UPWORD 2012 Scripture for 10/11/12

Louis McBride, author of the blog Baker Book House Church Connection, writes, ”If you’re like me, the elections can be exhausting; so I welcome [UPWORD 2012] to offer something to help us keep things in perspective. Give a visit to the site and sign up today.”

UPWORD 2012 (http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012) (#UPWORD2012) is a campaign during the US presidential election season that reminds us God is in control. Get a Bible verse paired with stunning, original nature photographs delivered to your email inbox. Also get free downloads of the New Testament, screensavers and wallpaper, a blogger badge, a YouTube video of the verses, and a mobile app when you visit http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012. This ends Nov. 9, so sign up today. Tell your friends and share on your social sites. See the announcing news release.

The State Of The Internet: 2012

Business Insider (@businessinsider) and Business Insider SAI’s (@SAI) Henry Blodget (@hblodget) and Alex Cocotas (@acocotas) assembled the above presentation on the State Of The Internet: 2012. Notice the predicted continued rise in mobile content consumption, such as ebooks on smartphones and tablets. How should this affect your publishing strategy?

Also see our previous blogposts, “Study: Evangelicals Use Technology in Their Faith Practice,” “The Social Habit 2012 Study,” and “2012 American Media Mom.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you think through your mobile content effectiveness.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

UPWORD 2012 Scripture for 10/10/12

Louis McBride, author of the blog Baker Book House Church Connection, writes, ”If you’re like me, the elections can be exhausting; so I welcome [UPWORD 2012] to offer something to help us keep things in perspective. Give a visit to the site and sign up today.”

UPWORD 2012 (http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012) (#UPWORD2012) is a campaign during the US presidential election season that reminds us God is in control. Get a Bible verse paired with stunning, original nature photographs delivered to your email inbox. Also get free downloads of the New Testament, screensavers and wallpaper, a blogger badge, a YouTube video of the verses, and a mobile app when you visit http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012. This ends Nov. 9, so sign up today. Tell your friends and share on your social sites. See the announcing news release.

Christian Store Week A Success

Christian Retailing (@ChristianRetail) says, “Christian retailers are reporting good sales and positive feedback for CBA's 3rd annual Christian Store Week (@CSW_2012)” Sept. 28 – Oct. 8.

More than 400 Christian stores nationwide — including 134 independent retailers and the Family Christian Stores (@FCstores) chain — partnered with World Vision (@WorldVisionUSA) to raise awareness of the need for hunger relief among American children as part of CSW, an effort to spotlight Christian bookstores and drive traffic, CBA said.

Read this in full.

See our previous blogpost, “This is Christian Store Week.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach the Christian store market with your brand message.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Ganxy Offers an 'Easier Way to Sell and Market Ebooks'

Reporter Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) writes on paidContent (@paidContent) about the new ebook selling and marketing Web service launched today, Ganxy (@Ganxy). She says, “In just a few minutes, anyone can create a “showcase” for a book that includes its cover, description, video and other marketing materials, and purchase options.”

Authors and publishers can sell books directly through the showcase or simply provide links to retailers. The entire showcase can then be tweeted, embedded in a blog, website, or Facebook page, or can just stand alone as a website....

It’s free to create a showcase, but Ganxy makes money in two ways. The company takes 10% of each sale when an ebook is sold through a showcase (authors and publishers can choose whether they want to sell ebooks directly). Ganxy also makes money through the affiliate links to retail sites that are embedded in the showcase. An author can also request to use his or her own affiliate links in the showcase; in that case, Ganxy displays its affiliate link 25% of the time and the author’s 75% of the time.

Ganxy also wants to appeal to readers. When someone buys an ebook directly through a Ganxy showcase, it’s added to his or her library and can be downloaded in any format (EPUB, iOS, Kindle and so on). All the ebooks Ganxy sells directly are DRM-free. (Publishers who don’t like that can just display retail links and not sell ebooks directly.)

Read this in full.

Read the news release.

And read our previous blogposts:

·         How Ebook Buyers Discover Books

·         Sites That Facilitate Book Discovery

·         "Family Christian Stores Now Selling Its Own Tablet"

·         "Parable, Mardel Latest to Launch Ebook Sales; Ebooks Now at 500+ Christian Stores"

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically plan your book’s disoverability.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

Case Study: Campaigns Use Social Media to Lure Younger Voters

Some book authors have a tendency to minimize the effectiveness of social media marketing. And, because of that perspective, they neglect to fully engage with it as a way to advance their personal brand among their readers and to introduce themselves to new readers. So let’s take a look at why Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney believe social media marketing is so important and how they approach it.

