Book promotion and self-publishing.

As a book publicist, I'm fielding a whole lot of questions about book publishing these days. People seem to understand that, while landing a publishing contract with a mainstream publisher is still the Holy Grail, it's also possible to self publish without stigmatizing the book project -- and while enjoying all the benefits of publishing a book. A self-published book, of course, can serve as a calling card, help disseminate messages, build credibility -- and, perhaps, even generate some revenue, over time, given a successful book promotion campaign.

The funny thing is that, as a book publicist, I have learned that self-published books have become more and more legitimate for the past, oh, five to ten years. These days, I don't see much of a difference in the media's response to a self-published book and their response to a traditionally-published book. As long as a self-published book enjoys national distribution, and as long as it's professionally edited and competently produced, it enjoys as much respect as a traditionally-published book.

I'm also delighted to find new ways to self-publish books through trusted venues, and I'm especially pleased to pass along this opportunity. The online version of Barnes and Noble has created PubIt! to allow all authors (and self-publishers) to make their ebooks available for purchase online at BN.com. Read about the official launch of PubIt!, and find the links you'll need to self-publish your own ebook via PubIt!, at Publishers Weekly's site. For me, one of the best pieces of news is that Adobe's InDesign now lets you convert your file to the .PUB format which is exactly what PubIt! requires.

And, yes, you can launch a successful book promotion campaign that revolves around an ebook. You have to be a bit creative, since your ebook's book publicity campaign probably won't include book signings or book reviews. But you have every reason to expect that, as an expert in your field, you can garner interview opportunities using your ebook (and a solid media kit) to establish your credibility.

It looks as though PubIt! is also planning a service that will let authors self-publish traditionally-printed books, too, in the near future. I gather that this upcoming service (if, indeed, it does come up) will go head-to-head with Amazon's CreateSpace service. (Note that Amazon, too, lets authors self-publish their ebooks very easily, too, as long as it's in the Kindle format. And, fortunately, there's a new plug-in for InDesign that can convert an Adobe file into the format required for a Kindle. How cool is that?)

Kudos to BN.com and to Amazon for turning experts with books to write into authors with published book. And how exciting for this book publicist to be able to venture into the new world of book promotion for authors who publish directly to the bookselling streams -- and bypass the traditional publishing channels that used to have the power to defeat would-be authors before their words were even set to paper.

An off-the-wall promotion campaign by Amazon.

Here's an off-the-wall promotion campaign by Amazon: order a Kindle, and if you don't like it, Amazon will refund your money. In other words, if you buy the Amazon Kindle and then hate it, you may have it for free. Huh.

You might have received this odd offer, but then again, you might not have. (This book publicist and frequent Amazon book buyer did not receive the offer.)

I heard about the Kindle promotion campaign that Amazon is apparently running at TechCrunch. I wonder whether anyone else thinks the offer to refund a dissatisfied Kindle buyer's money is as odd as I do. (TechCrunch points out that Amazon isn't making it easy for a dissatisfied Kindle buyer to get that refund, which doesn't surprise me.)

As someone who hopes to buy an ebook reader as soon as the format wars end (or, at least, come to a natural pause), I was hoping to see a different Kindle promotion -- say, agree to buy X number of books through Amazon and receive a free (or vastly discounted) Kindle. It was a promotional offer of that nature that finally pushed me over the edge when I considered buying a DVD player, so I'm confident that a Kindle promotion that's tied into a book-buying obligation would be a solid promotional ploy for Amazon to consider.

But who am I telling? I'm sure Amazon has already considered that idea, and uncomfortable with it, for now.

Well, okay. While Amazon is waiting, we'll see what other types of ebook readers are brought to the table...and we'll (or, at least, I will) spend the time considering which type of ebook reader I'd actually prefer.

Another chance to have a bestselling book.

If your book hasn't become a New York Times Bestseller yet, or even scored a "number one in its category ranking" on Amazon, don't fret. Your book still has another chance to make it on a prestigious bestseller list -- as long as your book is an ebook that's available for sale on Amazon for the Kindle.

Yes. USA Today has just announced that the USA Today best-selling books list it compiles will now include Kindle's ebook sales.

With that, USA Today Best-Selling Books List becomes the first major book bestseller list to include ebooks in its rankings. So what does that mean for publishers and authors? Well, it's no longer only about book promotion, web 2.0 book marketing, book clubs, social networking, and word-of-mouth publicity. It's also about choosing to publish your book in Kindle's proprietary ebook format so that you can get in the game.

