- Introduction to eBooks
- What Are eBooks and How Are They Produced?
- What Is Needed To Read eBooks?
- Who Distributes eBooks?
- How Are eBooks Priced?
- What Would You Earn on the Sale of an eBook?
- What eBook Formats Does McDougal & Associates Produce?
- What Would It Cost for You to Have Your Book in the Digital Formats?
- What Are the Differences Between the Layout of the Print Edition and the Digital Edition?
- What Are the Differences Between Fixed-Page and Free-Flowing eBooks?
- The eBook Standards Keep Evolving
1. Introduction to eBooks?
In recent years, the growth in sales of eBooks has begun to outpace, for the first time, the growth in sales of printed editions. As more and more companies produce better, smaller, and less expensive digital readers, and as more and more books become available in the digital formats, this growth promises to keep exploding exponentially. This is a whole new world, and you will want to take advantage of it to get your message out.
2. What Are eBooks and How Are They Produced?
The term eBook simply means “electronic book.” An eBook or electronic book is actually nothing more than a digital file that can be read on a variety of eBook readers. (For more details on eBook readers, see the following section).
Here’s what Wikipedia, the online dictionary, has to say about eBooks:
“An electronic book (variously: e-book, eBook, e-Book, ebook, digital book, or even e-edition) is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as “an electronic version of a printed book,” many e-books exist without any printed equivalent. Commercially produced and sold e-books are usually intended to be read on dedicated e-book readers, however, almost any sophisticated electronic device that features a controllable viewing screen, including computers, many mobile phones, and all smartphones can also be used to read e-books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book).
The first practical modern eBooks were a result of the Adobe adoption of the portable file format (PDF). PDFs could be easily created, easily attached to emails, easily downloaded, and easily viewed by others. They quickly became the industry standard for sharing and viewing documents online. Since Adobe Reader was a free program, it was downloaded onto millions of computers around the world, and those millions of readers suddenly had the ability to download and view eBooks in this exciting format.
Since Adobe software has been the printing industry standard for many years now, this was convenient for publishers, since they now had the software to produce PDFs from most any other document, including book layouts.
But the Adobe Reader format has its limitations. It is what is called a “fixed format.” This simply means that a PDF eBook page looks exactly like the printed page it was generated from. The only difference is that it can be transported and then viewed at any size. As the page view percentage is reduced, however, what you see on the screen is also reduced proportionally, for it is “fixed.”
In the meantime, many others utilized the growing power of computers and the Internet to painstakingly type in public documents and then books that were already in the public domain. These usually appeared as HTML files and reading them was limited to those who had access to computers. They were stored on the Internet and also on CDs (even floppy disks at first).
Sensing the potential to change the way the world reads, many companies jumped on the eReader bandwagon and began developing and producing readers of their own. This quickly produced many very different and very incompatible formats, and readers were discouraged by not knowing which technology would prevail in the end.
In the late 1990s, it was agreed that a standard for eBook development was needed, and several large companies joined forces to develop that standard. Together they formed the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) and began working on eBook standards. What the IDPF came up with was a variation on HTML that utilizes CSS to tell a digital reading device how to format the text on the screen. It is called an EPUB.
Wikipedia describes the IDPF and the EPUB format it developed in this way:
“The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is a trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry, that has been set up in order to establish a reliable and complete standard for ebook publishing. This is the organization responsible for the EPUB standard currently used by most e-readers.
Starting from the Open eBook Publication Structure or “OEB” (1999), which was created loosely around HTML, it then defined the OPS (Open Publication Structure), the OPF (Open Packaging Format) and the OCF (Open Container Format). These formats are the basis for the common EPUB and Mobipocket ebook file formats.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Digital_Publishing_Forum. “Mobipocket” refers to the format adopted by Amazon and now known as Kindle.)
EPUB stands for “Electronic Publication.” This type of file is known in the industry as “free-flowing” or “reflowable.” What this means is that nothing is fixed. The text moves to fill the monitor it is being viewed on. This is necessary, for instance, not only because computer monitors come in all sizes, but because books are now being viewed on iPads, Kindle and Nook (and comparable) readers of various sizes, and even smartphones.
