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The UNESCO Treaty of 1972, of which Mexico and all Central American countries are signatories, prohibits the exportation of “cultural patrimony”, any culturally significant pottery or art object. Anything that can be proven to have been acquired before 1972 is a legally acquired object, however the possession of any item exported from its native country after that time is illegal to buy, own or possess and offenders can be dealt with severely. In some countries, Honduras for example, it is illegal for even native citizens to own or possess original Mayan artifacts.

Before even considering buying Mayan art there are a few terms with which you must be very familiar:

ORIGINAL: These are items hand-made by Mayans in pre-historical times, almost always Pre-Columbian and usually excavated from a known archaeological site. Any legitimate original item will have legal provenance showing its pre-1972 acquisition.

REPLICA: These are made in the same way as originals, using original materials and pigments and many times made in the same location by Mayan descendants. These are made to be as near in appearance to originals as possible, sometimes an exact copy, but are NOT sold as original. Many of these are museum quality and stunningly beautiful, but there is no claim from the seller of their authenticity.

REPRODUCTION: Reproductions are modern and little attempt is made to ensure the use of original materials, though many are very well made and quite beautiful. They are made in larger quantities than replicas and are marketed mostly to foreign tourists.

RENINISCENTS: These are low-end tourist “junk”. No attempt is made as to authenticity, merely something to bring home to remember a trip and may have the name of town or tourist attraction. These may be made in and imported from China or Taiwan.

FAKES: Herein lies the problem. Fakes are a deliberate attempt to cheat or swindle a buyer. The antiquities market, and especially the internet, is swimming in fakes. It has been estimated by knowledgeable collectors and museum curators that over ninety percent of online sales of “Pre-Columbian” Mayan art are fakes, sometimes involving the loss of thousands of dollars to the buyer. Determining if a piece is a fake is very difficult without the use of sophisticated and expensive atomic absorption or colorimetric equipment, and some have wound up in museums for years only to find out at a later date that they are not genuine.

A quick look at eBay, Amazon or other online auction sites will reveal dozens of offers of Pre-Columbian Mayan art. Asking prices range from hundreds to over ten thousand dollars. Few make any attempt to offer proof of authenticity other than their own online auction reputation. Anyone contemplating buying Mayan art that is represented as genuine should insist on serious legal provenance including sales receipts and bills of lading showing the items were imported prior to 1972. Not all auction sales are frauds or scam attempts by any means. Most are probably listed as genuine through ignorance by the seller of his item and of the law. There are a good many sellers, however, who make big money through deliberate swindles.

There are many replicas and reproductions of Mayan art that make fine displays and conversation pieces for the home of most anyone interested in the genre. Most any viewer would be hard pressed to know they were not a thousand years old. If, however, you insist on having only an authentic classic piece, insist also on proper legal provenance to avoid loss of a lot of money and the possibility of a legal challenge. With proper vigilance it is still possible to have a magnificent original piece of Classic Mayan art.

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Amazon is one of the most trusted online businesses. As leaders in the field on internet retailing, Amazon has the e-commerce technology and the traffic to sell your products to a global market. If you’re an internet marketing newbie, quickly read through following features that Amazon offers for product sales.

Amazon Features

To give you a feel for the site, let us first take a look at the basic features offered by Amazon. Feel free to visit the site right now – do a search for any product and see what appears on your screen.

Features to notice:

