Sale of books in digital format
jorge dorlando
Posts: 1,157
Hello ,
I was reading a matter here:
http://www.kindlelivros.com.br/como-ficar-milionario-escrevendo/
where it says , " " writer Amanda Hocking is a millionaire just selling books in digital format ( for e- readers and tablets ) ,
Amanda Hocking became the largest independent writer of the Amazon site !
By selling direct to the reader through the Amazon website , Amanda Hocking is 70 % of ( a reversal of values , compared to a traditional writer ) . And look what she sells around 100,000 copies per month!
The secret of your business is exactly the sales tactic : she charges of $ 0.99 to $ 3 per book. Lowering the price , it earns the volume (most in the ' impulse sales " ) , as with almost negligible value , people do not think much before buying . Besides all this , the e-books have another advantage : zero cost with printing , with stock and spaces on shelves , much less the freight, since the delivery is immediate , made by download. " " "
Well .. I 'm not just a writer , but I have written 3 stories in need of revision only and ... that will be ... suddenly ... is giving me the will to try it .
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Go for it, but you have to remember writing and producing your stuff is only half (or even a third) of the battle. Succeeding with digital books (or with any endeavor, for that matter) is all about Marketing. That is the really difficult part and will eat up the most of your time. You might have the greatest story ever written, but without an effective marketing machine and plan in place, it won't be successful. Emailing lots of people, promoting your books in forums and other social media, convincing reviewers to review your book and get favorable ratings to convince readers, etc. That's the difficult part. For every successful e-book there are a hundred that no one ever read or even heard about due to lack of promotion.
This is just to give you perspective from someone like me who has dabbled in digital e-book production. But don't let the reality of it dissuade you. Go forth and produce the best work you can. Just be prepared for the grunt work of actually hawking and marketing it to succeed.
Good luck!
A friend has written, and published a few books, but it all depends on people actually buying your stuff! Doesn't matter how good you are (to a great degree) you just need to get 'noticed'.
Go for it, but you have to remember writing and producing your stuff is only half (or even a third) of the battle. Succeeding with digital books (or with any endeavor, for that matter) is all about Marketing. That is the really difficult part and will eat up the most of your time. You might have the greatest story ever written, but without an effective marketing machine and plan in place, it won't be successful. Emailing lots of people, promoting your books in forums and other social media, convincing reviewers to review your book and get favorable ratings to convince readers, etc. That's the difficult part. For every successful e-book there are a hundred that no one ever read or even heard about due to lack of promotion.
This is just to give you perspective from someone like me who has dabbled in digital e-book production. But don't let the reality of it dissuade you. Go forth and produce the best work you can. Just be prepared for the grunt work of actually hawking and marketing it to succeed.
Good luck!
Hmm, thanks for the tips.
although, my texts are written on paper yet. I have no idea how to start it in digital mode
In essence, get the written words transcribed into a document. Find a place (such as smashwords or inkylittlefingers) who will take that file and 'mangle' it into an e-book or physical format.
Mhmm! thanks for the tip!
Yes, I have an ebook through smashwords and smashwords put it on iTunes as well. I don't advertise it at all and i have only had a few sales from iTunes, not even enough for a review. A review would probably help I suppose. maybe if I get enough sales.
I am sure advertising would be a good idea but I don't have time.
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/avenging-angel/id487829440?mt=11
Love esther
Oh, hello Esther!
Well, all these suggestions seem good! I'm analyzing each one, thanks
seems to me that Amazon has developed a reader called Kindle.
I'm looking at it too.
I'd be interested to know about the size of the artwork for e-books- whether they are all the same and the app puts them to the size needed or if say, the Kindle is different from the Apple products displaying the media? Any good tutorials on how to start?
I have been a freelance graphic designer for years working specifically with authors to help them publish their books (although work has really dried up for me for the last year or so), and I know this stuff very well. Be careful about the "mangling" part, because the quality of the ebook is very important. If the user experience is bad, your book will fail.
