Amazon | Karavansara

15 July 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Summer homeworks

So I was not busy enough, right?
And I decided to find me something to do in my spare time (what spare time?!!) this summer.

Fact is, if I want to reach the largest audience possible with my books, I need to widen my distribution.
Granted, Amazon holds 80% of the market – but what about the remaining 20%?

Also, what about those readers that keep asking for epub and pdf versions of my ebooks and don’t feel confortable enough with the idea of justpla in converting the .mobi files*?

So, I’d like to try and put a book or two of mine on Smashwords.
And to do so, I have to learn to format my files for the Smashword Meatgrinder – that is, to prepare files that can be uploaded to that platform, and then be converted.

The process, from what I saw, is a lot different from the standard procedure I use to create my Kindle books.
Not necessarily harder, but different.
And that’s the main snag.

Thank goodness I have a nice selection of handbooks here with me.
Now I only have to sit down and read them, and then start experimenting.

On the other hand, I could just adopt a double standard, and upload epubs directly to Smashwords and mobis directly to Amazon…

Decisions, decisions… I’ll keep you posted.

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* Using Calibre, for instance.

1 February 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Sword & Sorcery @ 1 buck x bang

A brief heads-up for my readers.
For the first week of February, as I hammer away at a number of new stories and projects, the first two stories in the Aculeo & Amunet series will be 33% off on Amazon.
On any Amazon.

Now you can read Bride of the Swamp God and Lair of the White Ape for a single buck each (or the equivalent in your currency of choice).

It’s a sort of home-cooked promotion, so grab them while it lasts!

9 October 2013
by Davide Mana 5 Comments

The return of Pinterest for Writers

I already did a post on Pinterest, and how it can be useful to writers.
Heck, I did two posts about Pinterest!
Well, there’s more.

My Italian-language non fiction ebook, Avventurieri sul Crocevia del Mondo, my pulp-history overview of adventurers in Central Asia between the wars, is doing fine on Amazon – good sales, excellent reviews, nice Top 100 position.
But.

But I get lots of requests for graphical contents – maps, photographs of the characters whose stories I’m telling.
It figures.

Now, putting graphical contents in a Kindle book is not that easy – and maybe not even worth the time and the effort, considering that older, cheaper readers (like the one I use) are not that good at displaying images.
Can you really appreciate a map of Central Asia on a 6″ b/w screen?
Old grainy pictures?
Very large, garish paintings?
Also, a graphically-intensive ebook can be huge – and Amazon charges you some extra cents for big files.
And finally, there’s the lengthy (and expensive!) matter of the rights to the images.

And yet, it’s the sort of content that would make my ebook more appealing to the paying public.

So, I did a Pinboard on Pinterest – pinning the maps, and the photos of the historical characters.
As hi-quality as possible, with Italian captions, in the proper order – so that as you read my ebook, you can browse the pinboard and meet the characters.

Not only this free extra web-content allows my readers to finally get a good look at those faces, at their leisure, on the bright, colored display of their device of choice.
It could also work for the undecided – now they can look at the pictures, and decide whether they’d like to purchase the book or not.
And it can be updated.

With the next update of my text, I’ll place a link and a short note at the very beginning of my ebook – and at that point, it should all be nice and fine.

I’ll certainly adopt the same strategy for my next non-fiction book – which, after all, is about Dinosaurs!
You’ve got to have pictures in a dino book!

The ultimate Pinterest guide for writers and media organizations (curationgalore.wordpress.com)
Taping Pinterest’s Social Features To The Fullest For Business Promotion (urbantimes.co)

18 September 2013
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

The Amazons of Samarkand

As-One-Tai-Chi-0-Legendary-Amazons-An-Inaccurate-Memoir-Design-of-Death-trailer-e-poster-5

Historically inaccurate, maybe… but cool!

As I already mentioned, with a new series in the works, I’m researching my next (?) short story.
One finds the most wonderful things, in old travellers’ tales.
Here’s a snippet from the diaries of Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Spanish envoy in the court of Timur Leng (or Tamerlane), in 1403.
It is exactly the sort of information I was looking for.
And I thought you might like it, too.

Fifteen days journey from the city of Samarcand, in the direction of China, there is a land inhabited by Amazons, and to this day they continue the custom of having no men with them, except at one time of the year; when they are permitted, by their leaders, to go with their daughters to the nearest settlements, and have communication with men, each taking the one that pleases her most, with whom they live, and eat, and drink, after which they return to their own land. If they bring forth daughters afterwards, they keep them, but they send the sons to their fathers. These women are subject to Timur Beg; they used to under the Emperor of Cathay, and they are Christians of the Greek Church. They are of the lineage of the Amazons who were at Troy, when it was destroyed by the Greeks.

Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures (2001) (marocpostcard.wordpress.com)
Day 20: Bukhara to Samarkand (dudewheresbaatar.wordpress.com)

12 September 2013
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Free Adventurers Weekend

While of limited interest for my English-speaking readers, here’s news worth spreading: starting tomorrow, the 13th of September, at 00 am, Pacific Standard Time (7 am GMT), and for the whole weekend, my pulp-non-fiction ebook, Avventurieri sul Crocevia del Mondo (Italian Edition), will be available for free on Amazon worldwide.
The Free Adventurers Weekend ends on September the 15th, at midnight PST.

2 September 2013
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

My Shy Fans

You may have noticed a Goodreads Widget appeared in the sidebar here on the right, last week.
I’m not a great Goodreads user – after the initial “feeding frenzy”, the two days solid spent recording all the books I read and listing all the books I’d like to read, I sort of drifted away, and in the last few months I checked my account maybe once every three weeks.

What caused me a certain surprise was finding out, last Thursday, that not only all of my free ebooks are listed in Goodreads, and have quite good ratings, but even my recent short story, Tyrannosaurus Tex, which went on sale through Amazon ten days ago, is there on Goodreads already, and has a great rating!
And I even have four (count’em, four!) self-proclaimed fans of mine.
I have got fans on Goodreads!
And they’ve been there – reviews, ratings and fans – since goodness knows when.
And I did not know about’em!

It certainly never came to me the idea of doing a vanity search, and on Goodreads of all places.
And my fans, and my highly positive reviewers… well they did not even drop me a line!

And it’s weird, because the web is such, right now, that I’m painfully aware of my negative reviews – because having given you a good thrashing, they’re quite happy to let you know about it.
And at the same time, my fans and those that like my work are too shy to get in touch with me.

So I’m taking a moment to send out a belated Thank You, Guys!!

I do not have many readers – but this is fine, as I’m just starting out in the ebook arena, and hopefully more will come.
But as I have a small numbers of readers, it seems to me like a good opportunity for getting to know them.
Because without them, of course, my stories and essays are meaningless, lifeless, useless.

I’ll have to find a way to cure my fans of their shyness.
Any suggestions?
The comments section is always open…

Goodreads (theredbookmark.wordpress.com)

22 August 2013
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Tyrannosaurus Tex

I’m happy to announce that my somewhat steampunkish short story, Tyrannosaurus Tex, is now available, in English, through Amazon.

Because in spite of all the stuffed shirts in Harvard and Chicago and Konigsberg, the medicine men in the hills, the books and articles and all the rest of the stories, the Age of Reptiles ended on the twenty-ninth of October, 1879, when the last of the cursed beasts died in Moderation, Arizona Territory, shot in the forehead with a forty-four bullet in a regular duel.
Yessir.
I should know.
I was there.

The true story of how the Age of Reptiles ended – and How the West was Won – Tyrannosaurus Tex is a 20 pages, DRM-free ebook, and it goes for 99 cents – or the equivalent in your currency of choice.