Create an ePub Format Version of Your eBook

epub format ebook
The ePub format has quickly become the standard for distributing an ebook to the masses using a digital reader. With the iPad continuing to sell well and ePub the standard for the iBook app for browsing for books on the iPad, it is important to get your book in the ePub format so you can share your ebook easily!

Some companies are offering conversion of the PDF or DOC version of your book to ePub format for a fee, but a new service has popped which does all this automatically for you! The service is called ePubBud and it was designed to look like the interface of the ubiquitous YouTube. To see an example, here is Mario Lurig’s ePub book (hey, that’s me!).

The steps are pretty straightforward:

  • Choose to upload a new book or create a new ebook on the ePubBud site
  • You will be prompted to make an account after the first step above
  • You will now be able to update all of the book info, provide a link to the paper version, charge for the book, etc. You can also choose to share it publicly (link at the very top)

Once the ePub book is created, you can download it directly from the site and save it for your own uses! Yes, it is pretty simple, but time for some caveats…

  • The site is changing regularly as features are being added, so if something is broken, you may have to come back. It should be marked ‘Beta’.
  • The interface for updating book information can be confusing, and not all options are in one place, sometimes split in different parts of the page
  • The target audience is not mainstream authors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from this website!
  • I’ve never tested the ‘charge for book’ option
  • Some of the above instructions may be different in the future… I’m sorry? Joys of a new website

NovelRank nor I are affiliated with this website in any way.

Book Sales Rankings

Pursuit of Honor book cover
I was recently asked what amount of book sales lead to rankings averaging 100, 1000, etc. Put another way, how many books would an author have to sell in a given month to have an average ranking for the month of 1000? So, I dug back into the book sales estimates and came up with 3 examples.

This is based on data on Amazon.com only. For Amazon.co.uk, you can roughly estimate that it takes only 80% of the number of sales on Amazon.com to equate to the same average ranking. For Canada, Germany, Japan, and France, it is approximately 65%, though there is not enough data in NovelRank to depend on that percentage.

Sales Rank Average: 1000 (paperback, hardcover, etc)

Example book: Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn
About 250 copies were sold to maintain a sales rank around 1000. That makes it 8 books per day, with a sale occurring every 3 hours, or maybe 2 books selling every 6 hours! Either way, this is a very healthy sales rank.

Sales Rank Average: 100 (paperback, hardcover, etc)

Example book: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and Alison Anderson
Almost 2000 copies were sold in May to garner an average sales rank of 106. That is a selling rate of at least 3 books per hour! What is likely is that this number may actually be notably higher, as sales rank changes are less defined or varied at this level, however it is hard to verify.

Sales Rank Average: 2000 (Kindle Edition books)

Example book: In the Mood by Ellen Fisher
Selling approximately 500 kindle books a month will lead to an average sales rank around 2000 for your book. To do this, you need to sell about 16 books a day or 1 book every 90 minutes.

Note: This Kindle sales estimate is based upon real sales data from Amazon DTP provided to me from the author. NovelRank is currently underestimating for Kindle Edition books with a Sales Rank below 4000.

Hopefully this is enlightening for you. Remember, the strength of NovelRank is not in raw numbers; You will get those from your publisher eventually, but rather in understanding the fluctuations so you can attribute your best marketing efforts to the strongest sales bumps in near real-time.

Disclaimer: NovelRank book sales estimates are based on fluctuations of sales rank and thus there are many factors (another blog post coming soon) that can cause for more sales to occur than is estimated by NovelRank. These numbers are estimates.

Book Giveaway June 2010 – Counting the Cost & Some Secrets Hurt

The June giveaway gives us the following two books:

Counting the Cost

Counting the Cost cover image

This is a signed copy of Counting the Cost by Liz Adair, a passionate tale of love and learning, of romance and redemption, with meticulous attention to detail and historical accuracy. With a 5 star rating on Amazon.com, one reviewer, Judy, simply stated:

“I was simply not prepared for some of the twists and turns that the book takes, but it kept me reading, crying, laughing and totally enjoying the journey.”

If you would like your chance of winning this book, add your email address to the form below. You’ll be notified by email if you are the winner, and you will also be opting into a follow-up email to let you know when the next book in the giveaway becomes available.

This giveaway is closed. Check out the current giveaway.

Share the Book Giveaway with Others:
Share or Click to share on Twitter! or http://www.novelrank.com/book-giveaway (will always be current)

Some Secrets Hurt

Some Secrets Hurt book cover

This is a paperback copy of Some Secrets Hurt by Linda Kay Garner. This is a beautifully illustrated book that tackles a difficult topic brilliantly: sexual abuse of young children. If you are an elementary school teacher, engage with your child’s school PTA, run a daycare, or find yourself engaging children, you can share this tasteful and educational book about empowering kids to speak up about this tough subject. This is an amazing book, and well worth sharing over and over again with as many kids as possible.

If you would like your chance of winning this book, add your email address to the form below. You’ll be notified by email if you are the winner, and you will also be opting into a follow-up email to let you know when the next book in the giveaway becomes available.

This giveaway is closed. Check out the current giveaway.

Share the Book Giveaway with Others:
Share or Click to share on Twitter! or http://www.novelrank.com/book-giveaway (will always be current)

The Rules
Any email address that is not valid will not be accepted. Any email to a temporary mailbox service (e.g. mailinator.com) will be disqualified and may be publicly mocked. Unless otherwise stated, only one book can be won by any single email address. Multiple entries for a single book will not be accepted (you can enter to win each book if different books are offered in a given month). The winner will be randomly drawn no later than the 3rd of the following month and contacted via email to receive shipping information. Winners who fail to respond to the email within 72 hours will forfeit their win to another random winner.

For Authors: Getting Involved
For more information about donating your book to the book giveaway, check out this introductory announcement post on the book giveaway idea.

Book Sales Numbers (Kindle) and Other Improvements

A quick update for those not following NovelRank on Twitter or Facebook (where I toss out real-time information about updates to the site):

  • The new book sales number estimates for Kindle Edition books were applied retroactively, adjusting the sales for all Kindle books tracked since the beginning. In most cases, this saw an increase in sales, but in a few cases, there was a decrease. This was based on the new more accurate formula.
  • Some tweaks to properly displaying non-US characters were put in place. There are still some imperfections, but this affected the User Pages as well as book Details pages.
  • Book Sales Numbers displayed in charts on the book Details pages are now using a 3d column bar chart. You can left-click on the chart and rotate it along the x an y axis now as well. This should give the graphs a little more ‘punch’. Previously, they were flat columns.

Once last announcement… well, preemptively. I intend to do a few more tweaks in June to NovelRank before I work on new features. However, the goal is to replicate NovelRank two more times to serve the DVD and music communities. Much like NovelRank focuses on tracking books, there will be two new sites, one tracking Sales Rank for DVDs and one for music. Stay tuned for announcements when they go online, as a few people have asked if NovelRank could track DVDs (the answer is still no, but there will be a place to do that soon, with all the same power).

Cheers,
Mario, Creator of NovelRank, a community supported website