I want my ebooks to look great but I don't want the technical hassle of having to care about formatting issues. So when I discovered Vellum, I quickly became a convert and then an evangelist! Today I get my geek on with Brad Andalman. In the intro, I go into some pertinent publishing news: Kobo has become Tolino's tech partner, which makes it a much bigger player in the growing German ebook market; Amazon is opening a bookstore in New York City; while Barnes & Noble reported a 9% decline in sales over the holiday period, there's discussion on the impact of the All Romance Ebooks closure, and once again, I talk about the importance of multiple streams of income, as well as multi-currency/multi-country income in order to weather the changes undoubtedly ahead and hedge against potential economic changes. I also discussed Jane Friedman's post on some things authors should know, including the reports that Data Guy will be sharing at Digital Book World in the US adult fiction: close to 45 percent of all books purchased in the US in 2016 were digital, sales in the US are nearly 71 percent digital with 30 percent of all US adult fiction book purchases are by self-published authors. The US is several years ahead of the other book markets. What will it mean for the rest of the world when it follows the same model? What will it mean for your author business? The US is several years ahead of the other book markets. What will it mean for the rest of the world when it follows the same model? What will it mean for your author business? I also talk about the potential ramifications of there being no blockbuster for publishing in 2016 – are we (finally) in the long tail model? I also gave a personal update on my projects, including asking for your thoughts about what kind of journal I should be creating. Please add your thoughts here. Plus, if you want to plan for success in 2017, check out my free webinar replay with my tips for how you can make the most of your time in order to achieve your creative goals. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. Brad Andalman is the co-founder of 180g which has produced the incredible formatting tool of Vellum. And before 180g, Brad worked at Pixar Animation Studios. You can listen above or