Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: E-book


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Amazon Kindle pre-orders and peace of mind

asteria 1So, now Amazon lets me offer my ebooks for pre-order*.
Basically the idea is, I upload my files like I always did, and then I can set the publishing date as far as 90 days later.
You can buy straight away, but it will be delivered to your reader on the set date.
Nice and smooth.

I did a small experiment, in August, using a novelette I wrote, in a new series of sword & sandal stories for the Italian market – it’s called Asteria alla Corte di Minosse.
I talked about this story when I was writing it, as part of a bet with a friend and colleague.
The response was good, so much so that my ebook made the Amazon top 100 in the Fantasy category on the strength of the pre-orders alone.
Now that was heartening.

On the other hand, a lot of readers expressed some perplexity – what’s the purpose of pre-ordering an ebook?
After all, the good thing about ebooks is, I see something I like, I click and I’ve got it on my reader straight away.
No delivery times, no waiting, no hassle.
Why wait up to 90 days to get the file? Continue reading →


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Author events for digital books

local-author-meet-and-greet-73Author events and presentations.
I like those a lot.
I was at one, yesterday evening.
Quite instructive experience.

And it got me wondering – I’ve twenty ebooks out now, covering a wide range of genres in fiction and non fiction.
A presentation might be a good way to move a few dozen copies, and also do something completely different.
A change of pace, a chance to connect with the readers.

But the point is – how do I go about it? Continue reading →


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Wrong language with Kindle Dictionary

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...

There’s an unwritten truth which I often repeat myself – a man’s computer-based disasters are another man’s jokes.
Our digital disasters, which cause us stress and waste of time, not to mention the loss of data, are one-click, quickly-fixed problems to those who know what to click.

This said…
An Italian reader was reading Bride of the Swamp God – and quite enjoying it, he said! – when he needed to check a word and the default dictionary did not work.
Or rather, it worked, but it was the wrong one.
English text – Italian dictionary.
He mailed me.
What gives?

Now, it took some work, but finally I found out what was wrong with my ebook.
Probably. Continue reading →


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The Library of the Lost

I’m keeping busy.
While I put the finishing touches on my PhD and on the second ebook in the series of pulp history essays started with Avventurieri sul Crocevia del Mondo, I’ve finally taken the first step towards making an old dream of mine reality.

ladytigersmallLast week I published my Italian translation of Frank R. Stockton‘s The Lady or the Tiger?, and its sequel, The Discourager of Hesitancy.
Short ebook, great cover, cheap price tag.

I hope this will be a first in a series of translations of old classics in the field of imaginative fiction, of adventure and of fantasy.
There’s a lot of public domain stories, out there, that were never translated in my language – or that have not been reprinted in the last sixty or seventy years.

So I’ve a dream-list of public domain stories – shorts, novelettes and short novels, mostly – which I dreamed of reading as a kid, but were not available in my language… and are still unavailable.
I’ll work slowly, I’ll translate them, and put them forth as cheap ebooks.
I’ll call them I Dimenticati – The Forgotten Ones.

Let’s give the kids something different from Twilight clones and other soul-less narratives.

Wish me luck.


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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.

avventurieriMy 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!

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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.


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My Shy Fans

goodreads-logoYou 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.

ttexcover2smallWhat 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…

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