• Results always contain a professional photo or some sort of graphic of the product.
• The price is made visible and it is combined with an offer, i.e. free shipping. Notice how the amount that is saved off of retail is made visible. This is an established advertising strategy – Amazon is telling people what the product is worth and that it´s presently selling for less than the amount that it is worth.
• Amazon mentions the number of items that are in stock and the estimated time that the product will take to get to the customer. Shoppers are more inclined to buy an item when they are aware that the product’s quantity is limited. Time expectation is also a useful feature for most customers and sellers.
• Amazon makes use of Cross-Selling and Up Selling. This refers to a concept of selling that is based on product similarity or asking the customer if they would to purchase another product that compliments the first one that they bought i.e. when a customer considers one product; Amazon makes a mention of another product that might also interest the customer.
• A ‘Look Inside’ feature is offered to customers who are shopping for books. This life-like feature allows the customer to have a closer look at the book.
• Reviews – The ‘Editorial Review´ section describes the product in great detail.
  Amazon also allows customers to review a product. These reviews are usually reliable, fair and act like testimonials about the product. All kinds of feedback can be useful for the seller.
• Added Extras – Amazon includes various other types of cross-selling and interactive devices i.e. customer discussions, a Listamania feature, Wiki Info etc. All these extras can be used to create interest around specific products or topics.

What CAN and CAN’T be sold on Amazon

Amazon permits sellers to place their products in the following categories: Books, Music, DVD, Video/VHS, Automotive, Baby, Camera and Photo, Electronics, Everything Else, Health and Personal Care, Home and Garden, Musical Instruments, Office Products, Software, Sports & Outdoors, Tools and Hardware and Video Games.

Please note that you will need to get a prior authorization in order to sell in the following categories: Apparel, Beauty, Cell Phones and Accessories, Gourmet, Grocery, Jewelry & Watches, Personal Computers (in Electronics category), Shoes & Accessories and Toys & Games.

The following products cannot be sold on Amazon: Magazines and Newspapers, Adult Toys, Gift Cards and Gift Certificates, Guns and Ammunition, Photo Processing, Prescription Medication, and Tobacco and Alcohol.

How it all works:

• Registration

For you to start selling your product on Amazon, the first thing you need to do is register. This is a simple process that requires you to fill out a short online form to register as an Individual seller.

If you think that you will need to process more than 40 orders per month you should register as a Pro Merchant.

• Upload Product Inventory

Amazon has made it really simple for you to upload your product inventory. After your registration, you have three options for submitting information that is related to your product:

Option 1: Use the Add a Product feature on Seller Central to create one product at a time. If you are unfamiliar with Seller Central, all you need to know is that it is Web interface used to deal with all aspects of selling on Amazon.com. You can use this tool to add product information, make inventory updates and later on, handle orders as well as payments though it.

Option 2: Make use of the Seller Desktop. This is a free and user-friendly desktop application that you can use to add products in bulk or individually to your inventory.

Option 3: If you want to submit info about many products simultaneously, make use of the inventory files to create multiple products.

• Your Products get Spotted

By listing your products on Amazon, they reach millions of potential customers 24/7 – Amazon’s traffic, now also becomes your traffic.

• Your Product gets Purchased

Buying a product from Amazon is not only convenient, but also really simple and quick. Your product is easily purchased at the click of a mouse.

• Shipping

Essentially, you are in charge of shipping your product to its new owner. Amazon will notify you about the purchase via email when an order has been placed. All you have to do is, pack and ship your product to the customer.
If you would prefer not to handle this section you could opt for the Fulfillment by Amazon option.

• Money in Your Pocket

Amazon then does the payment to you via a direct deposit into your bank account. You will also be notified about this deposit via email as soon as your payment has been sent.

While we are on the subject of money, let me give you an outline of Fees involved in becoming a Seller on Amazon…

There are 2 major ‘seller’ packages that have been made available by Amazon.

If you are looking to sell only a few products or expect to have less than 40 orders placed per month, you would want to register as an Individual seller. The only fee involved here is a ‘per product sold’ fee of $0.99 – this means that you only pay $0.99 per product that you sell.

On the other hand, if you think that you will be selling much more than 40 products per month, you should sign up to be a Pro Merchant. Here you should expect to pay a standard monthly subscription fee of $39.99 as well as a minor referral and closing fee when your products sell. These fees are related to your products category.

Remember, for both selling options, there are no individual item listing fees and no credit card processing fees.

If you are new to e-commerce, you may be a bit concerned about the idea of doing financial transactions over the internet. Not to fear though- Amazon has developed a few handy features that may help set you mind as ease.

