November 14th 2002 **************************************** IN THIS ISSUE: GET YOUR EBOOKS LISTED ON AMAZON.COM WHAT'S YOUR WEBSITE RANKING? **************************************** Hi Folks! GET YOUR EBOOKS LISTED ON AMAZON.COM Since announcing that my eBooks were now available to buy on Amazon.com, I have received several emails from people asking how to get their own eBooks listed with the site. It had originally been my intention to write an eBook on this very subject, but, if I am completely honest, I really haven't got the time and I think I would struggle to fill a whole eBook with the information :-) Therefore, for everyone that asked, here is the abbreviated version of how to get your eBook on the Amazon website: The key to this process is a company called LightningSource (www.lightningsource.com). LightningSource (LS) hold a library of eBooks and allow certain retailers to sell the contents of the library. If you get your eBook into the library, then it will automatically be listed on Amazon.com - as I understand it, Amazon list everything that LS have on their records. You will need to visit the LS website and open a new publishers account - if you published your own eBook, then you are the publisher. The next stage is to print off and sign a few agreement forms and return them by post to LS. Once your LS account is fully open, you can upload your eBooks to the LS site for checking and listing. LS charge a flat fee per eBook uploaded - it is approximately $25.00. You must submit your file in either Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Reader format and you will also need to provide a 'marketing image' or cover graphic. It will also be necessary for you to obtain an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for each eBook that you want to list. The process for getting an ISBN is different from country to country, so try a search on Google.com for 'ISBN issue' to find your local issuing organization - alternatively, LS should be able to point you in the right direction. Finally, LS will check your eBook file and email you to confirm that it has been listed on their site. You can then expect to see it on Amazon within 7-14 days. Payments are made by cheque/check every month, 90 days in arrears (less of course a fee to LS - details in their agreement doc's) And that's it - how to get your eBooks on Amazon in 3 easy stages! WHAT'S YOUR WEBSITE RANKING? Anyone with a website will understand when I say that I love to watch my hits increasing every week/month/year, but did you know that there is another way of monitoring your website traffic AND that of your competitors? www.alexa.com provides traffic rankings for the majority of websites in the world. It works like this, Alexa has around 10 million users worldwide that have downloaded a free toolbar that integrates with Internet Explorer. This software tracks each website that the user visits and allows Alexa to build up a database of the number of hits a particular site receives over a certain period of time. Alexa then apply a calculation to the information and give the site in question a traffic ranking. A new website will normally have a ranking of 3,000,000 or thereabouts (or nothing at all if no data is held) and as the traffic to the site increases, so the ranking reduces. The closer to '1' you get, the more hits you are receiving (In case you were wondering, Yahoo holds the top position). You can also use Alexa to view the ranking of any website (your competitors?) at any time and if you download the toolbar yourself, each websites ranking will be displayed as you visit it - no need to go to the Alexa home page to look it up. There are other benefits too - lets say you are thinking about making an online purchase but have never heard of the website that you are thinking about purchasing from. If you knew what the Alexa ranking was, you would have an idea as to how popular the site was. A ranking of 3,000,000 indicates that this is a fairly new site, or that it doesn't receive that much traffic. In contrast, a site that has a ranking of less than, say, 250,000 indicates a reasonably high level of traffic. Now, this in itself may not be sufficient to persuade you that it is safe to buy (and I am not suggesting that it should), but knowing that the site is extremely popular may make you a bit more comfortable. Alexa also maintain an archive of old websites called the 'Wayback Machine' - you can actually go and see what sites looked like 2 or 3 years ago! Funnily enough, top sites such as Yahoo and eBay have changed very little over the years - just goes to prove the saying, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. One final word, Alexa is not 100% accurate - there are numerous things that can affect their rankings and distort them, but it is probably the most accurate service of this type available and does work well in giving you a general indication (plus it is great to watch your rankings slowly reduce......) Until next time..... |
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