Friday, October 15, 2010

E-Book Publishing and e-book Readers

E-Book Publishing and e-book Readers
(c) 2010, Mona Leeson Vanek

With e-Books, or electronic publishing, you have the potential of reaching the largest possible audience. And you can publish in more than one format.
  • Some people like to print out e-books; PDF would obviously work best for them.
  • Some people love reading books in LIT format on their Pocket PC phone
  • They can take a dozen (or a hundred) books with them anywhere in their pocket;
  • It's especially great when traveling.
 The Microsoft Reader software is available for Windows or Windows Mobile at http://www.microsoft.com/reader/ and it also has a text-to-speech package so the books can be easily accessed by the blind.

You can create LIT files with the ReaderWorks software at http://tinyurl.com/343ayaa.

Advantages are that e-books apparently go on forever. They can remain available and continue to sell, sometimes once a month, sometimes zero for several months, and occasionally as many as 50 a month. Author's get royalties (often not much but some) and someone is reading their work.

However, while you're mulling your options, read Liz Castro's: EPUB Straight to the Point, http://tinyurl.com/2br2b2f posted at The Book Designer, http://www.thebookdesigner.com/.

e-Books are reviewed by ForeWord Reviews, http://www.forewordreviews.com/. Contact Jennifer Szunko, Director of Clarion Review Services, jennifer@forewordreviews.com. They offer book reviews anytime, anywhere and anyone can Download their new iPhone App, http://tinyurl.com/3y9gqrn.

Try first to get an agent to handle your work. Then try to sell it directly to a publisher. After both of those efforts fail, choose (carefully) an e-book publisher.

However, every few months new developments must be considered. News reports abound that Amazon.com plans to stop offering e-books in Microsoft Reader or Adobe e-formats and will offer e-books only in Kindle or Mobipocket formats. Amazon owns the Kindle and Mobipocket.

A major problem with electronic publishing has surfaced recently -- it can be tied to a format which can only be read by proprietary hardware or software. Only one of the formats mentioned --- Adobe --- is an open format which can be read without buying special hardware or software, and that is not one which Amazon is going to offer.
"In ten years time, it is very likely neither Kindle nor Mobipocket will be available, or if they are available will use the same format. Nor is it likely that today's devices will still work that long into the future: they break down, they get dropped, they get lost. Where does that leave readers who have bought books in these formats? Or writers whose work has been published in these formats?" (Internet source.)
It is imperative to keep abreast of the rapid changes taking place in the marketplace.

In July 2010, Newsweek published this article by Isia Jasiewicz, http://tinyurl.com/2e4mgrl.

Aug. 4, 2010, Spiegel Online International published an interesting interview with the (German) CEO of Random House as to the future of print and e-books and the publishing industry,
Part 1, http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,709760,00.html
Part 2, http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,709760-2,00.html
Part 3,  http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,709760-3,00.html.

It's difficult to keep abreast of the rapid changes in the publishing industry, but it's imperative for every writer who wants to succeed.  Read more in Chapter 18 - Book Publishing: http://tinyurl.com/38d98qf.
End

Excerpt from Advice From The Pros, http://tinyurl.com/2vbaffm




3 comments:

Katherine Kay said...

This is where I meant to put this comment, not above. (;

Thank you for the helpful e-book info & links, Mona. I like the idea of selling an ebook I write/edit on my own website or blog and using Clickbank. Amazon Kindle, Microsoft reader, MobiPocket etc offer more distribution and exposure. Do you think publishing on those formats limits our copyright or rights to publish anywhere else?

www.katherinekay.com/blog

* * * * * * * * * * Mona * * Leeson Vanek said...

Thanks for the question Katherine. Clive Warner, www.citiria.com/citiriapublishing, explained that if a book is published on Kindle (or a similar digital only format) the author's copyrights and right to reprint elsewhere can be affected. He explained, "It's more complicated because EBooks can be apps - and a programming team has to make the app. Increasingly, the writer may be only one part of a team making a 'product'."

Katherine Kay said...

I did a little research on this tonight -- and wrote a few things in my blog at www.katherinekay.com