• Fraud Protection

Amazon offers its sellers a world-class payment fraud protection service. They have devised a system that is ridden with personalized notifications that tell you exactly what is going on with your orders and payments at any given time.

• Credit Card Facilities

Naturally, Amazon is licensed to perform secure transactions with most major credit card providers.

• A-to-z Guarantee Program

This program is particularly designed for the safety of the customer but it is important to be aware of a program of this nature as it has been created to establish a sense of business confidence between the customer, Amazon and you.

The A-to-z Guarantee Program has been fashioned to handle situations where a customer:

1) Never receives a product or
2) Receives a product that is different to what was ordered.

The customer is initially encouraged to contact you (the seller) personally if this type of product arises. If you cannot resolve the problem, the customer can then file an ‘A-to-z’ claim to Amazon. Amazon then sends you an email, which outlines the customer’s claim. You are requested to respond by mailing the order’s basic information and an outline of the fulfillment process. Amazon will then decide how the claim will be settled – this may result in you having to refund the customer.

So now that you know how to get yourself started, you need to learn a few tricks of the trade…

It’s all about the SALES, so what can you do to make sure that your products sell like hot cakes?

Tip 1) Keywords

Appropriate keywords are vital to high product sales over the internet. Keywords drive potential customers to your product, thus it is important to try to add product specific keywords to your Amazon product description as well as anywhere else that you may be writing about your product. If you want to get really high traffic from search engines, you might need to do a keyword phrase analysis of your main product. This can be done by using Google’s external keyword tool, or WordTracker’s free tool. It is essential that you choose suitable keywords, with the highest rankings.

Tip 2) Write about your Products

The more online content available about your product, the better it is for sales. It is important that you write interesting content that will appeal to your market, and make sure that it contains your product’s keywords. The next step is to publish this info all over the web. You can make use of the ‘Listamania’ or ‘So you’d like to%u2026guide’ features provide by Amazon, but you can also feel free to blog about your product or make use of social media sites for further product publicity i.e. make friends or start a group with people on Facebook who possibly have an interest in the type of product that you are selling.

Tip 3) Online Product Promotion Companies

Feel free to do a Google search to find a list of top product promotion companies. There are many companies available that will aggressively market your product online – with this type of external help; you won’t have to personally take on the marketing of your product. The only downside about making use of these types of companies is that most of their services require you to fork out a hefty bundle of cash.

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Editing your Amazon record

2-3 weeks after approving your proof, you will see your title appear as a record on Amazon.com in the US (inheriting the basic details that you entered when uploading to Lightning Source). LSI allocates a new “child” ISBN identifier to your title, which differs from the “parent” ISBN. Until recently, your eBook would also have appeared on Amazon.co.uk. However, Amazon have turned off eBook records on their UK site (pending the integration of their recent Mobipocket acquisition).

Your record will look pretty empty to begin with. There will be no cover art, very little descriptive data, no reviews and no capability to search inside the book. Don’t worry. All this data can be added directly via the Amazon site.

The first key step is to ensure that your basic data on Amazon is accurate by clicking on the “correct errors and omissions in this listing” link in the “feedback” section at the bottom of your record page. After logging in, you are presented with a choice of data to amend, including: (a) title, (b) author, (c) languages, (d) binding, (e) number of pages, (f) publication date and (g) format/edition. Once you have made your changes, you will be shown a summary; click on “submit update” to confirm. Please check you are happy with your author name; they may have picked up your full name from Nielsen Book Data for your parent ISBN record. If you don’t want the world to know your funky middle name, now is the time to amend it!

The second step is to add some descriptive context about your book, including a brief description, a biography of the author, a review from the publisher and transcripts of the inside flaps and back cover. Make sure you have handy (a) your publisher name and contact details and (b) the ISBN of the title you wish to amend. Then go to the Amazon Online Content Form in the UK or US.

