Busy weekend! The final surprise for January 2010 is the addition of book search to the book tracking page. You can now search all the books tracked on NovelRank to see if yours is already tracked. Of course, if you know your book is tracked, but have no idea how to get to it, you are welcome to use the new feature as well. It’s a custom built search, so it will look for the most exact match first before going into a ‘looser’ search. Search by title or by author, your choice.
Now, if you are just curious, you could just search and see what comes up! You never know what amazing independent book you may find! Start searching for books right now.
I’m very very (very very very) thrilled to announce that NovelRank has overcome Amazon’s limits and is now capable of tracking Kindle Edition books again! Kindle tracking is a heavily requested feature, and NovelRank is the only Kindle tracker available on the web at this time. Just like the rest of the books on NovelRank, this also means that besides tracking Kindle sales rank, you will also receive Kindle sales estimates.
You can add Kindle books on the book tracking page, as well as see the Top 10 best selling Kindle books. This is a critical improvement for 2011, because Amazon has already stated that on Christmas Day (December 25) 2010, it was the first time ever that Kindle books outsold all other formats. While I personally love the feel and the smell of a print edition book, I can definitely see the draw for some people who come to rely on e-ink and digital e-books.
There are 2 limitations however with the implementation: The edition will always be 1, and I cannot track the number of reviews for that book (this is something NovelRank collects for all books, but until I’m checking for new reviews regularly, it is not part of the data that is shown on the site). These are pretty minor and definitely not deal breakers, but NovelRank is all about transparency, so it was worth a mention.
Fair warning, there has been notably less data about Kindle book sales history and sales rank tracking in the past few months, so there will still be some adjustments in the coming months to the sales estimates that are generated. For now, just like all other book formats, Kindle books with average to low volume of sales will be very accurate. Heavy sales of Kindle ebooks will probably be slightly off; after all, these are still estimates. Feedback is always welcome, leave a comment below. Oh, and tell your author friends. :)
Update: February 11, 2010
Be advised that Amazon does not offer any affiliate payments (how NovelRank stays running) based on Kindle ebook purchases. If tracking your Kindle book exclusively on NovelRank is providing a valuable service for you, please consider:
When you walk into a bookstore, you have the ability to pick up a book, open the cover, and read through as many pages as you wish so you can make a purchasing decision. Sure, you read the back cover first, and maybe that was enough, but at least you have the option. When marketing your book for its potential readers, you want to give them the ability to preview the book as well, so they can decide to purchase a copy for themselves.
There are three main methods for providing a book preview, and while all of these seem to compete, it is important to be aware that each one provides a different avenue to expose your audience to your book. In sheer marketing terms, using all of these options would be a beneficial use of your time. Finally, be aware that every one of these options are completely free.
Book Preview with BookBuzzr
BookBuzzr.com offers authors a Flash based book preview that not only has the feeling of physically turning pages, but it allows extraneous, author added details about the book to be included with the embedded widget. Furthermore, there is an extensive list of sharing options for social networking, blogging websites, and email, with a detailed list of instructions for each site.
BookBuzzr even allows you to use the micro-blogging website Twitter to let your followers know whenever your book was viewed. Secondary to that, the BookBuzzr account on Twitter promotes authors and books that are found on BookBuzzr as just an additional benefit for their authors. Going even farther, the fReado (parent of BookBuzzr) website offers listing and rankings for books that have been popular on the website, called their Movers and Shakers.
You can setup your account directly on BookBuzzr.com. You decide how many pages and which pages will be visible to your users, so you can share as much or as little as you wish. This is clearly the most advanced book preview widget available for free today.
Book Preview with Google Books
Everybody knows Google, and if you are searching for certain topics, Google Book Search will provide three books relevant to the search at the bottom of the page. If your book isn’t added to Google Book Search, its odds of appearing in this search are greatly reduced. Of course, Google offers an additional Book Preview widget. There are a few steps you should go through, starting with adding your book to Google Books and configuring all your settings, including custom purchase links, images, and page preview (with optional download). Once the book is setup, you will want to create the preview widget through their book preview wizard.
The Google widget can be configured as a button or a full embedded view. It is HTML based so it doesn’t require Flash to be installed, though the browsing is completely linear and not natural to how a buyer would browse a book in a store. There is an additional benefit of Table of Contents scanning, which makes the table of contents clickable within the preview, taking you directly to the appropriate page within the preview. Like BookBuzzr, this can be used to embed your book preview into your author or book’s website.
Book Preview with Amazon Look Inside
Amazon offers its Look Inside feature to any author or publisher who has their book listed on Amazon.com. Unlike the previous two options however, it is only available on Amazon.com. There is no embeddable widget. The preview is built into the page itself, triggered by clicking on the book’s cover image. Amazon offers a full FAQ for using and setting up Look Inside for your book. While this service won’t provide any additional marketing for your book, it will provide browsing of a small portion of your book for organic Amazon.com visitors to your book’s Amazon page. Be advised that every Amazon domain is different, and thus setting up Look Inside on Amazon.com will not carry over to Amazon.co.uk, and so forth.
I was thrilled when Shannon with LLBookReview.com contacted me to do an interview about myself and especially NovelRank. I was happy to answer the questions and hope I was at least mildly entertaining in the process. The entire interview about NovelRank can be found on their site.
About LLBookReview LLBookReview provides independent reviews of self-published books. Originally formed to benefit Lulu.com published books, they have expanded to accept books published through numerous self-publishing companies across the web.
I’m very very (very very very) thrilled to announce that NovelRank has overcome Amazon’s limits and is now capable of tracking Kindle Edition books again! Kindle tracking is a heavily requested feature, and NovelRank is the only Kindle tracker available on the web at this time. Just like the rest of the books on NovelRank, this also means that besides tracking Kindle sales rank, you will also receive Kindle sales estimates.
I was thrilled when Shannon with