zen ways, amazon ways

2 links from this week - both about topics that square my days. the first is about structuring ones day, the second about book distribution:

7 great ways to end the day
#5 and #4 spoke to me - this idea to take some time at the end of a day to think ahead, and to structure the next day in mind. make a map for it, a sketch that gets those floating thoughts and to-dos on paper. it works for me, but often i forget about it with all the things going on. i guess i will add a "next day" note at bottom of the page for the day.

people think if a book is at Amazon..
over at HTML Giant, an interesting thread about the whole theme of book publication / distribution/ ISBN / ordering and stuff.

i included a comment, too, it's somewhere around #60, here a copy+paste with an addition:

my 2 cents (or: euros)
i’m living “abroad” of english books (in germany) – and i’m not sure how they can do this, but amazon manages to ship US / UK books here without charging anything extra. plus, in germany, amazon delivers books for free. even if it’s just a 4 Euro book – it’s one of their major sale arguments here, and indeed makes abroad books easier to access and order.

--addition: another, probably related difference: in German, there is a "Buchpreisbindung" - a "book price binding". this means, distributors are required to stick to the publisher's price, and can't discount books. this regulation was put up to protect books as cultural goods, they also come with a lower taxing, and there are special mailing tarifs for books. this also means that Amazon (and other big retailers) can't use discount as a sales strategy. that's why they probably invest in free orders, as an alternative sales strategy.

about getting small press books into Amazon with ISBN — it seems there is a way to get an extra ISBN-option via one of the Print-on-Demand-services (Lulu), which then makes the books accessible through Amazon (that’s unfortunatelty Amazon.com only, i guess it’s a deal between Lulu and Amazon.com). the most interesting fact about this extra-ISBN-option: it’s supposed to be free of charge, while the normal ISBN is 75$. it’s coming with a fun list of requirements and how-to-do this, though: link.

the free ISBN option is listed in #5:
"If you want a Lulu ISBN, click on the ‘Get a free ISBN from Lulu.com’ option."

i am currently checking this out and testing this for blueprintpress, will see how this works in reality. if this works, it might be an interesting option to make small press books available to a wider audience (meaning: those readers who generally order at amazon, and are hesitant to order anywhere else.)

-- update: CreateSpace--
seems there is a second option, a print-on-demand service directly organized by Amazon, offering the free ISBN for Amazon.com, too, and offering better percentages: CreateSpace.

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