Which is going to get a bit tricky, especially now that Barnes and Noble is offering its own ebook reader to compete with its Kindle, while Sony is still out there with its ebook reader, and no one knows exactly how this whole ebook reader competition will shake out, and readers have to be at least somewhat reluctant to invest in either a Kindle or books that are published in Amazon's proprietary format until the dust settles.

So who knows how many readers are buying Kindles or ebooks that are formatted for Kindles? But, while USA Today is including Kindles' ebooks in its rankings, you still have a chance to format your book as an ebook that's formatted for a Kindle and take your best shot at making USA Today's Best-Selling Books List.

It sure beats trying to figure out how to get to be Amazon's number one bestselling book (if only for an hour or two) or how to convince your publisher to push you to the top of another bestseller list the conventional way -- by selling your book to bricks-and-mortar bookstores, and then hoping that book promotion, web 2.0 book marketing, book clubs, and other book publicity efforts will all combine to drive readers to the bookstores to buy your book.

Today, we're seeing Kindle sales directly effect rankings on a major bestseller list. Tomorrow, who knows? But let's take note of what's happening today...since everything related to the publishing industry seems to change every hour, on the hour these days!

Go, Google, go!

Go, Google, go! Work out deals with publishers to sell digital versions of their books, and make them compatible with as many devices as possible. We knew Amazon (or Sony, for that matter) wouldn't have the exclusive right to sell ebooks. The more companies that jump into this space, the better, from the consumer's perspective -- and I'm a consumer as much as a book publicist.

I'm lusting after an electronic device that will let me read as many digital books and periodicals as I want, as comfortably as I'd like. Yes, I know: the old-fashioned technology (the book, the magazine, and the newspaper) still works, and those tried-and-true gadgets never ran out of batteries or experienced crashes. But, then again, who has all the shelf space she wants to hold every coveted book and periodical? Who has the budget to purchase them all at retails (or even at Amazon) prices? Who feels like carrying them in briefcases or suitcases -- or even in a beach bag (sorry, but suntan lotion, my wallet, and my keys still have to come first).

So I'd very much like to add an ebook reader to my array of choices, but I've been reluctant to do so before "the dust settles." And, when the dust settles, I know it will settle because all of Amazon (and Sony's) competitors will have trotted out their offerings, and will either blow away the current devices or educated consumers about how it should have been done all along.

What all of this has to do with book promotion is anybody's guess. Someday, I imagine book publicist's will be emailing digital copies of books, rather than hard copies, to the media. But which format? For which devices? And when will this all come to pass?

I don't know, but I think Google's entry into the fray has brought the ebook revolution another step closer.

Amazon's Kindle -- harrumph.

I've been pumped to buy an Amazon Kindle, or whatever the state-of-the-art ebook reader turns out to be once the publishing and technology dust settles. But stories like this one in today's New York Times make me wonder: is the technology going to enhance our enjoyment of books and other things in print, or will it just be another source of irritation?

It turns out that the Kindle, which has that text-to-voice feature, doesn't know how to pronounce the name of the United States president. It's also not clear about how to pronounce the name of Boston's basketball team (it's thinking "Celtics," with a hard C, instead of "Celtics," with a soft C).

Speaking of irritants: Look, if I want to mispronounce words, I can do it on my own. I don't need the help of an ebook reader. I accept the fact that my Garmin GPS unit, which also is equipped with that text-to-voice feature, can't articulate street names as clearly as I'd like. But, then, I use my GPS unit to do that which I cannot -- namely, to (usually) get me from point A to point B without taking me through the Amazon rainforest. But reading? I've been doing that for myself since I was about five years old. And, as long as my eyesight holds out, I expect I'll be doing it for myself as long as I live. So, if the Kindle (or any ebook reader) is going to lend an electronic voice to the conversation, it has to do a better job than to decide that "Barack" rhymes with "black" and "Obama" rhymes with "Alabama." If there's a person or place in the news and I'm seriously concerned about mispronouncing it -- and if my radio and my television set break simultaneously, and I don't have access to a computer -- then I can see asking the Kindle to tell me how to pronounce, say, Thomas Cholmondeley or Abu Ghraib. If the voice-to-text technology is going to help me get lost in the linguistic equivalent of the Amazon rainforest, then I don't need it.

And I'm not sure I'd be excited about paying for that which I don't need.

So fix the technology, Amazon (and other ebook vendors), or you're just giving this book publicist an excuse to sit on the sidelines of the emerging technology for an even longer period of time. I'm excited about the new technology . . . now you just have to show me that the whole package really works, and you'll have yourself a new customer.