eBook Readers
One of the most challenging aspects of self-publishing your own ebook is deciding on what format(s) to publish your ebook on.
The options abound.
As written previously in this blog, the dominant format today is Adobe's PDF.
For reasons that are waaay beyond me, the Mobipocket format is gaining steam.
This article discloses how the Cleveland, OH Public Library has added the Mobipocket format to their digital ebook library.
This MUST be a classic example of why you are not your own best judge of a market.
Why?
Because I have a hard enough time reading small print with my reading glasses on. Never in my life can I imagine using a cell phone or PDA to read an ebook or even parts of an ebook.
The movement of ebooks on portable devices, as I've previously reported, is very prevalent in Europe.
However, I believe the Cleveland Library, and others like them who are adding or expanding their digital ebook libraries are simply taking advantage of production and licensing deals they already have with Overdrive Systems, who has emerged as the dominant digital rights management platform and delivery vendor.
At any rate, good for them all! And their customers who may want such a tool.
I don't begrudge any of these organizations at all. I wish them best of luck. Just because I wouldn't personally use something doesn't make it unworthy.
The fact is: the more platforms, tools and systems to get our ebooks to market, the better.
Let this article be a possible warning to you, that you may want to consider adding a Mobipocket format of your ebook(s) to your offerings.
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Test, Test, Test
Many first-time ebook authors are not very technical, which is what attracts them to the Knowledge Download software system and hosting.
Since most authors are not technically oriented, they often overlook some very basic fundamentals in the "pre-launch" phase of building their websites. Namely:
Test everything!
I'm not going to take time here to outline each and every thing you should be testing and checking, but among the more basic testing tasks are:
- test your page titles and meta info
- test each and every link on your site manually
- test each email link
- test each form
- test every email address round trip
- test your site in Netscape and Internet Explorer
- test your ecommerce mechanisms
- test your autoresponders
Take nothing for granted. Why?
When visitors start rushing to your site due to your promotions efforts, the first thing you want them to notice is that everything works. Period.
If a visitor cannot see a graphic in their browser, you're done. Click. Off to another website or search engine they go.
Today's web user has very, very little patience or tolerance.
Be bold and go forth confidently. Do not let fear grab you and prevent you from launching and promoting (I've seen authors terrified nearing their first site launch and never get it done).
But be smart and test everything so your user has a quality experience.
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eBook Cover Graphics
I am often contacted by software developers and marketers who want me to promote their product or service. Usually the offerings have, at best, tangential benefits to my readers.
Recently I was approached by Jason Bradley, owner of Cover Software Pro.
I was very impressed by the graphics he sent me, and I have such a steady stream of requests from our authors that I decided to examine this one. What follows is a brief product review and analysis for your consideration.
Upon landing on the download page, I was presented with a welcome message, list of instructions and list of downloads. Upon reviewing all the information, in spite of the direction to view the video tutorials, I jumped straight to the written instructions.
After all, the value of a tool like Cover Software Pro must lay in the accuracy of written docs as well as the ease of use.
Before I go any further with the review, I should tell you that this product is a set of templates and Photoshop Action Scripts. Also, you must have Photoshop 6.0 or higher on your computer (PC or Mac). Lastly, I am, at best, a Photoshop novice. I have used it to create simple graphics. I find Photoshop itself a very complicated piece of software and not by any imagination, intuitive.
However, I have had some graphics professional friends of mine teach me to the point where my skill is today.
Jason's instructions were clear and easy to follow. He has nice screenshots that helped me find the exact button, link or action necessary to install and run his program.
The short version of my results? In 20 minutes, I created this sample eBook cover.
There is nothing like results to make a point.
Once you have entered your text, chosen your colors and images, you press one single button in Photoshop, and in less than a minute, your cover is completed.
After creating that simple ebook cover graphic, I went back and reviewed Jason's online video tutorials. These tutorials are fabulous. There is soooo much that Photoshop can do, but even the native Help files are pretty useless to a guy like me, because I have no idea what the names of imagery or effects are to search for in the PS Help file.
Jason's tutorials however, gave me quite a valuable step-by-step education and taught me far more than I would have expected. His tutorials utilize the popular Camtasia screen capture / audio recording and teaching toolset. I have used Camtasia in other projects myself, and find it a solid tool for delivering hands-on teaching exercises.
Cover Software Pro provides a basic template set of covers for eBooks, software box, CD/DVD box, spirial report, and a newsletter template. Additionally, there is an add-on pack of about 50 templates included, among other bonus tools.
I have tested and used about a dozen of ebook and software box cover creation tools in the last three years. Not in my experience have I come across a set of tools that is so easy to use, includes comprehensive audio and video tutorials and produces such eye catching graphics as I have with Cover Software Pro.
It has my full recommendation.
One word of caution however: if you don't yet own Adobe Photoshop 6.0 or higher, beware, it is rather pricey software, currently listed for $649 at the Adobe Photoshop site. The current version is now known as Photoshop CS.
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Additional eBook PDF Production Resources
I wrote a piece yesterday (see 3/21/04 post; it's also in the Producing category nav on the left) on some PDF creation resources.
As I was clearing out my email inbox, I found this article on various PDF creation options free or not.
