Promoting and selling ebooks with Ganxy

Visitors to my author website will notice a change on the page where books can be bought. I'm using Ganxy to facilitate the delivery of ebooks to readers who want to buy direct from me (at a discount) and I'm providing links to major retailers. If you're looking for a simple, easy to use interface for delivery of digital content, Ganxy is a great tool.

To get started, use the link above or go to http://get.ganxy.com/ to set up an account. You have the option to create an account with your email address and password, or sign up through Facebook or SoundCloud. Personally, I prefer the first approach - you never know when FB may tick you off and make you want to delete your account! (That would be another blog post, for another day.)

At Ganxy, you have the option to create two types of campaigns; to sell direct and provide access to retailers or set up time-limited giveaways. I'll be trying the second feature with Sultana: Two Sisters when it's available this winter. There are minimal costs involved with both approaches. If you're selling through Ganxy, you'll receive 90% of the revenue directed to a PayPal account. Note; PayPal charges additional fees for non-US account holders. For giveaways, there's a small fee as well; details to follow in a future blog post.

Step 1: To get started with sales, click on "Sell Directly and Generate Sales" and setup your ebook, adding the title name, author and description. At any stage, you can preview the process.

Step 2: Next, you have the option to sell directly and list retailers who are already selling your content. All the major retailers are there: Apple, Audible, CreateSpace, Kobo, Sony, Smashwords, Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble (who knows for how long), and of course, Amazon.com and Amazon UK. On Amazon, since there are now multiple sites beyond the US and UK areas, I tried to use my Viewbook.at links (which routes interested buyers to their particular Amazon regional store) only to discovery that Booklinker is now  in charge of this site. Hmm. Will muddle through all that later. I'll update this post if the Viewbook now Booklinker URL's work. 

You can also specify the format(s) offered at each retailer; ebook / print / ebook and print or audiobook. So I've specified On Falcon's Wings as being available as an audiobook through Audible and as an ebook and print from Amazon.com. One issue I found was that every retailer through whom I currently sell books isn't indicated. For instance, my ebooks are available online through Casa del Libro, one of Spain's chain bookstores, but I'd need to have Ganxy approve the link.

On selling your own work, you must provide the formatted files yourself; Ganxy does not offer conversion services. Upload your own DRM-free mobi, ePub or PDF files. Ganxy will review these files before you're allowed to sell directly. If you do want to provide your content for direct sale, be sure to indicate the price. You do not have to enable the direct sales feature; if you want to use Ganxy just to provide links to retailers, no problem.

For each ebook, you also have the option to include social media links to post your showcased work on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google +, AND visitors can subscribe to receive emails from you. I'm using MailChimp already, so I'm not sure about that last bit.

Step 3: Almost done! Now add your ebook cover image (JPEGs and PNGs only) up to 2MBs, any excerpt and YouTube book trailer. Click Finish to share your content via social media or embed it on a website.

Edited to add: Best of all, make ANY updates to your Ganxy product and the changes will appear on your website without you having to reformat anything on the webpage.

What I like

• The ease of adding ebooks
• The seamless integration into my website; I'm still muddling along with HTML, but copying a couple lines of code and inserting them into my website was very easy. The final result looks great.
• Speaking of which, the visual appeal of each showcase for an ebook

What I don't like

• That I didn't know about Ganxy until earlier this year
• That it took me so long to get my act together and showcase each of my ebooks.

All of which are issues outside of Ganxy's control. They have made the process incredibly easy and I haven't found anything I don't like about their system for delivering ebooks. Anyone else using Ganxy? I'd love to have your feedback.

Want more information on Ganxy? Find helpful details on how it works.

Here's an example of a finalized Ganxy showcase:

"Sultana: Two Sisters (A Novel of Moorish Spain)" by Lisa J. Yarde on Ganxy

Censorship: how the latest erotica debacle affects all readers & writers

For a few days, I’ve tracked news on several targeted attempts to remove erotica titles online, from retailers like Smashwords, Bookstrand, AllRomance and Siren Publishing. Under PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy, no one can use the service for sales of “items that are considered obscene.”

