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Any interest in eBooks?
So, I decided to make eBooks out of my stories. Originally, my intent was to create them so that I could put them on my tablet for my own use (for reference purposes), but I got to thinking that maybe other folks might like to have copies.
So I guess what I'm wondering is would people be interested in having a copy of my stories in epub, mobi or pdf format?
BCTS and the other sites I post on do not allow for uploading ebook files (well BCTS allows for pdf files) so I would have to upload them elsewhere. If I did decide to share them what would be a good site for me to upload them?
Comments
Ebook files - and sales
I'm planning adding ebook files to the allowed uploads here. What specific formats do people what to see allowed?
Also the plan is to let people sell ebooks here directly with the site getting a small commission. This may even happen this week or next.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Cool
That would be great! I believe the three most common ebook formats would be epub, mobi and pdf. Well those are the three main ones I've dealt with anyway. Personally, of the three I prefer epub format.
I personally don't plan on selling any of my stories, but I've learned from past experiences to never say never.
Have delightfully devious day,
Better here than Amazon
Thing is, there are authors here who want the DRM on their wares so it might not work out. Tanya Allan comes to mind. Maddy too, come to think of it.
Kim
I dislike DRM
It's mostly a pain and is very easy to circumvent and having it has never been shown to actually increase profits from sales. But I'm not necessarily saying I wouldn't sell DRM'd ebooks here. My attitude is that the author owns their work and gets as much control over it as they want and can manage.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Look at the Baen free library
Look at the Baen free library for an example of non-DRM making money for the publisher and authors.
(I've met Eric Flint in person. Really nice guy)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Baen started giving away CDs
Baen started giving away CDs of their books for free and their sales increased. They are currently selling their ebooks for $6 or so with no DRM, and are doing quite well.
nice for them
but there again they probably sell more books in an hour than i've sold in seven years of selling so it doesn't matter to them.
I've seen paper sales drop from 75% to @ 1% so over the last three years so ebooks are a huge part of publishing. DRM is not about preventing sharing - you can stick it on a pen drive and hand it round if you like but like with music files it is intended to give the author a little control. btw it costs the author over a dollar a copy to use DRM and it does work in the larger non geek world. Don't knock it, the money my books generate pays for my web access (just) and of course you can read everything free on here if you have more patience.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
DRM is all about preventing
DRM is all about preventing sharing. That was the entire _point_.
In order to use a DRM locked media on a machine, that machine has to be 'authorized' for it. Some DRM is even time-locked, so you can only use it for a short period before your player refuses to read/play the format.
It also causes havok for those people that don't use the 'supported' operating systems - that is, Apple and Windows. That's why the whole routine with DCSS that you have to have to play DVD's on Linux/BSD/other variants. If they didn't have it, there wouldn't be 'region' DVD's.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Paper Vs eBook
A lot of it comes down to Physical storage space. Too many Paper/Hard back books in a Small flat = No space left for anything else.
That is why I started to create and read ebooks, instead of printing them off.
Take Ellens Tuck saga. Up until chapter 90, I used to print off on double sided A5 paper in 10 pt.
Filled 3 Lever-Arch a5 Folders. Tooo big and Heavy to transport. :D
my epub, fits quite handily on a small SD Card. :D
Tuck
I was also printing Tuck off to carry around to read and had 5 of the Huge 3 ring binders to choose from. I now have all the Saga in individual chapter txt format on a 128Mb SD card along with a lot of other stuff. I could actually print off and then refill the paper boxes and had 12 of them stored when I realized that was crazy.
yes, I think that would be good.
Teddi's stories are quickly and easily converted to pdf format but to move them into other e-book formats will entail a "lot" of work since she used a more expensive and generally governmentally used word processor format.
Converting it to Word loses a lot. Then the conversion from a .doc or .docx file loses even more.
Teddi has images imbedded as covers or otherwise in her stories which necessarily are missing here.
R A Dumas
I forgot to mention one thing about PDF
That's easily broken via website tools, and downloadable software. Most DRM's are nothing but an annoyance for those that don't want DRM.
I was working with a client to hide a track-able key hidden in PDF files that would allow them to tell who "leaked" their copy of thier PDF's to various websites. This seems better to me than doing a DRM :)
Locked PDF files
I am the grateful recipient of a couple of those files. Unfortunately, because they are locked down, reading them on anything other than a PC screen is an uncomfortable exercise since the page and font sizes are set in stone; they just do not match the dimensions of my ereader screen!
I (now) own a Kobo. This can accept ePub and PDF but the PDFs have to be read as is. If the font size is large enough to read properly then I have to manually scroll the page from side to side and top to bottom. Each touch of the screen involves a complete refresh and kills the battery life besides being extremely distracting.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to insist that any publisher has to release books in particular formats for my personal benefit. I'm just noting that certain publishing decisions can actually push people away from obtaining that title. Needless to say, I'll only consider PDFs in the future in very exceptional circumstances.
Penny
Yes please, please do this!
I could see if you started doing e-books and started splitting the profits with the authors, it would help to support the site, and give the authors a little help too.
You know that I am really a ditz with software, but I had Kindle PC and it worked good. Actually any format you want that will run on a PC is good for me.
Yes please do this.
Gwendolyn
I own a Nook.