You can either hire a pro to prepare your documents or learn to do it yourself, but whatever you do, DO NOT just throw any document out there like it doesn't matter, because it very much does. Learn what an ebook is expected to look like and how to produce documents that match those expectations. Ebooks are no longer afterthoughts, they are market leaders. The visual quality of your ebook is just as important as it is for a printed book.
^ Yep. Don't rely on the sites to do it for you. I've heard lots of horror stories about that. Check around the net for how to make the e-book. Whether you go with a pro or do it yourself, it's best that you are aware of the process. It's time consuming, but it's the only way to be sure the book looks the way you want it to.
As a sidenote, I used Calibre for formatting my comic to produce the kindle (.MOBI) and other readers' (.EPUB) formats. You can find it here:
http://calibre-ebook.com/
It's free and there is a learning curve, but, as I said, best that you know how it works. If anyone wants to see the results, you can download the first issue from Drivethrucomics for free. The link is here http://comics.drivethrustuff.com/product/102925/Servant-#1 or just click my sig. :coolsmile:
Anyone who does less than their best won't succeed in a competitive market. (or shouldn't.) What I wanted was more along the lines of dimensions, dpi in the artwork (300, 150, etc) for electronic transmitted work. This is totally different than the printed work I did SO long ago. (late 1980's) I suppose each publisher has its own guidelines.
^ Yep. Don't rely on the sites to do it for you. I've heard lots of horror stories about that. Check around the net for how to make the e-book. Whether you go with a pro or do it yourself, it's best that you are aware of the process. It's time consuming, but it's the only way to be sure the book looks the way you want it to.
As a sidenote, I used Calibre for formatting my comic to produce the kindle (.MOBI) and other readers' (.EPUB) formats. You can find it here:
http://calibre-ebook.com/
It's free and there is a learning curve, but, as I said, best that you know how it works. :coolsmile:
Excellent advice!
Unless we have specific instructions to the contrary, we handle everything as if it were going to the print house. Saves time and on at least two occasions, saved us having to go back and redo the entire project because the publisher suddenly decided they wanted a limited edition print run.
About the only change we have to digital works is there a dust jacket wrap and front/back. Print runs usually only have dust jacket wraps.
I have been a freelance graphic designer for years working specifically with authors to help them publish their books (although work has really dried up for me for the last year or so), and I know this stuff very well. Be careful about the "mangling" part, because the quality of the ebook is very important. If the user experience is bad, your book will fail.
You can either hire a pro to prepare your documents or learn to do it yourself, but whatever you do, DO NOT just throw any document out there like it doesn't matter, because it very much does. Learn what an ebook is expected to look like and how to produce documents that match those expectations. Ebooks are no longer afterthoughts, they are market leaders. The visual quality of your ebook is just as important as it is for a printed book.
I have no idea of the number of standard pages for an e-book,
If it were a comic, oh yes, I would make sure how many pages per issue, but a book about the ...
Ebooks don't have "pages" per se. The size of a page is flexible. It's dependent on the screen size as well as the size the reader sets for the text. There is no such thing as "standard". I have short stories, short story collections, and novels all in ebook format.
Hmmm, now I understand,
then it is not necessary to worry if 100 pages is too small estoria and or 400 pages, is loads etc..
^ Yep. Don't rely on the sites to do it for you. I've heard lots of horror stories about that. Check around the net for how to make the e-book. Whether you go with a pro or do it yourself, it's best that you are aware of the process. It's time consuming, but it's the only way to be sure the book looks the way you want it to.
As a sidenote, I used Calibre for formatting my comic to produce the kindle (.MOBI) and other readers' (.EPUB) formats. You can find it here:
http://calibre-ebook.com/
It's free and there is a learning curve, but, as I said, best that you know how it works. If anyone wants to see the results, you can download the first issue from Drivethrucomics for free. The link is here http://comics.drivethrustuff.com/product/102925/Servant-#1 or just click my sig. :coolsmile:
Thank you,
this is one more information, important!