The New York Times Technology (@nytimestech) journalist Jenna Wortham (@jennydeluxe) reports that “both [parties] rely heavily on Facebook and Twitter to solicit donations, blast out reminders of events, and share articles and videos conveying their stances.”

If the presidential campaigns of 2008 were dipping a toe into social media like Facebook and Twitter, their 2012 versions are well into the deep end. They are taking to fields of online battle that might seem obscure to the non-Internet-obsessed — sharing song playlists on Spotify, adding frosted pumpkin bread recipes to Pinterest and posting the candidates’ moments at home with the children on Instagram.

At stake, the campaigns say they believe, are votes from citizens, particularly younger ones, who may not watch television or read the paper but spend plenty of time on the social Web. The campaigns want to inject themselves into the conversation on services like Tumblr, where political dialogue often takes the form of remixed photos and quirky videos.

Read this in full.

Replace “votes” with “book purchases” and you see that social media marketing should be taken seriously by authors.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan your social media marketing strategy. And to learn more about SomersaultSocial.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

UPWORD 2012 Scripture for 10/9/12

Louis McBride, author of the blog Baker Book House Church Connection, writes, ”If you’re like me, the elections can be exhausting; so I welcome [UPWORD 2012] to offer something to help us keep things in perspective. Give a visit to the site and sign up today.”

UPWORD 2012 (http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012) (#UPWORD2012) is a campaign during the US presidential election season that reminds us God is in control. Get a Bible verse paired with stunning, original nature photographs delivered to your email inbox. Also get free downloads of the New Testament, screensavers and wallpaper, a blogger badge, a YouTube video of the verses, and a mobile app when you visit http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012. This ends Nov. 9, so sign up today. Tell your friends and share on your social sites. See the announcing news release.

Education Secretary Calls for Ending Printed Textbooks, Using Digital Instead

US Dept. of Education (@usedgov) Secretary Arne Duncan is calling for America to move as fast as possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. “Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete,” he declared last week at the National Press Club (@PressClubDC).

Referring primarily to grades K-12, but having implications on the college level as well, Duncan says he’s concerned about competing with other countries whose students are academically leaving behind their US counterparts.

South Korea, which consistently outperforms the US in educational outcomes, is moving far faster than the US in adopting digital learning environments. One of the most wired countries in the world, South Korea has set a goal to go fully digital with its textbooks by 2015....

The transition to digital involves much more than scanning books and uploading them to computers, tablet devices or e-readers. Proponents describe a comprehensive shift to immersive, online learning experiences that engage students in a way a textbook never could.

Read this in full.

The Secretary has made the call before, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in September.

Read Hack College’s coverage, “Education Secretary Calls for Print Textbooks to Become Obsolete.”

Also see our previous blogpost, “USA Goal: A Digital Textbook for Every US Student.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan your textbook publishing and marketing strategy.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

UPWORD 2012 Scripture for 10/8/12

Louis McBride, author of the blog Baker Book House Church Connection, writes, ”If you’re like me, the elections can be exhausting; so I welcome [UPWORD 2012] to offer something to help us keep things in perspective. Give a visit to the site and sign up today.”

UPWORD 2012 (http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012) (#UPWORD2012) is a campaign during the US presidential election season that reminds us God is in control. Get a Bible verse paired with stunning, original nature photographs delivered to your email inbox. Also get free downloads of the New Testament, screensavers and wallpaper, a blogger badge, a YouTube video of the verses, and a mobile app when you visit http://SeeGodsWordinAction.com/UPWORD2012. This ends Nov. 9, so sign up today. Tell your friends and share on your social sites. See the announcing news release.

The Barcode is 60 Years Old

Barcodes are a standard application on books today. BBC News reports that October 7 is the 60th anniversary of the barcode patent, filed in the US in 1952.

However the distinctive black-and-white stripes did not make their first appearance in an American shop until 1974 - because the laser technology used to read them did not exist.

[Standardization entity] GS1 UK (@GS1UK) says the QR code was not a threat to the traditional linear barcode.

A QR (Quick Response) code is an image made up of dots, which can contain more data than a barcode.

"They have different purposes - the barcode on the side of a tin of beans is for point-of-sale scanning. It ensures the consumer is charged the right amount and updates stock records," said Gary Lynch, chief executive of GS1 UK.

"The QR code's main purpose is to take the person that scans it to an extended multi media environment. Technically you can combine the two but nobody's asking for that right now."

The first item to be scanned by a barcode was a packet of chewing gum in an Ohio supermarket in 1974.

Read this in full.

How a QR Code Works