Last week, AllRomance, (where my historical titles appear) sent me an email that indicated a new classification system for erotica. A few days later, Dear Author commented on Siren Publishing’s push to remove erotica titles from self-published authors, which generated a lovely laughable reply. Smashwords recently informed its erotica authors that it would be removing certain titles, bowing to PayPal’s threat to sever their business relationship, whereby SW’s authors received payments through PayPal.

In varying degrees, I recognize the prevailing factors that compel each of the online retailers who have taken drastic steps against their authors. Businesses have to follow the law. I also disagree with the principles behind their actions 100%; when did PayPal begin to define what was obscene? Who's the next arbiter of good or moral taste in the business world? Remember when Amazon removed certain erotica titles in 2010? The challenge for US businesses, where hysteria over sex and hypocrisy continually evolve, is nothing new.

Voltaire once stated, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” The graphic covers or content of certain erotica titles actually disgust me. My objections are about my personal tastes, which should not dictate the buying or reading choices of anyone else. I don’t find erotica that contains incest or sex with minors appealing. Yet, I’m a huge fan of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy. Culling erotica titles en masse has the effect of removing books where the sex occurs between consenting adults.   

Our governmental and legal systems have typically been the final arbitrators of obscenity. While pornography is not erotica, the same standards are applicable to both. The obscenity standard allows censorship of content that some believe has little social, artistic or literary value. In Jacobellis vs. Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said of pornography, “I know it when it when I see it…”, yet American jurisprudence has long recognized that regulating taste through censorship sets the precedent for a dangerous, slippery slope.

When censorship begins to affect what we read, where does it stop? How many more challenges will Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic series face because the books deal with incest? Will someone decide there is too much violence in horror fiction someday? Will my Rule of Love, which revolves around the author of the Kama Sutra and has explicit sexual scenes, suffer the same fate as erotica titles because someone might consider it obscene?

When we allow the loss of personal freedoms for others, we’re just setting up for the inevitable, when someone takes action against our liberties. A sad day for all.


ETA: Dear Author sums up the actions of each online retailer mentioned above here. 

How to sell books from your author website with PayPal

A website is one of several ways you can increase visibility online for you and your work. Before I ever blogged, tweeted or established a Facebook page, my website had been up and running for at least 3 years. That the initial design was crappy minimal is besides the point.

If you don't already have a website, get one. Now. Find an affordable web designer or, if you have some tech savvy, build your own. Even unpublished writers should have a website. By the time you've finished your manuscript and have it out on submission, agents and editors will be searching for you on the internet. A perfect manuscript and query letter aren't enough - the decision-makers in the industry are also looking at your online presence. Some want to know whether you can market or promote your own work. Do you really want to be building a site in the midst of edits and rewrites?

Are you self-publishing your work? Your personal website is essential to helping people find YOUR book among the millions of available titles. Invest enough time in your site and it becomes one of your best marketing tools. After all, potential readers can't buy your books if they don't know about them. Once your book is available, feature it on your website. Encourage sales by adding links to where the book can be bought; offline and online locations.

You can also grow your readership and maximize potential profits by selling from your own website. If you've featured buy links for your book, why shouldn't one of those include an opportunity for you to sell your work directly? When I've spoken about this to other writers, three responses typically occur. "Wow, that seems so hard." or "Oh, I don't know to do that." I'll talk about the third one later. Let me show you how to address the first two.