I have a Nook and so I'd like to see ePub, but in deference to the Kindle owners, you should also include Mobi. I think all eReaders out there can handle one or the other of them.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Ebook format
Actually the common one I use and so does my bf since its free is Isilo PDB but since people use a ton of other formats the best method is simply txt. Then people can convert it to whatever they want.
Isilo is a free app written for just about every devise out there from an old palm handheld to 4G Iphone. I actually use my old palm 515 just for reading in bed. It goes off automatically after 3 mins and with a 5 hour battery I wont stay up to late reading.
Pdf files are a royal pain to convert to anything. Just my two cents.
Converting ebooks
It's actually really easy to convert ebooks these days. Calibre, a free software application which is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS can convert quite a few ebook formats quite well. I prefer epub specifically because it is a free an open ebook format and it can be converted easily to any number of formats.
Have delightfully devious day,
PDB != eBook
LoL, if I remember correctly PDB == Palm Data Base... It's not a file format in and of itself, but a container for data that could be a ereader ebook, an isolo ebook, a mobipocket ebook, or even completely proprietary data used by some other palm program. IT's much like an AVI file for video. You know it's a video, but you don't necessarily know what format the audio or video stream is just by looking at the .avi file name.
That being said, ePub is an OPEN document format that supports DRM or Non-DRM ebooks and isn't proprietary like Mobi/AZW (Amazon/Kindle) is. And it would be REALLY expensive for BC to launch an epub DRM server especially if we chose to support Adobe Digital Editions DRM (We'd be talking in the neighborhood of $35,000 to license the software needed).
A free DRM alternative format...
Hmm. Reading your comments about PRB, I am not sure if I should suggest this... but PRC files (whatever they are) open on a Kindle just like a Mobi file... but they also work on other things. And they are really easy to create via free software ["Mobipocket Creator"]. According to the info at the link I just gave, that particular software also lets author's "Self copyrighted content with DRM protection - It's free!". I have never used that DRM feature... but I have frequently used Mobipocket eBook Creator to create PRC eBooks out of all sorts of things I have found online [including stories here at BCTS] for many years. Like most software it has a few quirks, but it's fairly easy to figure out... and quite useful once you do.
Shrug. Before it died of old age and I reluctantly switched to a Kindle, I used to use an old Franklin eBookman to read... which was my intro to the PRC file format. I forget, but I seem to think that the "Mobipocket" thing started out as a more open format -- and this particular software is still freely available to do that. Later on, I am pretty sure these folks evolved the Mobi format (that was licensed or something to make the proprietary AZW format that the Kindle uses)... but as I said, they still make the original PRC creation software available. And while I am not a lawyer, just from what I am reading on that linked page I get the impression that authors here at BCTS could create PRC files (which I repeat work perfectly on a Kindle, as well as several other eReaders, without further conversion), without worrying about copyright problems from Amazon/Kindle.
Shrug, again. I honestly don't know if Amazon would get sticky about licensing issues if you hosted Mobi/AZW stuff here... but PRC might be a simple way to be safe about that. And permitting the PRC file format might give authors DRM abilities (if they want them), without all the hugely expensive fees that you just mentioned...
E books
I have no suggestions. I am still using the old faithful PDA and just saving stories in txt or rtf format and save them to an SD card. (yes, I am old AND cheap) I don't have to deal with proprietary formats or that kind of junk. Besides stories here, there is a wealth of free books available. I am just old and set in my ways. Yes I am still on XP and only gave up win2K because I was forced. BTW, if anyone out there has any old SD cards with less than 1 gig capacity and no longer use them, let me know. I like those old 64mb, 128mb, 256mb, and 512mb. All the now available are too fancy for me and my old machine.
I have a ton of those old SD
I have a ton of those old SD cards pm me. I work for a wireless company and use to use various palm devices for about seven years. I only reluctantly switched to Android because of faster data networks. Oh and ebooks yes please.
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
I love e-books!
I always try to support our bunch. and I've bought several books on the kindle format (I have all of Tanya's and Karin Bishop's books, and several others, and I have many more to go. I like kindle, but I've also bought epub and pdf from Lulu, and some from Smashwords as well. I hope I've bought everyones, but I'm not sure, and yes, I would buy them from here, too!
Wren
Love them
I usually read off of an eBook reader anyway.
I've been Building up eBooks for about 10yrs. Used to use MS Reader (Which has now, just recently, been discontinued), but have been using ePub for about 2 yrs.
Sigil, http://code.google.com/p/sigil/, is a very good WYSIWYG ePub editor/creator.
Calibre, http://calibre-ebook.com/, as someone else has pointed out, converts from 1 format to another.
Kindlegen, from Amazon, will create .mobi files. Put this in conjunction with Sigil, and you can create .mobi from the .ePub.
As to pdf, I generate a modified html page and feed through MS Word. Not ideal, but it works.
All this from 1 eBook .XML file.
Creating ebooks
Calibre can convert epub to mobi with kindlegen as well.
I personally use my Word Processor, Scrivener, to create my epub and pdf files then I use sigil to fine-tune the epub and then I convert it to mobi I'm done with my tinkering.
Have delightfully devious day,
I would like that
I tend to read ebooks far more than anything else. I would actually prefer epub format if we have ebooks here, simply because it is easiest and my Nook uses epub anyways. :)
Samirah M. Johnstone
Any interest in eBooks?
I usually read stories here in any format.
May Your Light Forever Shine