An Obituary: Todd Bol, creator of Little Free Library, dies at 62

…Bol repurposed wood from his garage to build a dollhouse-size library in the shape of a one-room schoolhouse. He decorated the structure with a steeple and a tinny toy bell. He painted the library red, using bright white paint for its wood-shingled roof, and crafted a glass door to secure a few of his parents’ favorite books.

Then he set the library outside his home in Hudson, Wis., atop a wooden pole with a sign reading “Free Books.” And he waited…

via An Obituary: Todd Bol, creator of Little Free Library, dies at 62

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Infographic: Sell More Books Using the 6 Principles of Influence

via Infographic: Sell More Books Using the 6 Principles of Influence

https://icecube.asia/influence-in-online-marketing/

So, you’ve Moved your Books to KDP Print. Now What?

Nicholas C. Rossis

Last month, I shared here the details of moving my books from CreateSpace to KDP Print in 3 easy steps. I also promised to see if there’s anything else you need to do next. Amazon has done all it can to ensure an easy move but it turns out that yes, there are still some issues and possible glitches that require your personal attention in order to ensure that the move goes as smoothly as possible.

Here is a checklist of things to check for after moving your files:

• Create Space had fewer keywords than KDP. You can now add more keywords to your paperback.
• KDP Print offers two categories — one more than CreateSpace. Put this extra book category to good effect!
• Check the rights for your books. Specifically, if you are the sole editor of your book, check All territories – worldwide rights for it, as this will…

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This Halloween, Escape to Greece with an Evil Witch

Nicholas C. Rossis

This month, Amazon bestselling author Effrosyni Moschoudi is releasing her new novel in four compelling kindle episodes. If you’re looking for a cracking good read to enjoy this Halloween, this is a great choice!

Lizzie waited twenty years for her return to Corfu…

Lizzie is not your average tourist. She may have just arrived on the idyllic Greek island of Corfu, but her mind is not on having a good time. Far from it, Lizzie has a daunting task to undertake: to claim back her twin brother who was kidnapped twenty years earlier on her previous visit. In a cave. By an evil witch.

When Lizzie sees her brother again, she receives the shock of her life. The witch has tricked her… And, as if this weren’t enough, a handsome local steals her heart to complicate her life even further…

“It’s a step up from Mills and Boon – much…

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KDP Keywords Revisited

Nicholas C. Rossis

Readers of my blog will no doubt be aware of the importance of the categories and keywords your book uses. From using Amazon categories to increase your rankings to the perils of using keywords like Free, Bestseller, and Kindle, they can be used to optimize your book page. But, as I often say, book marketing is like building on quicksand: everything changes every other month.

No, it’s not that keywords are suddenly any less important — in fact, quite the contrary. It’s just that the way Amazon uses them to identify which books to display when a reader searches for a book to read seems to have changed lately.

Amazon Keywords, The Old Way…

As David Kudler of The Book Designer explains, it used to be that you could use natural-sounding phrases of two to five words for your keywords, especially those which returned between two hundred and a…

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Monster-Spotting in Medieval Maps, Part II

Nicholas C. Rossis

The Psalter World Map, c. 1260 Photo: Atlas Obscura / Public Domain/Wikipedia Commons)

East is placed at the top. The sun and moon hold lush forests. Jerusalem is the center of the world. And dragons hold the globe up at the bottom. But there is one aspect of the Psalter World Map, created in the 1260s, that is even stranger: a line-up of grotesque men located near Africa, two of whom have faces in their chests.

Blemmyae

These monsters, called blemmyae, were actually based on the writings of Classical authors such as Pliny the Elder. In The Natural History, penned in 77 AD, Pliny wrote of the members of a North African tribe who were “said to have no heads, their mouths and eyes being seated in their breasts.”

Over 1500 years later, authors were still talking about these chest-faced men. In Othello, none other than Shakespeare wrote…

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Amazon Advertising: The Machette Effect

Nicholas C. Rossis

In my recent post, Amazon Releases Amazon Advertising, I mentioned an app I use called Machete. I promised to expand on that in a future post (i.e. this one).

Machete is an Amazon Advertising (formerly Amazon Marketing Services or AMS) add-on. You install it on your browser and it transparently adds some extra features to your Amazon Dashboard. When I first used it, Machete was little more than a way to track your sales through time and edit multiple keywords at once. Not a game-changer, just some nifty little extras. At $25/month, it wasn’t worth it unless you were constantly tweaking your Ads, which is why I’ve never mentioned it before.

Recently, however, Machete has made two dramatic changes which have led me to this post. The first one was to introduce a great new feature called Bid Optimizer.

1. Bid Optimizer

This lets you optimize your keywords…

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How to move your books from CreateSpace to KDP Print In 3 Easy Steps

Nicholas C. Rossis

How to move your books from CreateSpace to KDP Print

Moving all your books from Createspace to KDP Print is now as simple as following a five-minute process Amazon refers to as Verify > Link > Move.

In my earlier post announcing the news of Createspace merging with KDP Print, I mentioned that Amazon had promised us an easy way of moving all of our books at once. Well, I’m pleased to say that the company has delivered, letting me move all of my books at once in a matter of minutes!

So, here is a detailed guide of how to move your books from CreateSpace to KDP Print (luckily, I took screenshots as I was racing through the process).

1. Log Into Createspace

When I logged into Createspace, I got a prompt to move my books to KDP Print. Being the risk taker that I am (ha…

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Amazon Releases Amazon Advertising

Nicholas C. Rossis

As you may remember, I’ve been experiencing computer trouble for the past week, so I’ve been using Electra’s computer. The first time I tried to log in, I was stunned to see a new login screen asking me to specify what kind of Advertising I was interested in:

This was the first I realized Amazon has retired three of its ad services and products as well. The move looks like a response to Google’s move earlier this year which saw the search engine giant dropping many of its advertising brands. Despite becoming America’s second $1 trillion company, Amazon’s marketing and advertising division still lag behind its two direct competitors: Google and Facebook Ads.

The All-new Amazon Advertising Department

In an announcement made last week, as reported by The Passive Guy, Amazon SVP Paul Kotas introduced the all-new Amazon Advertising department. Amazon will be retiring three of the company’s most popular marketing platforms: Amazon Media Group (AMG), Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), and Amazon…

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How to Kickstart your Travel Writing Career

Nicholas C. Rossis

Traveling and writing sounds like a great idea, especially for young writers looking for an extra income from their writing career. This is a guest post by Sam Ross with some tips on getting started. Sam runs the blog thehammockhombre.com – a travel blog focused around the digital nomad lifestyle. Over the past 3 years, he’s traveled to every continent, so writes on a broad range of countries, cities, and destinations.

Image: Pixabay

For many aspiring writers, travel writing is the Holy Grail; the job that gives you the ultimate freedom to enjoy your work and everyday life as one. Starting a career as a travel writer can be a little daunting, as it’s very competitive – so many writers are doing it that you’ve got to put your all into this work to stand out from the crowd.

Don’t let that put…

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