Assuming the ISBN you entered matches Amazon’s catalogue, you will be passed to an input screen with a series of free-form boxes; where each box corresponds to a field in your Amazon record. You are encouraged to fill in as many of the boxes as you like and the boxes scroll down if you need a little extra space. You should not use any HTML in the boxes (as it won’t work in the way you would expect). Any existing content in any of these fields (e.g. picked up directly from Nielsen) will be over-written in the process. Keep it simple! For example, with the table of contents field, list each item in the table of contents on a line by itself. Remove page numbers, leader dots and other formatting.

Uploading cover art

To upload cover art, it is first necessary to sign up for an Amazon File Transfer Protocol (FTP) account. To obtain an Amazon FTP username and password, send an email to ftp-subs@amazon.com. Whilst it is possible to FTP from a browser, I have never found it very reliable and would recommend instead FTP Voyager (see software links in panel right). In FTP Voyager, set up a new session and type ftp.amazon.com in the site box. Enter your userid and password (freshly received from Amazon) in the appropriate boxes and Voyager is ready to use.

Amazon say on their website “experience has shown that customers are more comfortable purchasing products with accompanying images. Not only will posting cover art improve the look of your page, but it might also help your sales!” I recommend buying a second-hand copy of Adobe Photoshop (see panel right) to get truly professional results. Amazon requires images to be (a) in TIFF or JPEG format, (b) 72 dots per inch resolution, (c) minimum of 500 pixels on longest side, (d) 8 bits per channel sRGB mode. Do not use borders and name your file as the 10-digit parent ISBN (e.g. B000AMF66Q.JPG).

When you are ready to upload your image, click “connect” in FTP Voyager on the session you set up earlier. Once the command “LIST” has been successfully executed in the scripting box at the bottom of the screen (messages 150 and 226), you know you are connected. In the top window the directory will be: [ftp://ftp-1.amazon.com/catalogue/incoming]. Now you simply drag and drop the cover art file from the middle box (your PC directories) to the box at the top (the Amazon incoming directory).

Your image should appear on your Amazon page within 48 hours. Amazon advise that, should your image not appear within two to three business days, to check you have followed all the specifications for preparing and saving documents and images, then resubmit. There is no point in emailing Amazon, either with your image file attached or to chase it not appearing on the record. They will ignore such emails.

Search-inside-the-book

Authors used to upload interior art for their table of contents, first chapter, inside flap, or other textual content. Now, however, Amazon demand you join their search-inside-the-book (SITB) programme to do this. With SITB, customers can browse sample pages and do additional searches inside a particular book from the book record page itself. This is perfect if you want to confirm that the title is just what you’re looking for. All of this helps publishers and authors to sell more books.

To join SITB, in your role as publisher, you must first visit http://www.amazon.com/SITB and complete a Search Inside the Book agreement. Once you have signed the Publisher Participation Agreement and are accepted into the programme, you will be set up with a user account at Seller Central by a member of the Amazon team. Next, you will receive an invitation to join Seller Central, which you should accept. The Amazon team will then manually confirm the authenticity of the email you used to sign-up and activate your account.

To get started, sign-in at http://sellercentral.amazon.com and choose the “Search Inside the Book” tab on the main page. Make sure your PDF file follows Amazon’s rules, which are (a) turn security off, (b) embed all fonts, (c) minimum 150dpi for all images, (d) no crop marks. The filename is, again, based on the ISBN (e.g. B000AMF66Q.PDF) and the PDF must be a complete book that includes front and back covers. You have an advantage over traditional authors, who have to send Amazon a physical copy for the team to then scan page-by-page. As you can imagine, many publishers can’t be bothered and there is a huge backlog for Amazon to process.

Marketing & Promoting your book

Getting good reviews on your Amazon page is the most effective way to start. I do not advise “spoofing” reviews as this is unethical and could lead to your book being de-listed. Instead, include your email address towards the back of your book and invite your readers to contact you. When they do so (with positive feedback) reply politely and invite them to submit a review to Amazon, saying explicitly that this will help you drive sales. Include the review URL in your email, to help them out. You could even offer to reward them with a complimentary copy of your second edition (when available).

