Note: these articles will form the core of a new ebook by this title. Disclaimer: I do not work for, represent, or am associated with anyone who works or represents the sites or products I've listed below. I'm not getting any fees for listing them here. Any company names, trademarks, etc, are the property of the respective company.
What you should have now are the following items, if you've done all the steps in this book: the original book document file, a print version document file, a PDF version document file, a PDF ebook, an EPUB ebook, a MOBI ebook, and your book on sale at Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Smashwords, once the book has passed the Professional Status and been assigned an ISBN, will distribute the book to other important retailers, most notably Apple and Kobo. You should also have a good 600 by around 1000 pixel-sized front cover graphic you can use for many promotional purposes.
So now that you have these various ebook versions of your book, what do you do with them? The obvious answer is to sell them. But there are other options. Let's look at a few here.
Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
How to Make an Ebook: Step 3 - Creating the PDF Ebook
This series will eventually become an ebook I'll make available for sale once we complete the chapters and I can make time to edit them. Visit the chapter list if you want to read the prior steps. If you appreciate my efforts and find them useful, please consider a donation (top, right) to aid the continued work on this book. Thank you.
Now that we have the text of the file properly formatted, and the cover ready to go, we are ready to start creating ebooks. The first one we want to work with is the standard ebook format, the PDF. The acronym stands for "Portable Document Format," and has become the most common way to share documents on the Internet. The cool thing about PDFs is they most closely resemble a printed book. That means they can usually display graphics and other elements that are generally harder for other ebook formats to handle. But that is also their downside as well. Because they are more "static" in format, they are harder to read on smaller devices like cell phones, and even on tablets are not ideal. Computer screens make the easiest reading device for these files.
But of all the formats, it is the one most anyone can open and read as the Adobe Reader software is free to download and the format is universally used across all platforms: Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It is hard to find someone who can't open a PDF file. Because of that, it is a good format to have on hand and sell from your website.
And even if you don't plan on creating a PDF ebook, you'll need to do some of the items in this step to prep your ebook for the rest. I'll let you know when to skip onto the next step.
Now that we have the text of the file properly formatted, and the cover ready to go, we are ready to start creating ebooks. The first one we want to work with is the standard ebook format, the PDF. The acronym stands for "Portable Document Format," and has become the most common way to share documents on the Internet. The cool thing about PDFs is they most closely resemble a printed book. That means they can usually display graphics and other elements that are generally harder for other ebook formats to handle. But that is also their downside as well. Because they are more "static" in format, they are harder to read on smaller devices like cell phones, and even on tablets are not ideal. Computer screens make the easiest reading device for these files.
But of all the formats, it is the one most anyone can open and read as the Adobe Reader software is free to download and the format is universally used across all platforms: Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It is hard to find someone who can't open a PDF file. Because of that, it is a good format to have on hand and sell from your website.
And even if you don't plan on creating a PDF ebook, you'll need to do some of the items in this step to prep your ebook for the rest. I'll let you know when to skip onto the next step.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
How to Make an Ebook: Step 2 - Creating the Cover, Part 2
This series will eventually become an ebook I'll make available for sale once we complete the chapters and I can make time to edit them. Visit the chapter list if you want to read the prior steps. If you appreciate my efforts and find them useful, please consider a donation (top, right) to aid the continued work on this book. Thank you.
Now that we have our cover art in place, and we know what we're going to do with the text and title, we can start putting the cover together and experimenting. If you only have the front ebook cover with no plans to create a print cover in the future, you can skip the next set of instructions. If you have a full-sized print book cover art, you'll need to designate the part you want to work on for an ebook.
Placing the Text on the Page
Now that we have our cover art in place, and we know what we're going to do with the text and title, we can start putting the cover together and experimenting. If you only have the front ebook cover with no plans to create a print cover in the future, you can skip the next set of instructions. If you have a full-sized print book cover art, you'll need to designate the part you want to work on for an ebook.
Monday, September 5, 2011
How to Make an Ebook: Step 1 – Creating the Source File
This series will eventually become an ebook I'll make available for sale once we complete the chapters and I can make time to edit them. If you appreciate my efforts and find them useful, please consider a donation (top, right) to aid the continued work on this book. Thank you.