What you need 

• Inventory on hand ready to be delivered to readers as soon as they order, whether it's hardcover / paperback copies or ebooks. Nothing says 'amateur' or ticks off potential readers more than being told, "This book is not available for purchase at this time."
• Some reviews or testimonials that inform your potential readers about the book(s) and the benefits to them for buying your product direct.  
• The ability to process orders online in real-time. Unless you already run a secure business site that processes online transactions, you'll need to establish a merchant account. 
• Software that can process credit card orders, safely. 
• If you're selling more than one book, you'll need to develop a virtual "shopping cart" experience to allow for multiple orders.
• Immediate notification of payments processed with orders that must be fulfilled.
• An order fulfillment or completion process. Learn the shipping rates of your hardcovers / paperbacks to various locations and build that cost into your pricing structure.
• A feedback form or visible email address that lets readers communicate with you.        

What your readers want

• A secure shopping experience. They want to know that their credit card will be encrypted in each transaction and their address information will be safeguarded.
• Instant or fast delivery of their orders
• Ability to communicate with you, to provide feedback or let you know if there is problem with fulfillment.

If you've read all that and think it's daunting or not worth your time, PayPal allows you to do all these processes and met reader expectations. There are other sites where you can do the same activity, including eBay. Since I have no experience with it, but tons with PayPal, that's my focus.

Steps for selling via PayPal

• Establish a PayPal personal and / or business account at https://www.paypal.com/. Notice the URL; the typical http followed by 's' which indicates that this is a site to allow credit card authorizations and secure transactions. Something that will give you and your readers peace of mind. I recommend both types of accounts. The personal account allows me to pay my cover artists and editors, while a business account lets me transact sales of books online.  
• At minimum, PayPal will need your real name, physical address, email address and a funding source for your accounts, be it a bank account or credit card. The latter allows you to process payments through your personal account and have a link to where you can transfer monies received from your business account.
• Be prepared for low fees dependent on the number of transactions you're filling each month on the business account. A business account will also be helpful for tracking what you've earned when the tax man cometh. Yes, you should report sales through your website as income earned. 
• Once you have completed the setup, take advantage of PayPal's tools for merchants, including shipping and tax calculators, accepting multiple currencies, tracking inventory and my favorite, buy buttons for your website.       

Configuring PayPal buy buttons for single orders or virtual shopping carts for multiple transactions takes some forethought. How do you want to sell the book(s)? Are they available in varying formats? If you have more than one book, do you want potential readers to buy one book in one transaction, or offer them the ability for multiple selections in one transaction? The Merchant Services section can help you determine the best approach. Here's how I did it.

Since I have more than one book in multiple formats, I chose to setup a virtual shopping cart with two buttons, one for ordering paperbacks and another for ebooks. Setting up the virtual shopping cart was simple:

I set multiple prices on each type of book and added comment fields for readers that enable fulfillment; e.g. for someone who wants an autographed paperback, I need to know who I'll be dedicating the book to or in the case of ebooks, the specific format my readers want. After saving each button, an HTML code was  generated, which I copied to my website:

The virtual shopping is the best experience for your potential readers, allowing them to place orders for multiple products, with totals automatically calculated. Each time an item is added, the shopping cart is updated, all in one transaction. Here's an example of how it might look to readers. Notice the exact quantities and pertinent fulfillment information is visible, and will be transmitted to the author when a transaction is completed. 

 Even better, if your readers don't have PayPal accounts, they can still complete the transaction. There's nothing to stop them from purchasing off your site. Except... 

"Readers won't buy sites they're not familiar with!"

Sad but true. The average person would rather go to Amazon or any other online retailer they're familiar with than buy from an author website. However, this shouldn't stop an author from making the option available. For instance, I recently purchased Dara Marks' Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc on the recommendation of a friend. So far, it's an excellent read. I tried to buy the book direct from the author website, where it was cheaper AND shipped faster than from the Amazon affiliate site where it's offered. A problem with the author website wouldn't allow me to submit the transaction. So, guess which giant online retailer (or its affiliate) got my money that day? Money that could have gone directly to the author. 

As authors establish trust with their readers through good storytelling and a well-crafted online presence, the perception about buying direct from an author website will likely change. No reason you should be caught flat-footed when it does.