I am excited to announce that one of my books has been selected for publication as an ebook in China. 

Erik Abrahamsson from the publishing company Chinofy explained why he thought that my book, The Day My Teacher Came to Tea, is a fantastic fit for the Chinese market. 

He said, “The Confucian tradition of teaching is often incredibly strict and stressful for students and this story will appeal to parents who want their children to feel more relaxed around their teachers. Secondly, this book can be read by both children and parents together, which is becoming the norm of bonding in Chinese families. And finally, we should not forget that drinking tea is an even older and more prevalent habit in China than even in the UK, so the title is sure to entice Chinese readers!”

The link to my ebook on the Chinese website, taobao is: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=39844829796

The Day My Teacher Came to tea is also available in paperback, hardback and as an interactive ebook.

Through an Amazon programme called KDP select, authors can offer their ebooks for free download for up to 5 days (every 3 months). Friends who are not in the business of being an indie author wonder why I would do this; giving books away for free does seem counterintuitive, that's for sure.

The fact is that the biggest challenge for me and other indie authors is how to get discovered amidst huge competition, and also how to persuade new readers to take a chance on an author they haven't tried before. Offering free ebooks from time to time is one way to raise your profile. Many book recommendation sites will feature your book if it is available for free (without charging for advertising, just so long as they think their readers will be interested of course), and for a few days you are discoverable. The reader has nothing to lose in giving your book a try! 

The idea is that new readers will enjoy your book and consider purchasing other ebooks that you have written or invest in a paperback copy. In addition to this the indie author hopes that readers will post reviews on Amazon or other sites such as Goodreads. Reviews are really important to indie authors. We need genuine feedback to help us showcase and sell our books.

I have just finished a free ebook promotion with my book, Captain Sillyvoice and his Pirate Band. This is the third time I have offered one of my books for free and the results have been the best yet. The ebook was downloaded by UK, American, Canadian and Japanese customers. I was particularly delighted by the number of Japanese customers.

It is now a waiting game to see whether readers post reviews, make other purchases or even do both!

If you downloaded a copy of Captain Sillyvoice and his Pirate Band, please do post a review.

Up until recently only my first two titles have been available in hardback but this has now changed. All my titles are now available to order in paperback, hardback or eBook formats.  The books can be found on most book websites and can also be ordered through bookshops.

I have the opportunity to update the cover of my book, My Crazy Purple Pen (originally released in 2012).To help me decide on the new cover,  I put out a Facebook post featuring the original cover together with  6 alternative options.  I also sought feedback from other friends and family. Thank you to everyone who gave me their feedback. 

It has to be said that there was no clear front runner, but it does seem that the addition of the stars and ink spots is preferable to the characters. The designs without any additional features were least popular. The addition of the purple/pink border was preferred by quite a few of you but I am concerned that this colour scheme may make the book less appealing to boys. The cover with the blue border creates a more gender neutral design overall and is very eye-catching but perhaps too much so!

So, I have made a decision. The new cover can be seen below and should be available within the next few days.

There is still time to order my children’s picture books for Christmas. Not sure which story to go for? Here is a quick guide to help you decide:

My Crazy Purple Pen – a quirky story for those who enjoy cheeky mischief – a book full of quintessentially British characters including the Queen herself.

The Day My Teacher Came to Tea – one to be enjoyed by those little boys or girls who know how to play a good joke and have fun!

Birthday Cake Disaster – for any little baker out there, this is a fun tale which concludes with a lovely recipe for a pink party cake. Yummy!

Captain Sillyvoice and his Pirate Band – for all wannabe pirates, this book features a crew who are a bit unusual but totally awesome. Full of poptastic action!

Getting a kindle for Christmas? These books are available for kindle as well as in traditional print format.

Amazon UK link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruth-Whenham

Amazon US link

http://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Whenham

Also available in other countries – please check your Amazon site.

I have noticed that Amazon are currently offering the Kindle Fire HD Tablet at £99, a saving of £60 on their previous price. I have added the link at the end of this post in case you are interested in checking it out.  Anyway, this got me thinking about whether  a Kindle is a good idea as a Christmas gift for young children as well as teens and adults?

Children’s picture books in ebook format have certainly been much slower to take off than other book genres but I think this is set to change. There are loads of fantastic ebooks available these days and the electronic format does offer a number of advantages over the traditional print books.

For example;

• Kindle books can normally be purchased much more cheaply than print books so you can build up your collection at a lower cost.

• A kindle is a much more convenient way to take a large selection books away on holiday, or with you when travelling in the car or just waiting in a queue somewhere (at the doctor’s etc).

