If you write or read Fantasy and Sci-Fi, you may want to check out this free offer over at Amazon.

It’s a free subscription to Fantasy and Sci-Fi Digest. Amazon notes that most subscriptions have a free 14-day trial period, but this “this exclusive digest edition of “Fantasy & Science Fiction” magazine is always free for Kindle customers.”

In reading the blurb, it appears that this free subscription is available on all of the Kindles, the Android, iPhone and iPad.  The one app I found missing was the one that you could download to your PC.  If I missed reading this somewhere please let me know.

For my readers who write fantasy or sci-fi (a booming genre) I’d love to know what you think of this freebie.  Please leave a comment below.

I use Google alerts all the time to keep track of topics of interest; right now I have alerts set to deliver the latest news on Amazon’s Kindle, best practices for website design, and copywriting (of course).

If you run an online business, Google alert is the best (free) notification service around.  Using it, you can track topics in The other day I discovered a Google-alert type service for those of us who Tweet (you DO tweet, don’t you?) using Twitter.

The service is TweetBeep and here’s how it works. First, set up a free account by picking a username and password. Then, choose the keyword alerts you want to track, i.e. your name, company name, topic of interest. Unlike Google alerts, don’t use quote marks for exact phrase matches.  You can exact phrase match by ticking the box on your alert. Pick how often you want to receive alerts, and that’s it.

Oh yes – you can also set up your TweetBeep to only receive alerts from specific Twitter accounts – a convenience I like when I’m tracking conversations from a specific individual.

The last two days have seen extraordinary opportunities opening up for publishers (authors) on the Amazon Kindle platform.

Yesterday, Amazon announced it would increase payment to publishers (via an option) a 70% royalty fee on titles that met the following criteria:

• The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
• This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
• The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
• The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
• Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

Delivery costs will be based on the size of the Kindle file.  As an example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option.

In my mind, this is a no-brainer.  But bad news  for all those smarty pants who are madly converting out-of-copyright books to Kindle format – those don’t quality for the new option.

I love selling my stuff on Kindle, so this is manna from heaven for me.  And you, too, I hope.

(Two little suggestions:  Amazon, PLEASE get better at answering questions in your Kindle forums.  And PLEASE refine your conversion process.)

Now today, Amazon delivered the second of its one-two punches and announced it’s opening up its platform for application developers (think iPhone apps!).  Now, software developers can add interactive content to the Kindle.  Read the press release.  “Travel books that suggest activities based on real-time weather and current events, cookbooks that recommend menus based on size of party and allergies, and word games and puzzles–just some of the possibilities with the new Kindle Development Kit.”

What next, King of the Jungle? ?

Amazon announced yesterday that publisher royalties for Kindle books will pop from 35 to 70-percent starting later this year.

“Amazon Announces New 70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Digital Text Platform, Enabling Authors and Publishers to Earn More Royalties from Every Kindle Books SoldSEATTLE, Jan 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced details of a new program that will enable authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell. For each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option. This new 70 percent royalty option will become available on June 30, 2010.

Delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option.”

Read remainder of press release

For the last several months I’ve realized that my LinkedIn strategy has been less than brilliant. 

Translation: It totally sucks, lacks imagination and consistency, and serves my marketing efforts about as well as a bipolar Congress does the health care crisis.

Solution: Get over to Amazon and buy How to Really Use LinkedIn, by Jan Vermeiren, with the assumption that the author (a networking expert) really knows what he’s talking about . . . AND, the book is new enough to still be meaningful.  Mission accomplished. 

But, what did I learn?

Leverage the Power of LinkedIn
Although you can learn the basics of LinkedIn, the real power of Vermeiren’s book is using LinkedIn’s existing tools to leverage the power of the network.  I think many of us solopreneurs sit out here in cyberspace, forgetting that every person we contact or who contacts us becomes part of our network.  Imagine the most intricate spider web you ever saw out back in the garden.

Filled with advanced techniques as well as the fundamentals of effective networking – - this book preaches what I have long believed to be true – - building relationships begins with you, not the other guy.  Reach out and help, and you’ll get more people reaching back to you than you thought possible.

I’m particularly fond of the charts on pages 31-33, that show at a glance which part of LinkedIn to use to accomplish specific goals.  For example, if you want an introduction, use the introductions tool; if you want to maintain existing relationships use personal messages or share ideas in Discussions and Answers.

There are plenty of advanced strategies, with a separate section devoted to:

• finding new customers
• finding a new employee
• finding a new job or internship
• finding a new supplier or partnership
• finding expertise

I also liked the section on free tools to use when working on LinkedIn, particularly browser toolbar and widgets.

I’ve already highlighted and side-noted my way through How to Really Use LinkedIn, and am calendar-ing how to best implement both basic and advanced strategies. Because I’m just starting out, I can’t speak to how effective the strategies will be, but I do feel for the first time that I’ve been able to wrap my head around more of LinkedIn than ever in the past.

Anyone else read this one? Would like to know what LinkedIn strategies you feel really helped. 