The most time intensive task in creating ebooks is modifying the source file so that it will process correctly when creating ebooks. Your source file is generally the file you use to initially write your document in, and/or the text containing the print version of the book if you have one. However, there are a few things you can do when you first begin writing your work that can save you lots of time later. So pay close attention here, because this is the foundation that allows you to easy format a file for each type of publication, whether it be print, PDF, EPUB, or MOBI.
The most time intensive task in creating ebooks is modifying the source file so that it will process correctly when creating ebooks. Your source file is generally the file you use to initially write your document in, and/or the text containing the print version of the book if you have one. However, there are a few things you can do when you first begin writing your work that can save you lots of time later. So pay close attention here, because this is the foundation that allows you to easy format a file for each type of publication, whether it be print, PDF, EPUB, or MOBI.
Friday, September 2, 2011
How to Make an Ebook: Introduction
This series will eventually become an ebook I'll make available for sale once we complete the chapters and I can make time to edit them. If you appreciate my efforts and find them useful, please consider a donation (top, right) to aid the continued work on this book. Thank you.
As of this writing, it is obvious that ebooks will, at some point in the near future, overtake the sale of physical books. The trend accelerated during 2010, and all indications are that the movement has sped up to a road-runner pace during 2011. Publishers have been scrambling to lock down ebook rights on old contracts, while authors who retain those rights, have realized their old backlist is a new gold mine of potential income. More and more readers are buying ereaders like Amazon's Kindle, and Barnes and Noble's Nook, and the expectations for the future look bright for anyone who has hopped onto the ebook train.
As of this writing, it is obvious that ebooks will, at some point in the near future, overtake the sale of physical books. The trend accelerated during 2010, and all indications are that the movement has sped up to a road-runner pace during 2011. Publishers have been scrambling to lock down ebook rights on old contracts, while authors who retain those rights, have realized their old backlist is a new gold mine of potential income. More and more readers are buying ereaders like Amazon's Kindle, and Barnes and Noble's Nook, and the expectations for the future look bright for anyone who has hopped onto the ebook train.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
New GftW Column: Wading Through the Crap
My monthly column came up today at Grasping for the Wind. I explore one fallacy presented by Fr. Felton's article at the Wall Street Journal about the affect of indie publishing on finding good authors/books:
Wading Through the Crap
Be sure to comment at that blog or here, if you are so inclined. Thanks for checking in.
Wading Through the Crap
Be sure to comment at that blog or here, if you are so inclined. Thanks for checking in.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Ebooks outselling paperbacks!
At Amazon, at any rate. Which is still big news. Read the article at Mashable. It solidifies that the trend is moving toward ebooks even as paperback sales increase. And one could argue that paperback sales are increasing at Amazon because of the success with ebooks.
Amazon had a head start on ebooks, being the first to offer up a popular ereader along with a vast inventory of ebooks that have grown by leaps and bounds thanks to their innovation in allowing authors to turn it into a self-publishing platform. B&N only recently realized the wisdom of this and came out with their own method, but many months after Amazon's had already been in place.
Does this mean the paperback is going away? No, but this hearkens to the day when it will no longer be the primary method of reading a book. Yes, I know, everyone likes to feel and smell the paper in your hands. And there certainly are advantages in paperbacks and hardbacks over ebooks. That said, there are massive advantages ebooks have over paperbacks, and the generations growing up now are used to reading on cell phones, texting, and using ereaders. They aren't going to care as much for the smell of a new book. In fact, reading a paperback will be something of a "just to experience it" than how they want to read a book.
And to a large degree, I'm already in that camp. I'd rather read on my cell phone than hold up a heavy book, trying to keep the pages separated with one hand while I drink with the other, and have to set down my drink just to turn the page, when with my cell phone I just reach my thumb over and tap on the screen. Easy, convenient, and a whole library of books on my hip, ready for me to read when I find a spare moment to do so.
If a fifty-year old guy like me is already hooked, can you imagine how many of the younger ones who don't have the same nostalgia for holding a paperback in their hands?
The trend is obvious now. And there are many publishers and retailers scrambling to position themselves. Understandable since this warning had been going for years and it never came. Well, now it's here. You're either taking advantage of it or your not. Gone are the days when authors and publishers can afford to ignore ebooks. Because if you are, you're missing a big segment of the book-buying population.
Amazon had a head start on ebooks, being the first to offer up a popular ereader along with a vast inventory of ebooks that have grown by leaps and bounds thanks to their innovation in allowing authors to turn it into a self-publishing platform. B&N only recently realized the wisdom of this and came out with their own method, but many months after Amazon's had already been in place.