Until recently, most readers had their own built-in fonts and did not recognize or utilize any fonts listed in the book file. Also most readers were black and white. As color was introduced, more fonts or embedded fonts were supported, and graphic elements could be viewed with ease, everything changed. In fact, the requirements for creating EPUB files are constantly changing.
After the formation of the International Digital Publishing Forum and their decision to standardize eBook formatting, Amazon, which had already captured 80% of online book sales, made the startling decision to buy a company called Mobipocket and utilize its MOBI technology for its own eBooks (now known as Kindle) rather than accept the EPUB standard. MOBI files are similar to EPUB files, but they use their own formatting. Therefore, when we prepare our Kindle editions, we must add the extra step that converts an EPUB into the acceptable Kindle format.
A given book looks different on every reader, so it is no longer possible to insist on our own look. It is pretty much out of our hands.
As to how such files are produced, some specialty software has been developed that aids those who work with EPUBs every day, but as before, Adobe has maintained itself at the forefront of the publishing industry, so the same software we use to typeset books can also be utilized to produce EPUB files.
3. What Is Needed To Read an eBook?
An eBook can be read on any computer that supports reading software, such as Adobe Digital Editions (which is scheduled to replace the long-standard Adobe Reader). Other free reading software includes Kindle for PC and Calibre. But increasingly eBooks are being read on a dedicated reader such as Nook, Kindle or an iPad. As the quality of these and other readers increases and the price of them falls, more and more people are buying them and beginning their eBook adventures. eBooks are also read on tablets like iPad and its Android cousins and on smartphones — including Apple, Android, and Windows editions. Some digital readers can handle a variety of formats, but most of them can handle standard EPUBs.
4. Who Distributes eBooks?
Each agency distributes their own format:
- KINDLE: Amazon distributes Kindle books, so we register our Kindle titles with them, upload a copy of the proper file, and they distribute it and report to us monthly on sales. Kindle bookstores have now been opened in many countries other than the US.
- NOOK: Barnes and Noble distribute Nook books, so we upload our Nook versions to them, and they report to us monthly on sales. Nook stores have now been opened in many countries other than the US.
- iBOOK: Apple distributes iBooks on its iTunes site. We are blessed, however, in that LSI, our printing partner, is an authorized aggregator for iTunes. We upload our iBook versions to the LSI site, and they take charge of seeing that they get to iTunes and then report to us monthly on sales.
- ADOBE DIGITAL EDITIONS: Again, we are blessed in that LSI, our printing partner, has a digital division that makes Adobe Digital Editions books available to many other online retailers. We upload our PDF eBooks to them, and they report to use monthly on sales.
Here is a list of the resellers who currently draw their feed from LSI:
In the U.S. and Canada:
Better World Books, Cokesbury.com, Completebook.com, Covenant, DMC, eBookMall, Hastings, Kobo Books, Lybrary.com, Majesty Media Group, Mardel Inc., Mediander LLC, Parable, Premier Digital Publishing, Slikebooks, Spoiled Milk, WOWIO, and XAMonline.
In Europe:
BOL.com, Bookshop Krisostomus, eBook.de, eCommSource, Feedbooks, LaFeltrinelli.com, www.riider.com, tookbook.com, Tradebit, txtr.com, UAB VIPsupply, and Webster.
In Other Countries:
Asia Books (Thailand), Booktopia (Australia) Disal, livriasaraiva.com.br and SBS.com.br (Brasil), eBookShop and Kalahari.net (South Africa), Infibeam, Online Book and Place (India), MPH Online (Malaysia).
5. How Are eBooks Priced?
Most, but not all, eBooks are priced very reasonably. Apple requires, for example, that all iBooks be priced below $10, and they must end in .99. The lowest price would be .99, then 1.99, 2.99, 3.99, etc. Our custom until now has been to place a retail price of about half what the printed version of the book sells for. Some opt for a lower retail price, and some opt for going higher. One author in particular asked to have his digital editions reduced to $3.99, but his sales did not increase appreciably. Another author raised the price of his eBooks, and his sales increased. So pricing isn’t a science.
As a general rule, we want to price books at a happy medium. As this industry continues to change, the price of eBooks may fall, but the volume should rise to counter that expected loss The good news is that you can earn as much or more selling an eBook as you can selling a printed version. (See the following section.)
