Amazon Kindle sales are increasing rapidly and promises to transform the publishing industry, especially in Chile and other Spanish countries. The price of books in Chile and Mexico is double or triple that of the United States due to high distribution costs. Since Kindle works can be delivered free over the net, after more books become available in Spanish, sales in Chile will erupt at a faster rate than the initial United States market.
Author Andrew Kent reports:
I’ve watched in amazement the past couple of months as my own e-books have been selling rapidly through Amazon’s store. In April, I decided to lower the price of my first novel to $0.99 as part of a pricing experiment — other authors I know had claimed that it really drove sales and increased royalties…. Sure enough, starting in June, sales of my e-books took off…. Most interestingly, despite the very low price, I’m making more in royalties from the e-book sales than I did off the print during a similar period.
Kindle users buy many more books and learn more than they did before buying a Kindle. I’ve read the following business books during the past year:
- The Facebook Effect is a good book for college students because the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was a college student producing a product for other college students.
- The Cure is the story of a biotech company started by a father whose children were suffering from a rare disease. I read it based on the recommendation of Ben Casnocha, author of My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley, a book I have not read because it is not available on Kindle; I’m so enamored with my Kindle that I no longer read books on paper. Ben also blogged about the 8 months he lived in Providencia.
- The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt describes the ascent of New York and the United States as the industrial power that eclipsed London and Britain. Vanderbilt was a steamboat fleet manager who successfully made the transition to railroads.
C. Vanderbilt, Hudson River Steamer
- Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs is perhaps the best book in a crowded genre. I concur with the reviews:
- “If you’ve been looking for a trustworthy primer on getting found online, here’s a great place to start. Buy one for your clueless colleague too. —Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae
- If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing by reading this book. —Guy Kawasaki, cofounder of Alltop, and author of Reality Check
Writing well is one of the most important skills business owners and employees need and I recommend Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