I have been a freelance graphic designer for years working specifically with authors to help them publish their books (although work has really dried up for me for the last year or so), and I know this stuff very well. Be careful about the "mangling" part, because the quality of the ebook is very important. If the user experience is bad, your book will fail.
You can either hire a pro to prepare your documents or learn to do it yourself, but whatever you do, DO NOT just throw any document out there like it doesn't matter, because it very much does. Learn what an ebook is expected to look like and how to produce documents that match those expectations. Ebooks are no longer afterthoughts, they are market leaders. The visual quality of your ebook is just as important as it is for a printed book.
That's why I put it in quotes! I've not done it myself, but the friend who has mentioned that the site itself called their process 'the grinder' or something similar.
Another question:
an e-book requires images processed during edition in overexposure or underexposure?
say, when the image editor, or it does not influence?
because I know that a production animation for Cinema (film), differs from one production to DVD, one uses underexposure, overexposure another, or perhaps confuse me here.
Keep in mind that this is an ebook, not a production-quality film. It's only going to be viewed on a computer device, mostly at smaller sizes. An ebook like Kindle and epub are really just webpages made to be read from an ereading device. You don't need to process images at all except to make sure they use web-ready sRGB color palette. You also don't want image file sizes to be too large. Ebooks need to be as small as possible to make them easy to download.
smashwords call their conversion utility the "meat grinder" for those who can't figure it out you can pay for help. what it does is format your ebook into something that can be sold for all sorts of publishing formats like ibook and kindle I think etc.
iBooks yes, Kindle, not currently.
Yeah, I really hope this is for "all" readers electronics formats:
Kindle, ipod, iphone, Pdf, tablets ...
You really just need a Kindle and Epub format file. All ereader devices use one or the other. There are apps to read Kindle files on everything, and epubs are "standard" files used by everybody not owned by Amazon.
You really just need a Kindle and Epub format file. All ereader devices use one or the other. There are apps to read Kindle files on everything, and epubs are "standard" files used by everybody not owned by Amazon.
Oh well, they are only 2 formats!?! That's good! As this is new to me, I'm kinda lost here.
thank you
Jorge, I've sent you a PM.
Cathie
Depends on who your target market is. Like the TheWheelman mentioned earlier, MOBI for Amazon Kindle users, EPUB for other e-readers like the iPad. However, a huge chunk prefer PDF (as it works on most any device). If you're doing a comic or graphic novel, CBZ and CBR is also an option that some prefer (though you really only need a ZIP software like Winzip or WinRar for that). And then there are those old fogeys who like it in .DOC format.
In my own work, I did as much as I can. I got good feedback that this is a nice touch, taking into consideration the preference of people who favor one type of format over the other, but it's painstaking, especially if you have little time to spare. Just writing, doing the art, layouts and editing already eats up a lot of time. Consider your options if you think it's worth going the extra mile.
Also, note that there is no "best" format. It's all relative to who you want to target and how much time you have to spare to learn these things.
I just read your message. Thanks Novica
Depends on who your target market is. Like the TheWheelman mentioned earlier, MOBI for Amazon Kindle users, EPUB for other e-readers like the iPad. However, a huge chunk prefer PDF (as it works on most any device). If you're doing a comic or graphic novel, CBZ and CBR is also an option that some prefer (though you really only need a ZIP software like Winzip or WinRar for that). And then there are those old fogeys who like it in .DOC format.
In my own work, I did as much as I can. I got good feedback that this is a nice touch, taking into consideration the preference of people who favor one type of format over the other, but it's painstaking, especially if you have little time to spare. Just writing, doing the art, layouts and editing already eats up a lot of time. Consider your options if you think it's worth going the extra mile.
Also, note that there is no "best" format. It's all relative to who you want to target and how much time you have to spare to learn these things.
Thank you