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Why I moved my book websites from Blogger to WordPress (with examples)

By Blog, Industry

Since incorporating my ebook venture at the beginning of this year, I have spent a lot of time (maybe too much time) updating the online presences for various In 30 Minutes™ guides and videos. This has involved several steps, including 1) Migrating certain pieces of content from the old Blogger websites to the new WordPress sites and 2) creating new content for the new websites (for example, the new “What Is Google Drive?” webpage that I created for the product website for “Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes” earlier today).

In this post, I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of the steps involved in migrating content or setting up a WordPress site. Rather, the focus is on why I moved the book websites from Blogger to WordPress, particularly considering the Blogger-based sites were only six months old.

I have several reasons why I started with Blogger:

  1. The original Blogger sites were set up as experiments. In the summer of 2012, I launched the ebook venture, having no idea if it would be a success. I needed a flexible, low-risk website solution — and Blogger fit the bill. If it didn’t work out, I’d only be out a small amount of money ($10 per site) and a few hours of time per site.
  2. Blogger-based sites are much easier to set up than WordPress. A basic site can be whipped up in an hour or two, and I developed a few “hacks” (described in Google Blogger For Small Businesses In 30 Minutes) to make static product sites using Blogger.
  3. Sites with hosted domains on Blogger are cheaper than WordPress. A dot.com website costs just $10 for the domain and hosting is free and robust (I’ve had pages that have been slashdotted and they never go down!). WordPress domains can be had for the same price, but hosting is $30-$40 per year … or more, if you need additional bandwidth.
  4. I didn’t know if the In 30 Minutes “brand” would be dropped in favor of something else. I actually tried another brand for one title (“The Rogue Manual”) and considered others, including “In 20 Minutes” and “In 33 Minutes” (don’t ask!). Creating WordPress sites for each brand type would be expensive and time-consuming.

These are the reasons I started with Blogger. However, I should note that when I created the product sites on Blogger, I knew that I might migrate them to WordPress if the idea took off. Why? In a nutshell, Blogger is an imperfect solution. It may be cheap and easy to set up, but the templates don’t look great. Further, while the functionality is sufficient for creating online content, adding product links and buttons, and performing other basic tasks, WordPress takes things to a much higher level. I knew from working on WordPress blogs in the past that there are some gorgeous WP themes available, as well as plug-ins and other tools that can really supercharge websites.

What eventually happened? I launched my product sites on Blogger starting in the summer of 2012. Here’s what the old product site for “Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes” looked like:

Google Drive old site

As you can see, it covered the basics — a cover image, pricing, buttons to buy the ebook/paperback, etc. Even though I started to get some sales through the website, the appearance bothered me. It was nowhere near the quality and professionalism of the actual book cover for “Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes”, which was handled by a professional graphic designer in Rhode Island. I worried that the poor Blogger templates might be turning some potential customers away.

In early 2013, it was clear that the In 30 Minutes concept was working. I was selling hundreds of ebooks and paperbacks, and had been profitable since the second month of operations. I incorporated and decided to move the official product sites to In30Minutes.com, using subdomains for each one of the titles. I found a good theme for the master site (In30Minutes.com), and then strong product themes with a solid call-to-action for individual titles on the subdomains. Here’s what googledrive.in30minutes.com looks like now:

Google Drive user guide

All of the other titles are using the same theme (Responsive, which I have modified using child themes). For most of the WordPress product sites, I have added “buy” and “author” pages. Most of the product sites have individual blogs devoted to the topics covered in the guides, which mostly contain text posts and videos that can help readers. I also added several WordPress plugins, one of which has no equivalent in Blogger.

However, I haven’t deleted the old Blogger sites yet. The main reason is they still get traffic. For people hitting the old sites, when it comes time for them to make a purchase I link off to the “Buy” pages on the new sites. In the future, I may add 301 redirects, but want to make sure I have everything ready on the new sites before I throw the switch.

For other authors reading this post, have you considered WordPress for your book or author sites? Why or why not?

Chinese Fish Dish: Soy-braised salmon from the next “In 30 Minutes” guide

By Blog, Video

salmon chinese fish dish

Get ready to try a superb Chinese fish dish — soy-braised salmon! It’s a recipe from an upcoming In 30 Minutes title on Chinese cooking by author Shiao-jang Kung (Update: The ebook Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes was just released). The recipes in the book are easy to cook (all take less than 30 minutes from start to finish), and use simple, healthy ingredients that you can buy at any American supermarket. The ebook also contains embedded videos.

If this title interests you, please “Like” this page and share it with your friends. And be sure to visit the product page for Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes.

The recipe is printed below. If you try to make the soy-braised salmon dish, please let us know in the comments how it went!

