I have looked into the idea of a European-based e-publishing company and so far things are looking very promising.
There are still many things that need to be ironed out, but then I'm not going to be able to get this going until the New Year anyway - if I decide to go ahead.
Whilst it's only in the planning stage at the moment, I can tell you that I want this to be free for the basics. It won't cost authors anything to have their work on sale on the site and they're not going to be charged tax on the revenue the books generate either like they are on Amazon, Lulu, CreateSpace and other US-based sites. Any taxable income made from the sale of their books would be between the authors and the tax department of the country they live in.
I'm not sure either what formats I'd be able to cover, but I'm fairly certain Kindle won't be one of them. I'm sure though that the formats will enable people to read the stories using a Kindle, but not in the proprietary 'Kindle' format.
Europe currently levies VAT on e-books, but I'm not sure what the rates are as France and Luxembourg have slashed the VAT on e-books, but the UK hasn't, despite pressure to do so. Each author would agree a price for their books and the VAT would go on top so the royalties would be based upon the agreed price, not the sale price.
Of course these plans may change, but should I go ahead - and as I said, it's looking likely right now that I will - I plan to keep the site free for authors and make the royalty percentage as high as I can, though what that will be is yet to be determined.
So that's it for now. I know that there are a number of you out there who have expressed an interest in placing stories for sale on the site when it's ready and I will do my best to keep you all appraised of how things progress as they happen.
Any others interested, please don't hesitate to PM me as I'm not going to be able to open the site without books, so the more, the merrier.
Thanks,
Nick
Comments
Fascinating idea Nick
Better move quickly, there's always someone nearby ready to take the cab you just hailed. :)
Good luck!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
The cab I just hailed?
Looks like I'd better move quickly then!
Not at all, Stan
Not at all.
The proposed site will be like Lulu for e-books only or Amazon's Kindle. Free to submit works and get it published, but being situated in the EU, there's no tax issues for non-US peeps.
I will not be taking people's work unless they give it to me with the express desire to have it published through the site.
A good usable format for Kindle ...
that is not their proprietary format can be gotten as Mobi Pocket Creator,
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscrea...
It creates files that can be transferred to the kindle using the USB cable that came with the kindle.
However, like all files not purchased from Amazon, they will not be readable using Kindle for PC, The Cloud reader, etc., as those readers look for files Amazon knows about that are shown in the user's archive of purchased stories,s even the $0.00 free files that were 'purchased'.
There are other ways to create non-amazon format files, which also cannot be read by the cloud or Kindle for PC.
Another is Calibre, http://calibre-ebook.com/
Holly
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
Actually.
I've purchased a few "kindle" ebooks through smashwords and am able to read them with Kindle for PC even though Amazon doesn't know about them. There's a certain local folder that you need to save the files to in order for Kindle for PC to pick them up. I can't remember what it was, but I'm sure a quick google would turn it up for anyone interested.
Abigail Drew.
Kindle e-book file locatio
in Windows 7.
Hi everyone:
If you are using Windows 7 and installed the Kindle for PC using the default install, then the books will be located at:
local disk “C†▸ users ▸ (find your user logon name here) ▸ My Documents ▸ My Kindle Content.
Note: most of the files here will NOT necessarily indicate the book name and will look like the following:
B009SNF4ZQ_EBOK.azw <= These are four different e-books
on-the-road-again-part-four.mobi
B004KNWVQY_EBOK.apnx
Pride-and-Prejudice.apnx
and so on.
Additional files (properly converted) may be added to this directory and after doing a “refresh†will be available to read. Further, if you are concerned about losing any e-books you already have then you could back up this directory (after you prove it is really the place your books have been stored) and if anything happens then you will still have your books to read.
As to the Calibre program, it can convert many formats from one to another with varying success.
I still prefer to use .pdf which can be read on PC and Mac computers but not always by the NOOK or KINDLE despite the claims that they are able to do so.
The mobi format is probably the best for the Kindle if you are converting, however I’ve found that even that format alters my documents from that which I originally selected (not always pleasantly). I have (somewhere) specific instructions for converting WORD 2007 documents to e-formats and will try to find the article and go through it to find the fifteen pages (the author was prolific and wrote nearly a hundred fifty pages which included a long winded explanation of the conversion) involved.
Meanwhile if you want to know if you can successfully read a .pdf file on your computer then here are a couple of chapters in that format.
Thirteenth Pledge r1b chap 0-2.pdf (276.39 KB)
Anesidora
Kindle Format
Kindle uses a cut down HTML code base. The Kindle Fire is better, but even that is not as good as it should be.
The Epub format uses most, if not all of the HTML.
I use Sigil to generate an epub from 3 or 4 html files. then feed that into KindleGen. And a different set of html files for the proper ePub version. I Still generate .Lit and .Prc as well.
Be thankful for e-Readers. I used to print off the Stories on A5 (2 sided). The reader is a lot easier to carry. :D