Any new exploit, particularly of the virtual variety, demands the understanding of a whole new language.
Fool that I am, I’ve recently been possessed—and believe me, I often profane in English and spin my head like Linda Blair—with the idea of creating eBooks.
Sure, there may be crossover lingo from other brain-frying skills I’ve partially mastered to run this little site, but that helps not a bit in actually creating a functional document that renders properly on my iPhone, the only “e-reader” I own.
How much simpler it is to wander into the library on the landing and pull a paper book from the shelf, under the gaze of Frida Kahlo and her wide-eyed monkey.
This is exactly the kind of therapy I need after days of trying to force Apple’s Pages program to insert a page break where a page break should be, searching the Web for answers and generally losing my cool, if not my remaining grip on reality.
So this is where you come in, kind reader.
Am I wasting my limited brain functions on this endeavour? I hear there are a million hungry Kindlers … Kindlers? … out there, just waiting for my next book.
Would you buy my .99¢ opus?
To start, I’d like to offer a few free downloads of existing VeloWebLog content—in eBook format—that you can read at leisure on your e-reading device.
Do you read eBooks? What device(s) do you use?
I’m a freshman student of eBook formats and reader compatibility.
If you are a regular visitor, you may have wondered if I’d been on leave. Of my senses, perhaps, but I’ve been tinkering away behind the scenes as well; not only with aforementioned book editing, but also with the technical details I’ll need to implement on this site, if I decide to push forward with eBook offerings.
Additionally, I’ve added two new tutorials to the Garage and have another in development, including video.
Speaking of bike tech video, my most popular tutorial, mentioned back in February as it reached 10,000 views, has just quintupled that count on Youtube.
Randonneur Guido Van Duyn has shared his Paris-Brest-Paris-tested bike with us. Find it on the Readers’ Rando Bikes page.
Incidentally, the first person to answer any of the questions above will be remembered as author of the 500th comment to this blog.
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$.99 is reasonable for any publication, personally I have a Kindle and enjoy using it.
Thanks for the input, Jonah. It’s interesting to discover what readers people are using.
I’ve played with a Kindle and must say I liked the “E Ink” display.
Congrats also on adding the 500th comment to this blog 🙂
I agree, $.99 is definitely reasonable. Once you “master” the making of this e-pub, it would be great to read a sample, if that’s possible. I also have a kindle, and very much enjoy it, for the size and reading experience. It’s great to be able to search a massive tome for a specific reference, and also minimize the collection of books as “stuff”, which is the bane of my existence. Good luck!
Oh no! It looks like I’ve locked myself into the $.99 eBook 🙂
But it looks like a lot of writers are doing just that, though some question whether that’s too cheap.
As I said, the plan is to offer some free samples, before moving on to reasonably-priced books.
So it’s 2 for Kindle, so far. Thanks for the comment, Donna.
I’m not sure that creating ebooks of content that’s already available will be your best revenue-generating strategy, mainly because there are good offline-reading tools that your readers may already be using–See here for example
On the other hand, $.99 for content not otherwise available is surely a bargain for readers. The comedian Louis CK recently proved once and for all that the low-price, high-volume model can be very effective if the audience is wide or deep enough: How Louis CK won the internet
— c
Thanks for the tips, Chris. I hadn’t heard of the “Read it Later” ap.
My plan is to give away existing content, or offer expanded versions very reasonably, in eBook format.
I can’t say I have the kind of “fan base” CK has, so I’m not expecting to retire on this enterprise any time soon 🙂
To get the 70% royalty from Amazon, you have to price it at $2.99. At 99¢, I think you only get 30%.
If you only want to make one format, and you want to sell at Amazon, you’ll need a .mobi file. You can either build it yourself (there are tutorials; it’s basically extremely brain-dead HTML) or you can create an .epub (which nearly every OTHER ebook seller in the world uses) and let Amazon convert it for you, either by simply uploading it for sale and living with the (probably not very good) results, or by downloading their annoying conversion software, KindleGen, and repeatedly tweaking the .epub until it looks good after KindleGen gets to it.
We already know you’re nuts from the randonneuring, so just consider the ebook learning curve a really aggravating hill, with lots of faux plaits.
PS My workflow is InDesign -> .epub -> .mobi. That gives me a print version, an .epub (for everybody except Amazon), and a .mobi (for Amazon).
With the KindleFire out now, that will probably change, but we don’t have specs for what it needs yet.
PPS If you’re any good with XML, that’s actually the ideal place to start.
Thanks for all the details, Keith.
I figured there wasn’t going to be any cheap way out of this. I have Dreamweaver (used to build the original VeloWeb), so I could use it to create XML … but I’m definitely a WYSIWYG kinda guy.
I’ve given up trying to get Pages to render .ePub properly. Considering it’s called Pages, it just doesn’t seem to like page breaks.
Wondering if there’s any reasonable alternative to the $700 InDesign?
Yeah, I’m not sure if I was crazy before the randonneuring … but then I was writing long before I ever rode a brevet!
This is a challenge that almost all writers are struggling with, Ray. Just so you know that your headaches are shared by many 😉
As I covered in the seminar I did last fall for the BC Federation of Writers, many readers are moving to e-readers whether authors like it or not. So the reality is that the market is changing. For short books, $.99 seems to work. Much will depend on whether you want to sell from your own site, using PayPal, or mainly via Amazon.
My own experience is that book publicity is a huge amount of work – but in today’s publishing world we have few choices. It’s a do it yourself world if you want to get work out there.
Thanks Lorne. Now I don’t feel so alone.
Luckily, I’m a do-it-yourself kinda guy, though I’m probably a lot better with a cone wrench than book editing software!
I was thinking of adding a shopping cart (plugin) to the site that works with Paypal, but realize it makes sense to sell through Amazon as well. Now wondering if doing both is possible.
I think eBooks are actually a good idea. They make it easier for people to get “published”.
Of course having said that, I’m more traditional in that I prefer a good old fashion paper book. I have (quite literally) thousands of books in my house, so I can’t see paying anywhere from $50 and up for an e-reader…Plus I found a place in the city where I can get as many free books as a I want which helps :p
Although I’m not convinced eBooks will take over traditional books, they will still have a large enough market in the future.
Yes, I don’t think paper books are going to disappear soon.
Reading devices, after the initial investment, open up a whole world of low-priced–even free–books to the owner, as well as showcasing authors that never would have made it to print otherwise.
Yes, this has flooded the virtual library with books that perhaps would have been better had they stayed on the author’s hard-drive, blog or vanity press run.
I may yet add to this “genre.” 🙂
On the other hand, many good books that languished simply due to bad timing, etc. have now found an outlet. I think overall it’s a win-win for authors and distributors.
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