What is your business name?  What is your title or position within that business? Founded Digital Book Today in November of 2009.

What is your background in the book industry? Worked for Borders/Waldenbooks as a District Sales Manager from 94-2002. Missed the book world as an avid reader. Got a Kindle for my birthday in September of 2009 and by November of 2009 decided there was an opportunity with the growth of eBooks. As a side note: In 2004 I started working with CafePress.com and Zazzle.com selling designs for T-shirts and other products. This website is currently still in operation with over 7,500+ different designs.

What genres do you accept?  Do you work with Indie as well as traditionally published authors? Most of our authors on DBT (Digital Book Today) are Indie authors, but not all. The majority of our readers are looking for full length fiction novels covering the more popular genres (Mystery, Thrillers, Romance, YA, Sci Fi, Horror, Suspense, Chick Lit, Contemporary fiction. Our 5,000+ mailing list is about 70% female.

What types or kinds of services do you offer? We offer both free and paid promotional opportunities. Some promotions have minimum requirements (reviews, rating) and others do not. Some of free promotions (especially the Weekly Featured Great Reads) fill up quickly. Probably easiest to visit our promotions pages for details.

How do you charge for your services (by the individual service, by pre-designed packages, by custom-designed packages, or some other way)? Payment for promotions are made by Paypal from our promotions page.

What’s the price range of your services? $0.00 (free) to $90.

How long have you been in business?  Since November of 2009. DBT website came online in March of 2010. How many clients have you represented? Including our listing of KDP select free books ““ probably in the range of 5,000 -7,000 different authors (just a ball park guess).

Are you a sole proprietor or do you have staff/assistants who help you?  We have a couple of PT workers who work remotely. Both are book lovers who years ago worked with Borders/Waldenbooks.

In your experience, which genre or genres benefit most from the services you provide? Fiction in the major categories.

If there is such a thing as an ideal client, what would that author look like, or what traits would s/he exhibit? The ideal client (author) recognizes that marketing or advertising with only one book website is not a marketing campaign. The ideal client has a solid marketing plan in place which uses multiple websites and social media platforms.

In favor or against authors giving away their books for free? A tough one to answer as both sides have a good argument. If you have a series, then giving away book #1 seems like an effective way to sell the rest of the series. Many authors make the mistake that marketing a book for free will increase reviews. They may get a couple of reviews, but don’t expect 25 reviews just because you had 5,000 free downloads.

Giving away books (ARC’s) has been a part of the book industry for 40+ years in exchange for reviews or positive word of mouth. I remember the Borders/Waldenbooks stores having a shelf for freebies. Over time you would just throw out a pile of freebies to make room for the newer freebies.   Remember, J.K. Rowling had ARC’s of both Harry Potter #1 and #2.

How did the Amazon affiliate policy change (3/1/2013) concerning listing free books impact free book websites? Authors?  Once your book (free or paid) makes it on an Amazon Top 100 list, then the 800 pound gorilla in the cage takes over. The goal for an author is get their book on the list.

The Amazon changes have had a major impact on free book sites in terms of revenue. The result is authors who are paying to advertise their free book especially if the book has a low number of reviews. With 4,000 ““ 7,000 free books on Amazon on any given day, it is very easy for a free book to be lost among the thousands without some sort of advertising or marketing. Most authors who advertise their free book quickly get downloads at the start of the day which gets them on one of the many subgenre Amazon Top 100 lists. Then the 800 pound gorilla called Amazon takes over.

Any tips for authors? There are many books and blog posts with an extremely larger number of tips and ideas ““ probably too many. Initially an author needs to determine the top 15 or so basic fundamentals that they will absolutely commit to executing before publishing their book. Such as: cover, editing, formatting, etc. There is no shortcut in executing the basics, but not doing them will have a major impact in your book sales long term.

What is the one basic area of publishing a book do you see the most errors? I see hundreds of book covers on a daily basis. This is often the first image a reader has of a book. The cover that says “This is a homemade cover, but I think it looks great (in my mind).” Authors can make their own covers, but they need to remember it must be readable on an Amazon thumbnail. I truly believe a cover that does not look professional has a major impact on just getting the reader to click on the book to read more about it on Amazon.

Any other tips for authors? Tip #1: Do not rush your book to market. Execute the basics 100% before publishing. Tip #2: Have some reviews before your book is published. (I know this is easier said than done.)

What about book reviewers? There is a major shortage of book reviewers who will actually write reviews. Getting reviews might be one of the biggest challenges for authors.

What social media(s) should authors be using? Pick a couple that you enjoy using and do them well. Nobody can do them all. If you don’t enjoy using a specific social media it will be apparent to the readers.

Anything else? I wish all Indie authors would be able to make a full time living selling their books. In reality the Indie book world is only going to get more crowded and harder to succeed in the future. The 80-20 rule is already in play. 20% of the authors are making 80% of the sales. It might even be closer to 90-10.

Lastly, don’t think that the old guard (the major book publishers) will not be direct competition especially in the marketing arena. They may be slower to move, but they do have deep pockets. I would not be surprised to see some of the larger “book blast” email sites becoming populated with more books from the Big 6 publishers especially during and after the holidays. I saw a presentation by BookBub at BEA in May. It almost turned into a sales presentation to the big publishers who were all in attendance. They appeared to just be waiting to pull out their checkbooks.

I would love to answer or comment on any questions from authors.