Reviews of The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success

A good book. A bit basic perhaps. Also many of the things talked about in the book seemed to me to be common sense. However, this was still a good read.

Sadly I was a little disappointed with this one. It gets marks for including a lot of points which are valid, and almost certainly appear in a number of books which you have to pay money for, and for being free. There are some very good points, though it would have been better if they were backed up by the graphs and charts Mark has now released from his presentation since the book gives broad ideas and the charts give more accurate figures.

There was an element of "teacher, take thine own advice." After telling us to have a book carefully edited and proofread, I found glaring errors and a severe need for repeated points to be edited out.

What I really didn't like, however, was the propaganda. It may be a very valid point that exclusivity is bad, but an entire section on why Amazon KDP is bad (because it requires exclusivity) is just a focussed attack. If you want to make the case that DRM is bad (and it may be) then put forward your quite cogent arguments for why it is (not that it really makes much practical difference), don't say things like "don't infect your file with DRM." Intelligent readers will recognise this for what it is, propaganda, and downgrade your other arguments.

Some useful tips for the first time publisher. Some useful tips to help sell more books, particularly around pricing, for existing authors. Cut back on the repetition and self-advertising/propaganda. But thanks for the advice (and for Smashwords) Mark.