7 Things We Learned About ePublishing

On April 12, just over three weeks from now, there will be a publishing conference at UMD. The event has been dubbed “21st-Century Publishing: Industry, Media, and the Future of Print." Having dipped my toe into the shallow end of the ePublishing pool, I'm looking forward to catching a close up peek at where publishing is today and where it's headed tomorrow. 

My first foray into ePublishing was in 2011. I'd determined that year to publish some of my stories and The Red Scorpion, a novel I'd labored over for the course of many years and failed to find a home for. Enter TJ Lind, a high school sophomore who became jazzed at the notion of starting a ePublishing business. By November four books were now available on Kindle, Nook and in the Apple store. 

Here are some of the lessons we learned from that experience.  

1. Conversion software can be frustrating.
Writing a book using your favorite word processing program is only the beginning. You still need to convert the manuscript into a specialized form for eBook readers, and it isn't quite as easy as it looks. For a couple of the books we launched, over-hurriedly, the final day involved numerous iterations which TJ would format, email to me and I would review. Sometimes the revisions he made would "take" and sometimes they would not. It can be a tedious process but you have to review every single line every single time if you care about the quality of the final product.

2. Learning time management is essential. 
Both TJ and I are very busy. In addition to being a full-time high school student, he has the same full life of most teens his age, which includes a job, friends, and other interests. One of his interests is the Proctor DECA program, which is how our paths crossed. Currently he is planning a run for International DECA President, which is simply one more thing he's added to his plate for the year. And with my own host of activities, including a full time career in advertising, my free time outside the office is fairly chewed up as well. The key for every collaborating team is to learn the others' rhythms.

3. Fast communication is easy, but accuracy is also needful. 
It's so easy to send a lot of quick snippets and messages these days. But a book needs the same patient attention as ever before, and you just can't ignore this.

4. eBooks can be corrected after they are in print.
The Red Scorpion was a major undertaking. And I'm embarrassed by how many errors slipped through the cracks. At one point I asked TJ to change Mr. Harris to Mr. Henley near the end of the book. For some reason the software inserted Mr.HenleyMr.HenleyMr.Henley in the place of Mr. Harris. Fortunately, an early reader caught this and we corrected the online version of the book. Unfortunately, for the sake of the September book launch party we had fifty copies printed, all of which had this funny Mr. Henley in triplicate. Maybe this erratum will make these original 50 books more collectible some day, though I doubt it. It's just embarrassing.

5. Market research helps. 
While preparing for the novel's launch we had designed two different versions of the cover. When we produced the 50 printed versions we weren't sure which book cover to use. I liked TJ's version with the haunted house, and he liked the original with the red scorpion that I painted. We printed 25 of each to see which one the public would prefer at our launch. The scorpion covers were favored 3 to 1.

6 The economics of printed material is a problem. 
Even with today's print-on-demand options, it's still going to require an outlay of capital to print books. Then there's shipping, storage, and marketing. If you go the traditional route of printing a total run, you have to print a large volume to get your cost per book down to something reasonable. And then there's distribution. It's not as simple as putting up a book stand at the bagel shop.

7. It's gratifying.
It's gratifying to see your eBook on Amazon.com. That's the amazing part. Your book or books can be listed, purchased and reviewed in the same way as George Plimpton's or Hemingway's, Conrad's and Ogilvy's. There is a perceived legitimacy right off. This doesn't mean your books will automatically sell. You still have to get the word out.

Currently TJ and I have several books in the docket for 2013. I'll keep you posted here as things develop.

In the meantime, if you're a writer interested in publishing, check out the April 12 conference at UMD.

Book Beat: Tablets and eReaders See Increased Market Share

This month's Internet Retailer arrived yesterday and it seems impossible to not mention a few stats that the editors had assembled at the back of the mag. I like graphs and stats because they can compress a whole lot of data into a tight, easy to grasp image. A good graph really is worth a thousand words.

The title of the page reads, "E-readers outpace tablets in sales to consumers." The first chart shows how rapidly the e-reader and Tablet devices have been funneling into the market. In 2009 only 2% of the population owned an E-reader like the Kindle. And this is hard to believe but Tablets like the iPad did not even exist yet.

Think about it. Doesn't it seem like iPads have been here forever?

A year later 3% of all Americans, according to Pew Research, owned a tablet. Just a few months later it was 4% and 5% owned a Kindle. By May of this year, this number had grown to 12% owning e-readers and 8% having tablets.

Why is this? First, no doubt it's due in part to price. The iPad has been a $500 item during this span and Kindles around one-third of that. But the versatility of the iPad is worth that extra chunk of change, since Kindles are essentially only good for reading books (Like!) and browsing the Amazon.com online book store. (OK, yes, there are some free games, too.)

A second chart on the page shows the E-reader and tablet market share. Then the third chart shows how cell phones still rule, with 83% of U.S. adults owning one. 57% own a desktop computer, and 56% own a laptop.

But its the growth of the e-readers that is interesting to me. The number of adults who have e-readers (Kindles, Nooks, etc.) actually doubled from November 2010 to May 2011. And with the Kindle dropping to below $100 it shouldn't be long before we see this market penetration double yet again.

What's on your Santa wish list? My guess is that there will be a lot of Kindles under Christmas trees this year.

One of the more interesting stats on the page is the market penetration by race of these two electronic devices. 11% of whites own e-readers and 7% own tablets. African Americans are a smaller percentage, but in the Hispanic community e-readers are owned by 15% of all adults, and so are tablets.

Naturally I have a vested interest in following some of these stats. In September I began publishing my own eBooks through N&L Publishing. This weekend my associate TJ Lind will upload The Breaking Point and Other Stories, my third collection of short fiction, all priced at $1.99 apiece, joining my debut novel The Red Scorpion. All of our books are available on Kindle, Nook and soon the Apple iStore.

An article in Tuesday's edition of PC World outlines some of the reasons why e-readers have become big winners in the tablet wars.

As e-reader prices plummeted, features improved. Released two years after its predecessor, the Kindle 2 was 50 percent thinner, improved battery life by 85 percent, ballooned storage to 2GB from 256MB, and showed 165 shades of gray versus only four shades in the original. Another two years went by and the third-generation Kindle improved on that -- two ounces lighter, 50 percent clearer contrast -- until today, when the Kindle Touch barely resembles the original in looks, feel, or function. Similarly, when the Nook Simple Touch debuted, it blew the original Nook out of the water at more than 4.5 ounces lighter, 25 percent faster, and a huge, two month battery life. Sony, which also just joined the tablet wars, updated its Reader to version PRS-T1, which retails for $149 and is the lightest of the bunch at 5.9 ounces.

Near the end of the article there's a humorous picture of a box of cereal with a big starburst proclaiming "FREE NOOK INSIDE!" That's certainly the direction pricing has been going. Ultimately B&N and Amazon.com are in the book business, and as movie theaters were to Hollywood film producers, so these distribution channels need to be out in the streets in order for their digital wares to find distribution.


VETERANS DAY SPECIAL

There are still some who do not own a Kindle or Nook and prefer reading the old fashioned way. I won't hold it against you. Your kids make poke fun some at you some day, but I won't.

Today is Veteran's Day and I can't let it pass without mentioning my father-in-law's book,

AND THERE SHALL BE WARS
World War II Diaries and Memoirs
536 pages. Illustrated with 178 original photos and documents.

Available at Savage Press:

And There Shall Be Wars.

Read On!