noble gets its e-book business grinding, the opportunities will only increase. E-books could very well be the next marketing fad – right behind video and social media, of course. But I’m betting that savvy marketers will find ways to incorporate e-books into their video and social media marketing efforts. You should too.

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »