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Beth Cox Report: July 2015

Dear Loyal Readers, Authors, and Publishers,

While Amazon's Kindle store continues to dominate the ebook market, I was recently surprised to discover an ebook direct sales business that seeks to "cut out" the Amazon middleman with more competitive conversion rates! They are Payhip

https://payhip.com

a service platform that hosts ebooks, handles payment for ebooks through Paypal and Stripe, and offers promotional tools to ebook authors.

I can't make any further comments (positive or negative) about Payhip's ebook direct sales service because I've had no business dealings with them. The Midwest Book Review does not directly review ebooks, although ebooks are eligible for our Reader Fee Review referral program, and we are happy to publish ebook reviews from volunteer reviewers.

However, Payhip's website does offer a couple invaluable resources free to the general public. One is a website article "Can Book Review Blogs really lead to sales?"

http://payhip.com/blog/can-book-review-blogs-really-lead-to-sales

a practical guide to getting reviews and publicity for one's book from bloggers on the Internet. I strongly recommend that any author doing their own publicity read its guidelines for "creating a blog hit-list" of specific book review blogs to reach out to.

Another Payhip resource is a list of 74 active book reviewers

https://payhip.com/book-reviewers

Of course, I'm happy to report that The Midwest Book Review is on the list; I first learned about Payhip when they notified us of this. We responded with a reciprocal link to Payhip in the new "eBook and e-Publishing Resources" subsection of our "Publisher Resources" links page.

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/pub_res.htm#ebook

July's Link of the Month is The Writer's Guide

http://www.thewritersguide.co.uk

a creative writing advice guide. Although The Writer's Guide is especially geared toward novelists, there are sections that discuss writing screenplays, poetry, stage, and more. No matter how experienced one becomes in the writing trade, there's always more to learn!

Finally, July's Book of the Month addresses an overwhelming societal and technological revolution that ultimately affects individuals as much as mega-corporations. It's a "must-read"!



Data-ism
Steve Lohr
HarperBusiness
c/o HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299
9780062226815 $29.99 www.harpercollins.com

Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else was written with a business audience in mind, but deserves mention as a recommendation for social issues and computer science readers, as well. The author has covered technology and big data issues for The New York Times for over a decade: this book explains how this data is moving to business circles from its social media origins, and explains how scientists, engineers, and others have worked to grow data technology into the mainstream to influence such diverse industries as energy and agriculture. The wide-ranging implications of big data's movements holds many important points that any interested in social issues will find engrossing.



That's all for the July 2015 Beth Cox Report. Stay safe - don't data and drive!

Bethany Cox
Managing Editor
The Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com


James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com


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