Gordon Burgett's Blog

Have you sold anything at scribd.com?

I’m checking the selling responses at the public contact houses and I am particularly wondering about scribd.com, especially since it says that 6,000,000 visit it.

Has anybody out there sold much through scribd.com?

I am about to ask my own newsletter subscribers (on 9/1) about their luck, and if indeed they have had selling success to please share that with all of us here at this blog as a comment.

But if you are not in that gilded gathering (yet), I–all of us–would appreciate your feedback too.

As my readers know (or will in a few days) I put up four test items in mid-May. Two sold for $3 each (if anybody had bought them, of the 155 who dared to look). Two more (the same piece to two different markets) were free, and a total of 487 looked at that double posting. You can see them too at www.scribd.com, ask for Gordon Burgett.

Thanks for sharing your responses or sales.

I like scribd.com, and it’s very well designed for a quick deposit of info that others can use. I’d like to see it explode with sales and deserved attention.

If the newsletter interests you, it’s free, monthly, and brings you three good reports for subscribing at www.gordonburgett.com/free-reports. (You can see it first at www.gordonburgett.com/nl.htm.)

Thanks,

Gordon Burgett
www.gordonburgett.com

Print your book 8.5 x 11 or 6 x 9?

I just responded to this question at Lundekin, so here it goes again–with a couple of ideas I got from other respondents added in!

(1) If you sell to libraries, the bigger size won’t be bought (unless it’s a LARGE PRINT book), or of it is (rarely) it will be hiding somewhere on the too-big shelf.

(2) Weight is also very important, and, yes, the big one weighs more–and it’s a bit bulkier to ship.

(3) I’ve never seen anything that didn’t fit as well in the smaller format as the larger, unless you have in mind a coffee table book and they are larger than 8.5 x 11 (and much costlier, and much riskier)…

(4) Books must be more mobile now, another argument for 6 x 9 (or, sometimes better, 5.5 x 8.5; less paper loss in printing so often an even better deal). How often do you see readers of the big book in the airport or flying?

(5) Having said that, for years we published giant SOPs books mostly for dentists that fit in three-ring binders, in 8.5 x 11, so first figure out who will buy the book and why, if sales are important!

(6) Whatever size the bound book is, always figure out how you can also produce a digital download. Those are zero size, zero paper, zero shipping, and few seconds appearing anywhere–they will be a key part of future publishing (particularly for textbooks). See the July issue of my free monthly newsletter for 46 ways small publishers can be involved with digital publishing.

Anyway, if you are reading this, congratulations on having created a book that must be sized and printed!

Gordon Burgett