6. What Would You Earn on the Sale of an eBook?
Surprisingly, you can actually earn more from the sale of eBooks than you can from the sale of the same book in printed form. The reason is that the reseller discount is much lower with eBooks and you have no production cost per item sold:
- Kindle: In some cases, Amazon will pay 70% of the sale to the author.
*The sale must be within the US. If not, the royalty falls to 30%.
- Nook: Barnes and Noble pays 40%
- iBook: Apple pays 64%
- Adobe Digital Editions: We set the discount, and we usually make it only 25%, so the author receives 75% of the sale.
All of these agencies report sales monthly, but some take 90 days to pay afterward, so we report and disburse funds quarterly, and payments are always one quarter behind reported sales.
As with print editions, McDougal & Associates deducts 10% from sales before forwarding the balance to authors.
7. What eBook Formats Does McDougal & Associates Produce?
We have the software to produce fifteen different formats, but many of these have a limited following. We, therefore, produce and sell eBooks in the four most popular formats:
- Kindle
- Nook *
- Apple iBook *
- Adobe Digital Editions
* The Nook and iBook formats are actually very much the same. To customize the books, we prepare a different copyright page for each of these. Then they are uploaded to different agencies.
8. What Would It Cost to Have Your Book Done in the Digital Editions?
This cost has come down dramatically. If we have your files already typeset for the print version, we can then reconfigure those files and use them to process the digital editions. The costs are as follows:
$75 for the first digital edition
$50 for each additional digital edition
$39 for the one unique ISBN required
If we have to first drop your material into a typesetting template or bring it up to standard from an older typeset format before generating the digital editins, the charge for that extra work is $250.
9. What Are the Differences Between the Layout of the Print Edition and the Digital Editions?
The differences between typesetting a book for print and for digital editions are dramatic:
- Many of the fonts used for years in printing will not work in digital editions. For this reason, Adobe has developed all new fonts, known as Open Type fonts, for this purpose. Some digital readers still only utilize their internal, built-in fonts and do not recognize the fonts used in or embedded in the eBook layout. For this reason, we have much less control over the look of an eBook than we have over the look of its printed cousin.
- All vertical spacing is lost in digital editions. I suppose this is to conserve space. As a publisher, it is aggravating, but that’s the reality.
- All empty pages are omitted in digital editions. They would serve no practical purpose.
- Any and all graphics used in digital editions must appear “inline” with the text that precedes and follows them. They cannot be placed independently as they were before.
- All text intended to be kept together must be placed in order.
- Any material you wish to have on a separate page must be placed in a separate document. These separate documents are then linked in what is known as a book file.* Recent software developments allow for this step to be skipped.
Now that we know these quirks and are doing more and more digital editions of our books, we plan for them from the start of each project, and much extra work is eliminated.
10. What Are the Differences Between Fixed-Page and Free-Flowing eBooks?
There are two basic types of digital format: fixed-page and free-flowing. Adobe Reader utilizes the fixed-page format. Whatever your print page looks like, your digital version will look exactly the same, although perhaps larger or smaller. Depending on the size of the monitor on which the page is viewed, the fixed-page format requires that the viewer change page views to see some items.
With the free-flowing format used by the majority of newer readers, the text and graphics move to fit whatever space is available on the screen. This is what makes possible viewing a book page on an iPhone. Because authors (and publishers) have worked hard to maintain a certain look to their pages, it can be disconcerting to see everything change to fit the screen being used.
Instructions for creating eBooks state that a publisher should test the finished product on every possible device to make sure it works well on each one. With the proliferation of available devices now on the market, this is nearly impossible. So far, however, we have had no complaints about our eBooks not working right.
11. The eBook Standards Keep Evolving
Electronic books are still so new to the market that they are always evolving, and the standards for them are constantly being updated. This has a lot to do with the capabilities of the latest batch of digital readers. It is not unusual to receive a new directive every few months as to resolution, fonts used, graphics, etc., and it is a lot to keep up with. Fortunately, since we use the most cutting-edge software on the market, we can stay abreast of these changes and continue to improve the quality and also the affordability of doing eBooks.