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Jan 30
Love3

How to create Amazon Marketing Services Product Display Ads for books

By Tips, Video

Last year, I wrote an article for the IBPA Independent magazine on how to use Amazon Marketing Services advertisements for books. It got a fantastic response. In fact, I am still interviewed and give presentations about this topic today. But I wanted to create an AMS tutorial on video that demonstrates how to make AMS Product Display ads for books.

AMS Product Display ads are an alternative to Google AdWords or Facebook targeted ads, and enable your books to show up product pages of other Amazon books. The video covers:

  1. Targeting shoppers viewing specific products or categories, or by interest.
  2. How to set cost-per-click (CPC) bids and daily budgets
  3. Advice about competing titles
  4. The importance of AMS headlines
  5. Scratchpads for headlines and AMS keywords

Setting up an Amazon Marketing Services Product Display ad requires an AMS account through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) or Amazon Advantage. Scroll to 02:15 if you already have an account.

Feb 25
Love1

New product line: In 30 Minutes video classes

By Blog, News, Video

Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes video classes

Publisher i30 Media is pleased to announce a new product line: In 30 Minutes video classes. We’re starting with the Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes video course (For a limited time, available at a 25% discount on Gumroad or available as a video class on Udemy), but will expand to other topics soon. You can learn more about the Google Drive and Docs video here, and we will also distribute the class to other online educational platforms.

The idea for In 30 Minutes video classes has been around almost as long as the book series. Around the same time the ebook and paperback versions of Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes were launched, i30 Media posted a series of short video screencasts on YouTube. They were very popular — one video that shows how to convert a PDF to Microsoft Word or Google Docs has garnered tens of thousands of views. Would people be interested in watching a longer video course about Google’s free online office suite? The popularity of the YouTube videos indicated that the answer was probably “yes” … but it would require a lot of work, ranging from writing a script to setting up a studio to shoot the on-screen narrations and screencast demonstrations.

What’s inside the Google Drive & Google Docs video class?

Here’s an excerpt from the description of Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes (video class):

This 30-minute class is narrated by the author of the top-selling guide, Google Drive & Google Docs In 30 Minutes. The course includes lectures on registration, finding and organizing files, creating documents and formatting them, working with Microsoft Word documents in Google Docs, and a complete review of the interfaces for Google Drive and Google Docs on the Web and mobile devices. The tone of this guide is friendly and easy to understand, with lots of step-by-step instructions and examples that show exactly what to do.

In addition to serving as a solid introduction to new users, it’s great for people making the transition from Microsoft Office, not to mention teachers using Google Drive for education and Google Docs in the classroom.

Here is the lecture list:

  • Introduction
  • The Google Drive user interface
  • The Google Docs user interface
  • Using the Google Drive and Google Docs mobile apps
  • Formatting in Google Docs
  • Formatting Microsoft Word files in Google Docs
  • The Google Drive desktop application for syncing and storage
  • Collaboration

We hope the Google Drive video classes prove as popular as the ebook/paperback versions of the guide. In addition, we will be paying close attention to how people use the course in order to improve the video tutorials and create new instructional videos based on popular topics.

Mar 21
Love6

How to file a DMCA takedown request to remove pirated ebooks from Google

By Blog

This week, I spent several hours dealing with sites that illegally post pirated copies of In 30 Minutes ebooks, allowing people to download them for free (or for an illicit fee, none of which goes back to the authors). Ebook piracy not only takes money away from the authors who created the content, pirate sites can sometimes outrank legitimate sources of ebooks on Google and other search engines. It’s almost impossible to remove the content from the torrent sites that host the pirated content, but there are ways to take the fight further up the food chain using a standard DMCA takedown request (DMCA stands for digital millennium copyright act):

  1. Filing a DMCA takedown request with the sites that link to the torrents
  2. Filing a DMCA takedown request with the hosting companies of the sites that link to the torrents
  3. Asking Google to remove references in Google Search by filing DMCA notices

I’m not going to go deeply into what the DMCA is or how it works, but for the sake of this post it gives limited legal rights to authors and publishers who have discovered unauthorized copies of their ebooks (ePub, mobi, or PDF) floating around the Internet. It can also be used to fight bogus “bloggers” who take pirated content and use the text and images for blog posts beyond what Fair Use would allow. Unfortunately, the DMCA can be abused, and I have actually seen cases of authors being hit by bogus DMCA claims by pirates for their own works, as if the pirates had created the ebook!

Why send a DMCA takedown request to Google?

This short tutorial concerns how authors can use a standard DMCA takedown request to fight ebook pirates. I’ve found it’s very difficult to ask the sites themselves to comply — even though many of them contain “DMCA” links which supposedly enable copyright holders to file a DMCA takedown request, half the time the pages lead to 404 errors or dead email addresses. The other half have working email addresses or Web forms, but many of them don’t result in takedowns either. Filing DMCA notices with the registrar or hosting company is also problematic — registrars want nothing to do with copyright disputes, and the hosting company is often hard to identify or claim they can’t do anything (this is particularly true for overseas domains).

That leaves Google. The idea here is if you can remove a reference to a pirate site from Google search, it not only reduces the likelihood of the pirated content being downloaded, it hits the offending site where it hurts by reducing traffic and advertising impressions.