Does this mean the paperback is going away? No, but this hearkens to the day when it will no longer be the primary method of reading a book. Yes, I know, everyone likes to feel and smell the paper in your hands. And there certainly are advantages in paperbacks and hardbacks over ebooks. That said, there are massive advantages ebooks have over paperbacks, and the generations growing up now are used to reading on cell phones, texting, and using ereaders. They aren't going to care as much for the smell of a new book. In fact, reading a paperback will be something of a "just to experience it" than how they want to read a book.
And to a large degree, I'm already in that camp. I'd rather read on my cell phone than hold up a heavy book, trying to keep the pages separated with one hand while I drink with the other, and have to set down my drink just to turn the page, when with my cell phone I just reach my thumb over and tap on the screen. Easy, convenient, and a whole library of books on my hip, ready for me to read when I find a spare moment to do so.
If a fifty-year old guy like me is already hooked, can you imagine how many of the younger ones who don't have the same nostalgia for holding a paperback in their hands?
The trend is obvious now. And there are many publishers and retailers scrambling to position themselves. Understandable since this warning had been going for years and it never came. Well, now it's here. You're either taking advantage of it or your not. Gone are the days when authors and publishers can afford to ignore ebooks. Because if you are, you're missing a big segment of the book-buying population.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Kindle Enters the Lending Market
If you haven't heard, Amazon has put into place a means by which ebooks purchased through Amazon on the Kindle can be loaned out to other users, in a means similar to Barnes & Noble's Nook. It was one of the main advantages that the Nook had over the Kindle. But the publisher of the ebook has to allow it to be lendable. Something I don't see most publishers choosing not to do.
With Nook growing in market share, Amazon seeks to take away one of the main reasons the customer might choose a Nook over a Kindle. Meanwhile, the recent opening of Barnes & Noble's PubIt service seeks to wedge into the growing ebook market by offering a service similar to Amazon's Digital Text Platform, where publishers and authors can publish ebooks and sell directly on Barnes & Noble's site. An obvious move to grow their ebook inventory to offset one of Amazon's biggest advantages in offering the Kindle: the biggest inventory of ebooks available.
Problem is, Amazon is so far ahead on the curve here, that it will be an uphill battle for B&N to catch up. Not impossible, mind you, but still they are behind Amazon on this by several years. It has only been in the last year when it became painfully obvious how fast the ebook market was growing, that they have pushed to get these features into place. But while they are rushing to catch the ebook wave before it gets away from them, Amazon is already surfing on top.
But lending is an important feature which should be expanded on and grow. Why? Because it will help cut into piracy of ebooks. Piracy will always be with us, but one of the reasons some give why they should be free to give a copy of an ebook to someone else is that libraries share their books, and people loan out their books, or sell them used, all the time. This is no different.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is very different. If I take my copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and let a friend borrow it, and then the next day decide I want to read it...guess what? I don't have the copy. Because I have loaned out the copy I purchased, I no longer have it in my possession to read. I didn't run to Kinkos and have them make a copy, then give it to my friend. That would be breaking copyright law. And if I decide I'll go check out the book at my library, I may find that someone else has that copy of the book checked out, and I can't use it. Why? Because the copy that the library purchased can only be in one hand at a time. The library doesn't make a copy of each book to give to borrowers.
As I've mentioned before, copyright means who has the legal right to make a copy of a work. When I loan out a copy I have, I'm not making another copy of it, thus breaking no copyright law. However, when I loan out a copy of an ebook, what I usually would do is to make a copy of that book onto that person's device. In order to avoid breaking copyright law, I then have to delete my copy from my device so that there is only one copy. But few bother with that last step. They may fear not getting the copy back. Or they may fear the person could lose it, and it would be gone (much like a real book). So it is easier to leave your own copy on your device. Maybe you won't read it, but the reality is you've broken copyright law by making a copy of a book without permission.
The lending function solves this dilemma for the person who wants to be legal, but generally isn't for the above reasons. Because even if you loan a digital book out and delete the copy off your hard drive, when you get it back, you have no way to control whether the other person has deleted their copy, and most likely they haven't. With this lending function, not only does it insure that you keep the ownership of that copy, not only does it allow you to loan out a book and not break copyright law since you can't use that book while it is loaned out, not only does it insure that after the predetermined time is up, you'll get use of the book back, but it insures that the person who received the loaned book will no longer have access to it, so they don't break copyright law either.
