All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Happy Birthday ebook! Oh, not all ebooks, just my ebook. I almost forgot about this. Yesterday, I was looking at the sales stats and noticed that it was published on May 26th one year ago.
Oh wait. You aren't familiar with my ebook? Here it is: Just Enough Physics.
Look, I made a new cover for its birthday. The old cover was too busy to show up well in Amazon's Kindle Store. So, what's it about? Basically, it is a collection of super-old posts in which I explain different physics topics. A long time ago, in a server far far away, I figured that it was redundant to keep explaining the work-energy principle every time I used it in a blog post. So, I could write a blog post about the work-energy principle and then just link to this whenever it came up again.
The book covers just the very basics in physics topics - mostly just stuff you would cover in the first semester of an algebra-based college physics course. I don't think it is just a textbook though - mostly because there aren't any homework problems in there. I imagine it would make a good supplement though - probably for either high school or college students.
What Have I Learned?
Over the past year, the book has sold better than I expected. Actually, since January of this year sales have increased quite a bit. However, I don't think that is really due to the awesomeness of my book. Instead, I think the whole Kindle ebook store got a boost from all those people that received Kindles as a present. In general, I think ebooks have become more popular.
Was the whole process simple? It really wasn't too bad. I had to go through my old posts and then convert the html into an ebook format. The tricky part was getting all the image files in the right place and removing any non-ebook things (like videos and hyperlinks). Calibre is a nice free piece of software that can convert html files into an ebook. After that, the Kindle Direct Publishing process was fairly simple.
Would I change anything? Of course. First, I would fix the typos and errors that are still in the book. Yes, I can still do this - but you know how things go. Second, I would (and still would) like to put the book out in different formats. There is the Barnes and Noble Nook Store and of course there Apple's iBooks. It would be fun to make an iBook with embedded videos. The problem with the iBook thing is that it would take time AND you could only see it if you had an iPad. The Kindle, on the other hand, has a app that runs on just about anything. Oh, another thing I would have changed: the book title. I don't know what I was thinking at the time.
Is the book useful? This is something that I mostly wasn't sure of. You write something that makes sense to you, but it is always difficult to know right off the bat if it helps others. Thankfully, I have some feed back - it seems to be positive. So, after a year I feel little bit more comfortable recommending this to others. Yes, I know that sounds silly. I always think of George McFly (from Back to the Future) "What if they don't like them? What if they say I'm no good? I just don't think I can handle that kind of rejection. "
A note about sales. Here is the funny thing about ebook sales. If you sell many books, you know what happens? Your Amazon Sellers Rank changes. At this moment,here is where I stand:
- 23,471 in Paid Kindle Store.
- 25 in eBooks- Nonfiction - Professional and Technical - Professional Science - Physics.
- 32 in eBooks- Nonfiction - Science - Physics.
When your sellers rank goes up, you are more likely to be seen in the Amazon store. If you are more likely to be seen in the Amazon store, you are more likely to get another sale. When you get more sales, your sellers rank goes up. Get it? Really, think how many books are out there that are awesome, but no one ever sees.