The easy way to identify offending content is to search Google for the title of the book and scroll through the results. You can also set up a Google Alert to automatically mail newly indexed content that features the name of your book. Here’s what happened when I searched for the PDF edition of my quick Excel guide:

Google DMCA takedown request pirated ebooks

The first two results lead to sites that link to pirated copies. They feature unauthorized use of copyrighted content, including descriptions and cover images. They push down links to authorized sites where readers can purchase the guide, including the official Excel Basics In 30 Minutes website. The pirate links also expose readers to potential computer hazards, including malware and other scams.

How to file a DMCA takedown request with Google

How can authors or publishers ask Google to remove these results from Web search? Use the special Google form at http://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_dmca?&product=websearch. The form asks you to identify yourself, to describe the content in question, to include links to legitimate versions of the book or ebook, and then list the offending links. You have to swear to the following:

  1. I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
  2. The information in this notification is accurate and I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Note that your name and complaint may also be submitted to the Chilling Effects project, meaning that it will be publicly available. This could be a concern for authors who use pen names.

Because I usually have to file the same type of complaint against different parties, I use a a DMCA takedown request template and copy and paste the contents into the form, depending on the title being infringed and the content that has been used without permission:

I am the author and publisher of [TITLE OF BOOK]. This is an ebook and paperback (ISBN: [ISBN NUMBER GOES HERE]) that is about [NUMBER] pages long. My company [NAME OF PUBLISHER] holds all rights to this work, including text, logos, and cover images.

The book description and cover image have been appropriated without my permission on the website [WEBSITE DOMAIN] and subsequently appear in Google search results. The site further contains links to download unauthorized copies of the work.

I also have prepared links of legitimate versions of the content to paste into the form (e.g., official website, Amazon, Google Play, Google Books, etc.).

Filing a DMCA takedown request takes about 2 minutes using the template. Google usually responds quickly, although in some instances I have had to follow up with additional information (this is often the case for bloggers who are republishing scraped ebook content). For people with Google Webmaster Tool accounts, you can review the status of all DMCA takedown requests here.

Do you have problems with ebook pirates? How have you dealt with the pirates? Share your story in the comments below.

Feb 26
Love4

How to type other languages in Google Docs

By Blog

I received an email from India asking about support for other languages in Google Docs. He was a reader of my book Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes, and he had two questions: 1. How characters from Hindi, Chinese, or other languages can be typed into Google Docs, and 2) whether foreign text can be saved in Google Docs.

How to type other languages in Google Docs

There are several ways to save text from non-Latin character sets in Google Docs. The method I usually use is through the operating system. Windows and Mac PCs let users change the input language so people can use their keyboards (or trackpad) to enter Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, etc., into any program on their screen. However, if you don’t have this feature set up or are unable to activate it (for instance, because you are using someone else’s computer) you can use language support that’s built into Google Docs. Here’s how:

  1. Open Google Docs and create a new document (or open up an existing one)
  2. Go to File > Language and select the language you want to start typing in. For instance, to choose the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan, I would select 中文（台灣）(literally: “Chinese, Taiwan”)
  3. The input tool will appear on the right side of your toolbar (it may be hard to see, but on my browser, it was to the right of the “clear formatting” button, as in the screenshot below).
  4. Click on the tiny triangle next to the language symbol to choose your input method, which might be phonetic, romanization, or some other keyboard method.
  5. As you enter characters, Google Docs automatically saves them.
  6. Once you are finished, close out of the document or use File > Language to switch back to English.

Example of how to type other languages in Google Docs

In the example below, I used the Google Docs input tool to select pinyin, a romanization method for Chinese characters. As I type pinyin on the English keyboard, choices for the possible characters show up below the cursor with numbers to make a choice (Mandarin has many homonyms, so the numbers are used to pick the right characters). I can type the number or use my mouse to make my choice, and they are entered into the document. In the example below, I have typed “Hello I am American” above some English text. The input tool drop-down is also visible:

Google Docs Language input - Chinese example - How to type other languages in Google Docs

How to type other languages in Google Docs

Note that this method works for me because I am familiar with pinyin. However, some languages require special keyboards or keyboard labels. If you are working with a standard Western-style keyboard, or don’t know the Romanization system supported by Google Docs, you may have a tough time expressing yourself in the other language.

Aug 29
Love1

How to remove a book from Google Play Books Partner Center

By Blog

If you publish ebooks for sale on Android, and decide to withdraw the title, here are instructions how to remove a book from Google Play Books Partner Center.

  1. Log into the Google Play Books Partner Center.
  2. Click on the link on the left side of the page that says Book Catalog
  3. You will be presented with a list of titles in your catalog. Click the title, or the cover of the book which you want to remove from sale.
  4. Choose the Summary tab
  5. Click the button at the bottom of the page that says Remove From Sale (see screenshot)
  6. You’ll see a message that says Book Processing, but the book will be removed from sale … unless you reactivate it (see below)
Remove a book from Google Play Books Partner Center

Google Play Books Partner Center interface

On the Summary tab, There is another button that says Deactivate Completely, which I believe that removes the record entirely — the book can’t be re-listed in the future unless you want to create a new record from scratch. If you think the book may be returning to sale in the future, stick with Remove From Sale. If you want to reactivate the title in the future, click the button on this page that says Enable for Google Play

Country preferences for Google Play Books Partner Center

In addition, if you only want to remove the title from sale in certain countries, but keep it “Live” in other countries, go to the Pricing tab and remove the countries in question.

If you want to see how to remove a title from iTunes, please read How to remove a book from sale in iTunes Connect