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Brilliant website design and why it’s so important for authors. James mentions some of her favorite authors who have ugly and terrible websites. BUT if the author is established, it doesn’t matter. New authors don’t have this luxury. We have to stand out in the market. We have competition. The author website is a way to connect. It’s critical to make a good impression and a personal connection. You can only do this through your web presence and social media. Bring them back to reading your work, so they will read your books, enjoy them and tell their friends. Chris Guillebeau, author of the recent $100 Startup tells how it was easy for him to get a book deal as he had an established platform online. Read more in James’ guest article - Is your website hurting your writing?

A bad choice of colors can kill first impressions.

A mystery might be greys and blacks, whereas a go-getting kickass non-fiction book might be red and modern white.

EBooks accounted for 6.4% of all publishing in 2010, according to the American Association of Publishers, and 114 million electronic books were sold last year.

EBook lending is growing at a fast pace at the New York Public Library. The number of downloads of electronic books on the library's website grew by 81% in the last 12 months

why would someone pay for an eBook if they can download it free from a library's website?

Unless bookstores can not only acknowledge their role as beacons of culture, but really embrace that role and market themselves as such—as long as they try in vain to compete with one of the world’s largest retailers at its own game—they will slowly lose ground as they steadily morph into increasingly bizarre hybrids of book-music stores, bookstore-cafes, and bookstore–tapas restaurants, until they simply become businesses that sell the latest quirky breakout novel on the side to customers who’d rather pay $15 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee than for a book.

Here in the Boston area, two bookstores have managed to not only survive but thrive: the Harvard Bookstore (not affiliated with Harvard University) in Cambridge and Brookline Booksmith in Brookline.

they also sell a great selection of used titles at lower prices.