Soy-braised salmon (蔥燒鮭魚)

Ingredients

  • Cooking oil: 2 tablespoons
  • Onions: One large onion or two small ones — about 1 to 1.5 cups, sliced into rough strands about the width of a pencil. The onion will give the dish some sweetness.
  • Scallions: Two scallions, with the ends trimmed and sliced diagonally to make longer strands.
  • Ginger: 2 inch long stub. Cut off the skin and slice into rough strands about the thickness of cooked spaghetti.
  • Salmon filets – 1 pound, cut into 3-inch wide strips (4 or 5). If it has skin, that’s OK — it can be removed after cooking.
  • Rice wine (or substitute white wine or beer): 1/4 cup
  • White sugar or brown sugar: 1/8 teaspoon. You can also substitute Japanese mirin (about 1 tablespoon).
  • Soy sauce: 6 tablespoons

Directions

Prepare the ingredients. This should take 5-10 minutes.

Turn on heat below wok to high. Add the cooking oil. After one minute, add ginger, onion, and scallions, and stir them around to coat with oil. Stir regularly over next five minutes. When the mixture is throwing off fragrance, lay the strips of fish on top. Mix wine or beer with the sugar, then add the liquid to the wok. Pour the soy in equal amounts over the fish. Cover the wok and turn down heat to medium-high.

Cook covered for 5 minutes. Turn down the heat to medium, and open cover. The sauce should be a bit thicker and bubbling. The top of the fish may look a little pale. Using a spatula, lift one of the pieces to check the bottom of the fish. If it’s light brown on the bottom, the soy flavor is getting into the fish and you can flip all of the pieces so the pale side is facing down. If not, cover the fish for two more minutes and then flip the pieces.

After the pieces have been flipped, cover the wok and cook for two more minutes. Turn down the heat to medium-low, and take off the cover. Check to see if the fish is done by taking a fork and opening the end of one of the fatter pieces. If it’s flaky and not red inside, you’re done — turn off the heat and serve!

You can add a little sesame oil (drizzle about 1/2 teaspoon) over the fish to add a little more flavor, but it tastes pretty good by itself over rice!

Video

Bowker ripoff: A 12,500% ISBN markup for new authors

By Blog, Industry

If you’re an American author or publisher, and you want to publish a print edition of your book, you’ll eventually have to get an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) assigned to the title. ISBN records contain author, publisher, size, format, topic-related information, pricing, and other data needed by retailers, libraries, and book distribution systems. Some authors leave it up to their publishers or distributors such as CreateSpace and Smashwords. But others opt for the DIY route, which gives them more control over the ISBN data as well as a slight marketing edge (a self-purchased ISBN will reflect the name of the author’s publishing company or imprint). Purchasing an ISBN involves going through Bowker, an old-school publishing services company that is the sole issuer of ISBNs in the United States. Bowker was founded in the 1870s, is listed as an affiliate of ProQuest, and offers a myriad of services targeting the publishing industry. Sadly, and perhaps not surprisingly, Bowker has leveraged its monopoly power to rip off independent authors and publishers, using mercenary pricing for ISBNs and other services. The Bowker ripoff is a racket that targets new authors who are trying to get their first books in print.

How bad is the Bowker ripoff? If you’re a publisher needing lots of ISBNs, the price is $1 per ISBN — but you need to order 1,000. If, on the other hand, you only have one book and plan on releasing only one version (such as a single print-on-demand title) Bowker demands $125 — a 12,500% markup. The screenshot below from the Bowker website (I am citing Fair Use to illustrate) shows Bowker’s current pricing plans:

Bowker ripoff report

Actually, the markup is a lot more than 12,500%, if you consider the cost of the service. After all, it costs practically nothing when an author uses Bowker’s Web-based forms to create and store a new ISBN record. The cost structure is so inexpensive that Canada even gives away ISBNs to Canadian authors for free.

How much is Bowker making off ISBN sales to new and independent authors? The company did not respond to my March 5 email about ISBN pricing. Bowker LLC is not a public company, so there is no public annual report. However, Bowker made this claim last year:

Small presses, a category that is defined as publishers who have produced 10 or fewer books, accounted for 34,107 self-published titles — 21,256 print and 12,851 e-books — in 2011.

The number of self-published authors/small press titles probably grew in 2012, in line with growing tablet/e-reader demand, and the expansion of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program for independent authors. While not every author purchased ISBNs at $125 a pop (Bowker’s pricing scale includes more “cost effective” plans for self publishers, including 10 ISBNs for $250), Bowker nevertheless enjoyed multi-million dollar profits on the backs of new and independent authors and small publishers.

Other Bowker ripoff services

Hold on. Surely Bowker offers additional services to new authors that make it worth their while to pay $125 for a 13-digit number. Right?

Not that I can see. In fact, once an author has bought an ISBN, Bowker layers on even more mercenary upsells, like $25 barcodes and the “View Inside” widget ($120 for the first year, $60/year thereafter). Bowker claims this widget, which can be embedded on blogs or author websites, lets authors go “viral” through sharing on social networks and connecting with affiliate programs, such as Amazon Associates. Never mind that there are hundreds of free social media widgets available, and Amazon Associates has a fine selection of free widgets that authors can embed on their blogs and websites.

The Bowker ripoff aside, I could complain about other aspects of Bowker’s ISBN services, including the terrible user interface for assigning ISBNs and the bizarre request that authors upload PDFs of their books to Bowker so they can resell keyword data to their corporate customers (naturally, authors don’t get a cut). But I’ll have to leave that rant for another day.

