Publishing
Well I never thought I’d ever buy Knitting for Dummies. But I just got a copy via the Amazon Kindle Store to read, or is that to watch, on my iPad.
So am I taking up crocheting books or, as fabulous author’s coach @ledasammarco suggested on Twitter, knitting light bulbs?
No, I am just checking out how embedded video and audio in Kindle books for the iPad and iPhone works ahead of tomorrow’s Author’s Retreat.
Somewhat ironically perhaps, the video and audio doesn’t work on the Kindle. Is this a sign that Amazon are moving away from hardware – or preparing a son of Kindle?
So what should authors and publishers do? Here’s just some of the current options:
- Print – not going away in a hurry
- Publish for the Kindle and iPad via the Amazon Digital Platform
- Publish for the iPad via the iBookstore
- Publish via a third party ebook app like Stanza
- Publish via an aggregator like Smashwords, Lulu, Myebook, Issuu
Well before you make a decision, note that almost certainly Apple will be bringing out an ebook format based on HTML5 – and hopefully some book creation and publishing software.
In 2011, we are bound to see an end to end solution from them with Apple aiming to do for books what it did for music in the last decade. It opened the iTunes store in April 2003 and by the end of the decade they dominated the music download market.
ePub2 perhaps – Betamax and VHS – here we go again.
If you are an author however, my advice is to write, create accompanying audio and video assets and by the time you are ready to publish, there will be more than one route open to you.
P.S. there’s also differences in margins between Amazon and Apple – and if you are non-US a couple of hoops to jump through which should be sorted shortly.
P.P.S. Smashwords and Lulu don’t necessarily allow multimedia embedded at the mo. Note that they also take a little margin but this is just a sign of a new Pie Chart will look for books in the coming decade – will blog about this soon!!
P.P.P.S. Myebook does do embedded multimedia and may well come out with a route – worth keeping an eye on – see my sample ebook www.wordlube.com to see what you can do today – for free !!!
P.P.P.S. Actually this knitting malarky looks kinda fun …
Related Links:
Knitting for Dummies 2e
Pretty much at the same time I posted this, I was pointed at this software for the Mac called Storyist. Not only does it help you mange your book creation project well but it outputs directly to ePub format for direct input via iTunes to your iPad.
With a publishing account with iTunes this means you can get on to the iBookstore
Details here http://storyist.com/index.html
Testing next week – review to come
A couple months ago, I also read about rumblings that there may be an ePub2 format standard, in order to more easily incorporate graphics and pictures, as well as multi-media. If such an update does not happen, I think ePub will eventually wither away.
Your post is a excellent overview of what today’s writers should keep in mind. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Tom – this great web site on HTML5 gives loads of clues as to what is around the corner – http://diveintohtml5.org/
Hi Tom,
We have three titles so far on Kindle and they are doing ok. We’re keen to get titles onto iPad and have the account direct with iTunes – but the software to convert ePub files into the specific format for iTunes seems to be Mac only? We don’t run Macs as we outsource all our visuals – is there a version of the creator software that runs on Windows – Apple seem to be characteristically silent about whether there is or not. We’re keen as several of our books would do very well with multimedia content too.
Cheers, Steve
Hi Steve – not sure as I’ve been doing all my “books” as apps up to now. Am just playing with Storyist at the mo (which is Mac and has ePub output which has been tested as validated on the iBookstore).
My suspicion is that it’s quiet as ePub2 is coming along soon and Apple are just in a holding pattern until it does. Hence the best way to get on to the iPad at the mo is via the Kindle IMHO
[...] Do iPad or do I Kindle? [...]
My concern about ibooks is simply the cost. Why if there are no printing, distribution and warehouse costs are they so expensive?
I do like to read on the iPad despite what I originally thought which was that it would not feel like a good read.
Still like the paper in my hands though.
Nice though if the author self-publishes and makes more margin to help them to be able to keep writing