Outside Amazon, the best free way to promote your book is by submitting excerpts (or articles which build on your book) to article repositories (used by webmasters to source topical free content for their websites or ezines). Pick only sites with a Google PageRank of 5 or greater and submit only to relevant categories; you will soon find your articles scattered across the web and ranking well in search engine results. I can recommend eZinearticles; Ideamarketers and netterweb to get you started.

Most sites permit you to include both an author bio (“resource box”) and one keyword-rich anchor-text link in the body. Use these to make people aware that you are a book author, to name your book and perhaps to link to a page from which the reader can purchase your book (e.g. a page on your own site). You will be amazed by the jump in sales that a well-executed online articles campaign produces!

Blogs are becoming an ever more popular phenomenon on the web and many authors have established blogs as a way of staying in touch with their readers. Setting up a blog using Google’s Blogger is a simple and rewarding experience. By adding the same articles you are submitting to repositories (or simply keeping a diary of your recent thoughts on the topic of your books) you can attract more traffic than you might suspect from hungry, blog-loving search engines. Be sure to include an advert for your book in the side-bar, complete with a PayPal “buy now” button.

Managing & Tracking your earnings

You should not neglect your own log files or site statistics in seeking to understand the success of your eBook marketing strategy. For various reasons, data on hits, files, unique visitors and repeat visitors are of only marginal use. The key measure for you is referrer data, where the link a visitor clicked on to arrive at your site is counted as a referrer or referring site. By tracking the number of referrals each month that you get from each search engine (and comparing this to their respective market shares) you can get an idea of how your performance is improving over time.

Amazon Sales Rank (shown in your eBook record under “Product Details”, e.g. in Books: #202,125) measures how well items in the Amazon Catalogue are selling (where the lower the number, the higher the sales for that particular item). The calculation is based on Amazon sales; updated each hour to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold (including Marketplace). Recent sales are given higher weighting than the old. Monitor your sales rank over time against your competitors. The sales-rank-to-real-sales curve follows a logarithmic shape, whereby a book with an average rank of 1,000 or lower may sell over 100 copies a week, whilst one sale a week only would see you outside the top 500,000.

Your LSI Publisher Compensation Report gives a real-time tally of earnings and can be accessed by mousing-over the drop-down menu “My Account”, “financial information (view & pay), “publisher compensation”. In the form that comes up, select the most recent reporting period (e.g. March 2006) and put your author name in as surname, first name (e.g. Viney, David). Check LSI US (eBook only) then click on “display report on screen” to bring up the report.

Banking the proceeds

At the end of your first LSI reporting period, you will be due some US Dollar receipts (which you will receive 90 days later). You can opt for funds to be transferred into a US Dollar account directly or to be paid to you in the form of a cheque.

There are organisations in the US that can help non-US residents to set up a US-based US Dollar account but set-up and running costs can be high and the account tricky to use, by UK standards. I use Citibank in the UK, who do provide a US Dollar current account that supposedly clears in New York. However, in practice the clearance is via a three-step process and neither PayPal nor LSI will settle electronically into the account. For this reason, I get LSI to pay me by cheque and bank those by mail with Citibank.

For direct sales (via my own website) and Mobipocket & Lulu receipts, I take payment using PayPal. I could the convert my PayPal dollar balance into Sterling and transfer it to my Sterling account. However, to avoid charges, I prefer to leave the dollars in my PayPal account and use them to make personal purchases on eBay. If the pound ever reaches record lows against the dollar then I’ll have to rethink that plan!

Conclusions

Your most effective marketing strategy is based on a good quality Amazon record, with strong reviews, decent cover art and search-engine friendly description. Use a mixture of weblogs, sales ranks and compensation reports to monitor your success. Thick ahead about how you plan to bank your proceeds, to minimise charges.

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