I saw a blog post today over at iReaderReview.com, asking if authors could make a decent living by Kindle publishing. The blog post author, switch11, said that “J. A. Konrath put up a post talking about how he’s making $1,250 a month off of his book’s sales – these are unpublished books that he’s giving away for free on his website and selling for $1.85 on the Kindle Store.”

One of the factors cited in how more Kindle authors can become “rich” is the (relatively) small number of Kindles currently on the market.  Although Amazon won’t release sales figures, it’s estimated there are about a half-million Kindles currently in use.

I totally disagree that the number of Kindles sold will impact the possibility for author success.   Why?  Because when Amazon made a Kindle app for the iPhone, they opened up the Kindle store to more than 20 million new readers.

It’s not the number of Kindles on the market, it’s how well you’re marketing to people who have access to the Kindle store.

What do you think?

Although getting your book on Amazon may seem like the Holy Grail of authordom, it’s really just the end of the writing stage and the first step of the marketing phase—an arena most authors shun with great dislike and/or disdain.

One of my recent clients (an entrepreneur selling a well-written how-to manual via the  Kindle Store), asked me for a few marketing ideas he could do on his own.  The easiest task, I told him (and one of the most effective) was getting several positive reviews for his Amazon Kindle book.  My suggestion was to send e-copies to colleagues and friends, asking them to give the book a run-through and then post a review.

Do your friends actually have to read the book to give it a review? Well, no.  But the plus of giving them a copy is:

1. They may catch some doofus mistake you made, saving you the embarrassment of a book buyer who revels in pointing out the dumb stuff they find in a review that will NEVER GO AWAY.
2. With a copy in hand, they can write a much more detailed review because they have all of the info at hand – not just the bits you tell them about
3. If your book is on a topic of interest to your friends, they’ll probably write a far more enthusiastic review because it’s something they actually care about.

Positive reviews – in my opinion – have accounted for dozens of my own book and article sales.  Think about it – if you’re unsure about buying a particular book, don’t YOU read the reviews?  I know I do.

Getting positive Amazon reviews is the least of your book marketing efforts – what else can you do? Stay tuned . . . and if you feel like commenting, I’d love to hear your Amazon book review technique suggestions.

Will E-Books Rule Them All?

Do you remember in Lord of the Rings how the Age of the Elves was ending as the Age of Man began? I think we’re seeing the same colossal change as the Publishing Empires of Old fade (so sorry, Elron), and the Era of Digital Media blossoms.

E-books have long been the step-child of the publishing world; tolerated to a degree, but looked down upon by those who wrote and published “real books”.  With the launch of Amazon’s Kindle 1, 2, and now DX (and of course, Sony and Plastic Logic), not only are “real books” available in digital format, but anyone who wants to write an e-book can knock one off in an afternoon, publish on Lulu, Kindle, or their own site and (in effect) toss a virtual rock through Barnes and Noble’s front window, along with a note declaring “just try to keep me out!”

So how can an author or entrepreneur benefit?

There has never been a time in the history of man (or elves) with such an information-hungry audience.  As infopreneur Eben Pagan notes in one of his vids, we have left the culture of manual labor behind and have moved into the era of “mind-work”.  And with that era comes the need for information—and lots of it.

For you authors reading this, that means more and more eyes on your work (and hopefully bucks in your pocket).

For entrepreneurs, the outlets for digital media provide you a) a legitimacy that comes with having your name on a published work; b) cash; and (perhaps the most important) c) being seen as an authority in your field. Why? Look at the “authority” figures in your own industry – - you listen to what they say, you read their blogs and newsletters, and buy their products, hoping to emulate their success.

Plus (and this is a bonus) – - when media folks search Google for an expert in a field and your name keeps coming up, who do you think they’re gonna call?

[note: Because I'm known in a particular little niche (Internet genealogy), I've been interviewed by the New York Times, Kiplinger's, Better Homes and Gardens, plus numerous websites).  Trust me . . . it PAYS to be seen as the industry expert.]

Action Steps

I loathe going to meetings and coming out without any action steps, so:

1.  Dust off the articles, special reports, or books launguishing on your computer

2.  Polish, edit, update

3.  Sell on your site, format for Kindle, and pop them up on Lulu.

4. Let everyone you know that you have valuable information for sale.

5.  Once your stuff is on Kindle, gets your pals to leave you a glowing review on your Amazon page.

6.  Wash, rinse, repeat

If you’re like me, most of your Amazon purchases are completed only after reading other people’s reviews. We may not trust a publisher’s hype, but we do tend to trust the opinion of other readers.

Can you use this review system to market your own book?  You bet.  Here’s how.

Search Amazon for a book you’ve read that ranks high in your genre.  Then, register to be an Amazon reviewer (if you already have an account, you can review).   BUT, make sure you’ve set up a profile page that includes a link to your own website.

Next, write a review for the popular book.  Either in the review itself, or in your profile, be sure to mention you own book or website. If other readers perceive that you really know the topic, they’re more apt to go over and check out your book.