Category: News: Arts & Entertainment (Page 8 of 25)

Defining Success: Accountable Online Marketing for Book Publishing was a full-day session run by BookNet Canada and the ABPBC on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at the SFU Downtown Campus, Vancouver BC.

9:00, 9:15 am: Opening Remarks from Michael Tamblyn, BookNet Canada
Michael Tamblyn couldn’t print his presentation so he read it off his phone. A perfect intro to a day about online media and the changes it has brought to consumers and book publishers.

9:15, 10:00 am: Blogs, Context and Conversations: Interaction, Change and Measuring Results from Ehren Cheung, online marketing specialist for Dundurn Press
Ehren Cheung discussed the elements required to build, maintain and grow a successful blog like Dundurn Press’ Defining Canada with a focus on how to set goals that measure what matters. Ehren has been involved with expanding Dundurn’s Internet marketing initiatives since he joined the publisher a little over two years ago. I really like following Ehren online: Dundurn blog, on Twitter, he’s great.

Key Points from Ehren Cheung:

• Using Facebook and other social media is about sharing. I’m defining my identity. I’m telling people about myself.
• There are 3 basic ways we discover something new: Browsing (exploring), sharing, searching
• Defining Canada started because Dundurn was overhauling its main site. In the interim the blog was created to tell people about what was going on. Sharing the news about the news: interviews, Q&As, videos, insider news.
• In planning a blog, started with: What do we want to do? What are our goals? What should we be measuring?
• Start by measuring: Unique visitors, how many pages do users visit, are they loyal, are they increasing their time spent on the site, how many clicks through to ecommerce do we see, what’s the impact of blog posts from authors …
• Ehren has worked hard on the design of Dundurn blog, which I think works for them.

Ehren’s Top Take-Away Points:

1. Make it simple.
2. Practice.
3. Make use of social media: Use Twitter and Shelfari.com
4. Listen to the conversations, connect on a genuine level, Share content and information.

Questions from the Audience

Q: How has the purpose of Defining Canada changed over time?
A: Defining Canada currently is an extension of the brand messaging. We arel slowly moving toward building community, focusing on calls to actions.

Q: How does the management view the blog and outreach?
A: We have 521 unique visitors per month. How do they feel about that? Good.

Q: Why do you suggest Twitter?
A: It’s important to my day. Monique suggests it’s like a news ticker in the background. Keep a finger on the pulse of personal contacts and business. Follow us and see what it’s all about:
@ehrenc
@definingcanada
@somisguided
@BookNet_Canada

According to the Shelfari email newsletter, “Shelfari joins the Amazon.com family.”

Shelfair.com, acquired by Amazon.com on August 28, is a social networking site for book lovers. You create a virtual bookshelf and share reviews with your friends. I’m also a member of GoodReads.com, which I like for the email messages I receive of friends’ book reviews.

Both systems let users pull in your Amazon reviews, which is great and saves time. It will be interesting to see what happens now with the other virtual bookshelves using Amazon’s API (will they continue, get stronger, disappear) and what will “working hand in hand” (as claimed in the Shelfari email) actually look like.

I suppose I should go update my bookshelf in all of these places.

Is there not some way to do this in one place and have all my reviews distributed and posted to all my bookshelves? Hmmm. Must be…

Handmade Nation: Sneak Peak of a d.i.y. craft documentary being released in 2009. I like the Craft Mafia mentioned and the jewellery made from bike parts. So cool.

Director: Faythe Levine
Director of Photography: Micaela O’Herlihy
Additional Camera work: Drew Rosas
Editor: Cris Siqueira
Assistant Editor: Joe Wong
Music: Wooden Robot

Video and book: Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY Art, Craft & Design.

Visit www.indiecraftdocumentary for more information.

POD: Peace One Day
September 21

Amazon Press Release on BusinessWire

Amazon.com announced today that it is acquiring AbeBooks of Victoria, BC.

“AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books, with over 110 million primarily used, rare and out-of-print books listed for sale by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world.”

Very interesting.

In December 2007, Amazon bought JK Rowling’s handwritten book The Tales of Beedle the Bard for $4 Million. At the time I thought it was awesome for Amazon to have bought the book, and that it was fitting for the number of copies they’ve sold of the books and … well isn’t that nice.

I was also pretty desperate to hold that book. The little white gloves of the Sotheby’s staff are etched in my mind.

And NOW … Amazon has the exclusive right to sell The Tales of Beedle the Bard to the masses. There is a limited collector’s edition that I just pre-ordered and a standard edition.

Here it is. Drool away. And if you want to order the book and follow my link below, I’ve signed up for the Amazon affiliate program and will get a percentage of the sale. That would be a nice Christmas present and could pay the hosting fees of SoMisguided or I could turn it back to you in the form of postage and mail you out any book that I’ve reviewed on my site (except for the signed copies of stuff I’m particularly fond of …) Ya, that’s a better idea.

Who’s for that? If we make any money, I’ll post the amount and how many books and postage that equals and I’ll send you Christmas presents. We’ll figure out the details as we go. (I’m saying Christmas because Beetle isn’t published until Dec. 4–but you can pre-order.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is Available for Pre-Order on Amazon.

I’m fascinated by Amazon’s business strategy. It’s really clever.

* Amazon acquires Audible.com (January 2008)
* Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos invests in Twitter (June 2008) through his personal fund, Bezos Expeditions.
* Kindle sales are 12% of Amazon’s total sales [update: Kindle sales are 12% of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form] (June 2008).

Social retail. Retail on the go. Sales using your Amazon account. Sales via cell. It’s all credit card processing.

And yesterday, Amazon beefed up its payment services by launching Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay.

Why is this clever? Because. Amazon became huge by allowing developers to use their API. To create their own stores.With these payment options, other e-commerce sites can insert an Amazon Checkout cart on their sites. E-commerce is hard. This is easy.

* For the user: One-click ordering for anyone with an existing Amazon account
* For the website owner: Order management, shipping, sales tax calculations and more from a reputable checkout service
* For Amazon: data mining and part of the transaction fee. Transaction fees start at 2.9 percent of the order amount, plus 30 cents per order (unless you’re doing a lot of business). And for transactions less than $10, Amazon charges 5 percent plus 5 cents.

Here’s what I think their new motto is:
Amazon. Solving the Hard Problems.

Payments. Data storage. Cloud computing services. Hello Amazon. You’re not the bookstore I remember. But you’re certainly making money.

Here’s a little publicized Amazon feature: Amazon Digital Text Platform

Quote: Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload and format your books for sale in the Kindle Store.

It’s Your Thing. Have a book you want to sell? Sign up with Digital Text Platform and publish your content in the Amazon Kindle Store in minutes.

Do It. If you have an Amazon.com account, you’re already signed up with Digital Text Platform. Start publishing now!

Your Way. Digital Text Platform gives you everything you need to become your own publisher today. See for yourself.

Hello Publishing 2.0.

RyanSpoon.com: Great post on Kindle Sales

Quote:
Amidst all of the discussion about the iPhone 3G that hits stores tomorrow, another industry changing gadget is getting overlooked. According to Time Magazine:

“On a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles,. At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6% of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books.”

Those are big numbers. 12% of sales for books that are available in print AND on the Kindle are purchased for the Kindle

Read the full post …

James, Chris Clarke and I are in the Vancouver section of the new Where the Hell Is Matt? video. More photos to come …