This will help reduce what I might call incidental piracy. The person isn't wanting or trying to break copyright law, but does so in an attempt to loan a book to someone. But they aren't posting the copy on the Internet for the world to download. It isn't overt piracy. Most who commit incidental piracy aren't intending to break copyright law and will welcome a means whereby they can loan out books without worrying about breaking the law.
Adding the vast number of Kindle users to the army of those available to lend books will speed up the process of making this a standard feature on ebooks. Libraries could benefit from this greatly, by being able to lend out ebooks. Everyone benefits from this functionality. Kudos to Amazon for putting this into place, and big kudos goes to Barnes & Noble for introducing this function on the Nook and so forcing folks like Amazon to adopt this as a standard feature.
Have you needed to lend out an ebook to someone? If so, how did you do it?
With Nook growing in market share, Amazon seeks to take away one of the main reasons the customer might choose a Nook over a Kindle. Meanwhile, the recent opening of Barnes & Noble's PubIt service seeks to wedge into the growing ebook market by offering a service similar to Amazon's Digital Text Platform, where publishers and authors can publish ebooks and sell directly on Barnes & Noble's site. An obvious move to grow their ebook inventory to offset one of Amazon's biggest advantages in offering the Kindle: the biggest inventory of ebooks available.
Problem is, Amazon is so far ahead on the curve here, that it will be an uphill battle for B&N to catch up. Not impossible, mind you, but still they are behind Amazon on this by several years. It has only been in the last year when it became painfully obvious how fast the ebook market was growing, that they have pushed to get these features into place. But while they are rushing to catch the ebook wave before it gets away from them, Amazon is already surfing on top.
But lending is an important feature which should be expanded on and grow. Why? Because it will help cut into piracy of ebooks. Piracy will always be with us, but one of the reasons some give why they should be free to give a copy of an ebook to someone else is that libraries share their books, and people loan out their books, or sell them used, all the time. This is no different.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is very different. If I take my copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and let a friend borrow it, and then the next day decide I want to read it...guess what? I don't have the copy. Because I have loaned out the copy I purchased, I no longer have it in my possession to read. I didn't run to Kinkos and have them make a copy, then give it to my friend. That would be breaking copyright law. And if I decide I'll go check out the book at my library, I may find that someone else has that copy of the book checked out, and I can't use it. Why? Because the copy that the library purchased can only be in one hand at a time. The library doesn't make a copy of each book to give to borrowers.
As I've mentioned before, copyright means who has the legal right to make a copy of a work. When I loan out a copy I have, I'm not making another copy of it, thus breaking no copyright law. However, when I loan out a copy of an ebook, what I usually would do is to make a copy of that book onto that person's device. In order to avoid breaking copyright law, I then have to delete my copy from my device so that there is only one copy. But few bother with that last step. They may fear not getting the copy back. Or they may fear the person could lose it, and it would be gone (much like a real book). So it is easier to leave your own copy on your device. Maybe you won't read it, but the reality is you've broken copyright law by making a copy of a book without permission.
The lending function solves this dilemma for the person who wants to be legal, but generally isn't for the above reasons. Because even if you loan a digital book out and delete the copy off your hard drive, when you get it back, you have no way to control whether the other person has deleted their copy, and most likely they haven't. With this lending function, not only does it insure that you keep the ownership of that copy, not only does it allow you to loan out a book and not break copyright law since you can't use that book while it is loaned out, not only does it insure that after the predetermined time is up, you'll get use of the book back, but it insures that the person who received the loaned book will no longer have access to it, so they don't break copyright law either.
This will help reduce what I might call incidental piracy. The person isn't wanting or trying to break copyright law, but does so in an attempt to loan a book to someone. But they aren't posting the copy on the Internet for the world to download. It isn't overt piracy. Most who commit incidental piracy aren't intending to break copyright law and will welcome a means whereby they can loan out books without worrying about breaking the law.
Adding the vast number of Kindle users to the army of those available to lend books will speed up the process of making this a standard feature on ebooks. Libraries could benefit from this greatly, by being able to lend out ebooks. Everyone benefits from this functionality. Kudos to Amazon for putting this into place, and big kudos goes to Barnes & Noble for introducing this function on the Nook and so forcing folks like Amazon to adopt this as a standard feature.
Have you needed to lend out an ebook to someone? If so, how did you do it?
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