Bottom line: Bowker is (in my humble opinion) an old-school publishing services monopoly that rips off new and naïve authors with massively overpriced digital services. I would love to see the company investigated on antitrust or unfair pricing grounds, but until that happens I can offer only a few pieces of advice to new authors:

  1. For your first print book, consider using free ISBNs offered by CreateSpace or Smashwords. It’s not ideal, but if sales take off you can always reissue the book using an ISBN that you purchase yourself or one that your publishing company buys.
  2. Self-published e-books do not require ISBNs! Amazon, iTunes, Pubit, Kobo, as well as digital content seller platforms like e-junkie and Gumroad, do not require authors to use ISBNs.

I unfortunately learned the last lesson the hard way, after using up a half-dozen overpriced ISBNs for early ebook versions of Dropbox In 30 Minutes and Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes. But for the latest In 30 Minutes title, Derek Slater’s Online Content Marketing In 30 Minutes, I only assigned an ISBN to the paperback edition. The Kindle, iPad, Nook, and PDF versions do not have ISBNs. As far as I can tell, ISBN-less ebooks are treated the same by Amazon and the other sales channels.

UPDATE: As of December 2015, the Bowker ripoff has gotten even worse has jacked up the price of the package specifically targeting indie authors by nearly 20%. The price of the ten ISBN package is now $295, compared to $250 in 2013.

The “Spotify for books” model: Great for readers, terrible for authors and publishers

By Blog, Industry

I am a fan of Spotify, the streaming music service that offers millions of tracks for free over the Internet. As a listener, I love the ability to find old favorites or discover new artists. Having to put up with occasional ads is not much different than listening to radio. If I had more disposable income, I would pay the $5 monthly fee for Spotify Premium — which does away with the ads and lets you download music to portable devices, like iPods and mobile phones. Would I be interested in a Spotify for books? There are such services popping up, like Bookboard for kids books and 24symbols in the U.K. for adult readers. Amazon also offers free downloads for some ebooks.

As a reader, free books are very appealing. I already use the library to borrow books, and the idea of getting free ebooks on my iPad or Kindle is attractive.

But as an author and publisher (The In 30 Minutes catalogue includes Online Content Marketing In 30 Minutes, Dropbox In 30 Minutes, Excel Basics In 30 Minutes and a Google Docs for Dummies alternative) I’m very concerned about any model that depends on free giveaways that result in little or no returns for the writers and publishers.

Spotify for books and Amazon KDP

For instance, the “free days” on Amazon’s KDP Select (which are the source of the free downloads on Amazon.com) have turned into a joke for me and other authors. KDP Select requires indie authors and publishers to only distribute through Amazon (no iTunes or Nook!) and in return gives them five days every 90 days in which they can price their book for free. The free days are supposed to attract lots of downloads from Amazon readers, while delivering a nominal price to participating authors. However, the last time I looked, my single KDP Select title delivered an average of 1 cent per download from the KDP Select fund. That’s comparable with the money musicians get every time someone plays one of their tracks on Spotify, according to various sources.

I withdrew my single title from KDP Select, and have no plans to use the KDP Select service again — unless Amazon can figure out a plan that brings more than a few pennies each time readers download books on the free download days. The same goes for other services that try to ape the Spotify for books model, or depend on loads of free giveaways. Unless there’s something tangible in it for authors, I’ll pass.

Confirmation

By Blog

Thanks – you are now an officially confirmed subscriber! While you’re here, check out some of our latest titles:

Acid Reflux & Heartburn In 30 Minutes

Author, doctor, and Harvard Medical School Professor J. Thomas Lamont, M.D. uses plain-English explanations, case studies, and illustrations to explain the basics of heartburn and acid reflux, including causes, diagnosis, and treatments. Topics include trigger foods, medications, lifestyle modifications, and advanced treatment options.
heartburn.in30minutes.com

Twitter In 30 Minutes (3rd Edition)

The latest edition of Twitter In 30 Minutes, 2nd Edition is designed to quickly help you get up to speed with Twitter, one of fastest-growing social networks in the world! In just 30 minutes, you’ll learn how to connect with other people, discover information, share photos, and take part in conversations. Hashtags, lists, and various Twitter conventions are clearly explained, using step-by-step instructions and lots of examples from Twitter.
twitter.in30minutes.com/

LinkedIn In 30 Minutes (2nd Edition)

If you’re serious about taking your career to the next level, you need to be on LinkedIn. In LinkedIn In 30 Minutes (2nd Edition), author Angela Rose will show you how to make a rock-solid LinkedIn profile and expand your network. Whether you want to find a new job on LinkedIn or advance your career, this guide can be the blueprint for a supercharged LinkedIn strategy.
linkedin.in30minutes.com

Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes

Our top-selling guide! Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes covers the most important time-saving features and productivity tools of Google’s free online office suite. Learn how to create and format reports in Google Docs, enter spreadsheet data into Google Sheets, give a slideshow presentation in Google Slides, and much more. (ISBN: 9781939924315)
googledrive.in30minutes.com