The list there is much more comprehensive and should give ebook authors lots of options to get your text into an ebook PDF format.
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Free PDF eBook Creation
One of the most frequent questions we get at Knowledge Download has to do with the creation of PDF's.
We offer a PDF eBook creation service. While we offer that as a convenience to authors or people who don't know how or want to mess with buying and / or learning how to create PDF's, I'm the first one to say that in today's market, we're expensive on that front.
There are many "free" PDF creation websites and functions out on the web today.
Here are three:
Fast PDF
GoBCL
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 30 day trial
PDF Guy - free conversion
The first and last ones on the list state they convert your files for free. The second one, GoBCL apparently only does html/pdf conversions.
So if you don't want to buy Acrobat, you have several options to get your text or manual into PDF and sell it as an ebook.
No more excuses!
:-)
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eBook & Information Publishing
Many of our KD authors are busy writing, producing, publishing and selling their ebooks.
It is a lot of fun to watch people with expertise in various industries and markets go into new areas like reducing their expertise to writing.
One of the hottest areas of publishing your expertise and information is in teleseminars and online webinars.
Also known as web conference, eseminars, teleseminars, teleclass, online workshops and distance learning, these media are ideal tools to leverage sharing, teaching and mentoring your expertise.
In late January, I launched Trainers Link to further support the info publishing industry by providing an independent website that lists valuable educational "virtual events".
Trainers Link is not affiliated with any infrastructure provider, conference call service provider or webinar provider. While it takes an enormous amount of time to sift through all the possible teleseminars, I try to bring listings of truly educational events, and not just sales pitches for other products or services.
If you are unfamiliar with this type of media, you should go to Trainers Link and check out some of the virtual events that are scheduled.
There are a lot of them, so don't get overwhelmed. Also, most charge a fee, so be sure if you don't want to pay, that you locate some free events.
Once you've become familiar with them and if you want to add a fine complimentary offering to your ebooks line, then feel free to contact me and I can help point you in the right direction.
Keep up the good work!
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eBook Displays
As has happened with Tang, commercial titanium, gravity free writing pens and thousands of other engineering feats, thanks to the USA military, specifically the Army, now a display technology may have some legs for the consumer and commercial market for ebook readers.
The San Jose Business Journal article tells us about a company making flexible, extremely thin displays that one day may have applications in the consumer market.
As so often is the case, US government research, development and manufacturing contracts provide funding for these advanced engineering feats. This happens to be something that I'm very proud of as an American citizen.
So we'll have to keep an eye on flexible display technology. Now that indeed may have some real prospects for proprietary ebook readers.
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Media Convergence
They have been around since the 1980's.
People who hypothesize about the convergence of print and digital media.
In this article about a digital nirvana, Paul Carr of the Media Guardian of the UK says:
"But as soon as a compromise can be found - the moment someone invents a decent lightweight, ultra-thin electronic reader that looks and feels like a newspaper or a magazine but allows us to access electronic content on the move - there will be nothing to stop the total convergence of the two media."
among other ideal prognostications.
His piece is hopeful and outlines differences between content in electronic and print formats. This is the same type of dreaming many have had for eBooks. Carr's column could just as easily have been specifically about eBooks and printed books.
The parallel's are identical.
Unfortunately, I have to take a different view and that view is based on experience, analysis and observations.
Fundamentally, I disagree with Carr.
Real life capital and efforts have gone into creating the ideal "epaper" or "ebook" in developed countries for the last decade, in earnest. And, investors lost their money. The experiments have failed.
Why?
Because of markets and the consumers in those markets making choices. Plain and simple.
Proprietary eBook and ePaper readers will find niche markets. However, so will print versions. Consumers need, want and like choice.
It's why one person likes espresso, and another merely likes brewed coffee.
It's why one person likes a Porche and another likes a Chevy.
Maybe the word "like" is incorrect; perhaps the word could be "afford". One person can afford to pay a certain amount, therefore, thats' what they acquire.
In spite of ourselves (those highly connected to electronics and software), most of the world continues to live without a personal computer or electronics of any type. It's easy for the fortunate people to have tunnel vision of an ideal electronic world.
For all, there is choice and personal preference. As a result, I do not see the day when print and electronic eBooks and newspapers converge into one "dream" media.
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eBook Formats
I've been getting a lot of email inquiries from prospective authors lately asking about the best or "proper" digital formats for their eBooks.
This article I wrote nearly 2 years ago gives solid reasonswhy PDF is the digital format of choice for publishing your ebook.
PDF continues to be the digital format of choice because of it's ubiquity among computer users worldwide.
There are drawbacks certainly.
PDF doesn't have Digital Rights Management features, with the exception of manually managed security features.
Manual management of password and ID info is still subject to digital theft of your eBook.
However, it does afford some level of proection.
Regardless of security, most authors of "how-to" eBooks, will have no worries about digital theft on a large scale.
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eBook PDF Utility
PDF Enhancer offers some great functionality for eBook authors who utilize the PDF format for publishing their ebook.
Among other features included in the product is a file size compression capability.
If your eBooks contain large graphics or loads of text and are large in size, PDF Enhancer will compress your file size down considerably.
Having your PDF be as small as possible is key to helping those users who are still on dial-up lines to get the file downloaded fast.