• Interactive touch books (ITB) are becoming more prevalent now. I have created ITB versions of two of my books for iPad use (available here) and they really do offer so much more to the reader – animations, sound effects and narration all in one package. A traditional print book is far less flexible. I have included my YouTube promotional video below which illustrates the ITB app.

Personally, I do still love print books. It feels more special, somehow, to sit down with a child and open up a real book. So perhaps the way forward to is to combine the two; Build up an ebook collection but purchase the child’s favourite books in print format too for the special bedtime reading routine. Amazon certainly seem to see this as being the way to go. They have a Matchbook program where they allow publishers to offer the Kindle version of a book at a low (or free) cost to those who have purchased a print version.

You may be interested to note that the ebook for Kindle version of my first book, My Crazy Purple Pen, will be selling at the special price of £0.99 (or $0.99 for American customers) during the period 2-9 December! 

I have also enrolled all of my books in the Amazon Matchbook program, so they should be available for free to anyone who has bought the print version!

I would be really interested to hear people's views on this subject!

Interactive Touch Books (ITB) is a very innovative company and I am excited to learn that Microsoft have offered the founders both their support and investment to continue.  ITB specialise in selling downloads of interactive touch books for young children for use on the iPad. These books offer the reader much more than standard eBooks since they contain animations, sounds and a narration option. The cost of most ITBs on the site represents excellent value for the customer too, at just £1.49 per book or less. 

I used the free software provided by this company to its authors to create ITB versions of my first two books, My Crazy Purple Pen and The Day My Teacher Came to Tea. I was delighted with the results and have been encouraged by the strong sales I have received from this relatively niche area of the marketplace.

The company have been struggling to make a profit because of the huge cost involved in running the cloud server (something technical like that anyway!) but with the backing of Microsoft will be able to invest in marketing and promotion, pay their authors on time (yippee!) and start to develop the technology to enable the books to be read on all platforms, not just iPad.

I am hopeful that this relatively new area of the children’s book market will be given a real boost and that ITB will become a more significant player. It certainly deserves to be.

Check out the ITB app on your iPad or view their website;

Links to my two books are:

My Crazy Purple Pen

The Day My Teacher Came to Tea

My publisher (husband) has just informed me that he’s ordered 100 new ISBN numbers. It was a bargain apparently!

Quite ridiculous!

Now where did I put my list of story ideas?

Oh yes, here it is - a little short of the 100 mark right now but I guess it’s good to have a goal!

I mentioned in a previous blog post  about my disappointment at my recent eBook promotion of ‘My Crazy Purple Pen’ not leading to any reviews on the US Amazon site (Amazon.com), despite a high number of downloads.

Well, a little good news....

A 5 star review has appeared. Thank you Mr James N Simpson, whoever you are!

As I write this post I notice too that another 5 star review has been posted on the UK site – 20 reviews now for my first book!

The eBook version of ‘My Crazy Purple Pen’ became available to download for free for 5 days. The freebie days were a Thursday to Monday during the UK school holiday period.

What happened?

• Customers did downloaded the book across all 5 days but the busiest days were Thursday and Friday.

• The majority of customers were from the US and the UK but there were small numbers from Germany, France, Italy, India, Japan and Canada too. Indeed, Spain and Brazil were the only countries with Amazon sites from which there were no downloads. 

• 1 UK customer also rented ‘The Day My Teacher Came to Tea’ during the same period and therefore I presume had enjoyed ‘My Crazy Purple Pen’.

• 3 reviews to the Amazon UK site were received during this period. All very positive and were customers unknown to me (click to enlarge):

• No negative reviews on any of the sites

• No promotional or other costs incurred during promotion
  

Were there any disappointments?

More reviews would have been good but generally people just don’t bother, even when the book is a freebie. I could really do with some reviews on the Amazon.com site (US) and given the number of customers who downloaded the book from there, I think I was unlucky not to receive any.

It is a bit early to assess whether or not the promotion will lead to any new sales but the early signs are disappointing. I do think a lot of customers download freebies and don’t ever buy and that’s the difficulty.

Would I do it again and would I do anything differently?

I will probably try the promotion again, perhaps with one of my other books. I would do things a little differently though.

• Plan ahead, say a month in advance. This way I could notify all the relevant promotional sites in good time. I was too late with my submission to be featured in quite a number of them on this occasion. 
  
• Consider paying the small fees on some of the main websites to ensure a guaranteed listing. 
  
• Look at ‘Bookbub’ and other similar newsletters which would target interested customers directly.
  

What now?

Keep writing, pursue other marketing avenues and hope for a lucky break somewhere down the line.

Someone once said something similar if not exactly this; “The harder I try, the luckier I become.” I think I’ll give that a go.