EPUBLISHING

1
E-PUBLISHING

• A Brief Overview of What It Is, Where Its Been,
  and Where Its Going

2
INTRODUCTION

• What is an e-book?
• How to read an e-book?
• Where to buy an e-book?
• Past, present and future of e- Publishing?
• E-Publishing - - So you want to publish an e-book?

3
What is an e-book?
In general, an e-book is any work formatted to be
read on a computer or a hand-held device.
4
In the context of this talk, an e- book will be
those works contracted for, edited and published
by legitimate, royalty paying e-Publishers.
5
How to read an e-book?

• Computers
• Dedicated hand-held devices
• PDAs
• Hand-held Computers
• Other devices

6
Each device requires different formats.

• HTML
• ReB
• PDF
• PDB, Palm Os availabe from iSilo
• MsLit
• HieBook

7
Where to buy an e-book?

• Directly from the e-publishers site

8
Where to buy an e-book?

• Through on-line retailers
• Fictionwise, www.fictionwise.com
• Ebookad.com, www.ebookad.com
• Ereader.com, www.ereader.com
• Powells, www.powells.com
• Amazon, www.amazon.com

9
Past, Present Future of e-Publishing?
Past

• On March 14, 2000, Stephen King put his name and
  clout behind e-publishing with his release of his
  first, e-book only novella, Riding the Bullet.
• New York and the publishing world sat up and took
  notice as 450,000 copies were downloaded in the
  first 48-hours.

10
Past
Life Before Riding the Bullet

• In 1997, a woman named Mary Wolf sat down with
  other like-minded aspiring authors and formed a
  group called EPIC, Electronically Published
  Internet Connection. It was incorporated in
  August of 1998, and held its first conference in
  Omaha in August of 2000, where it presented the
  first EPPIE awards for excellence in electronic
  publishing.

11
Past
Life Before Riding the Bullet

• In 1998, M.J. Rose first offered her novel, Lip
  Service, for sale as an e-book and a print-on-
  demand trade paperback through her web site. She
  sold 2,500 copies before Pocket Books offered her
  a book contract.

12
Past
Life Before Riding the Bullet

• In 1997, Mary Wolf, the founder of EPIC,
  purchased fledgling e-Publisher Hard Shell Word
  Factory and made it one of the first successful
  independent e- Publishers. HSWF still publishes
  e-books today.
• Also, in 1998, New Concepts Publishing, published
  Pauline Jones Pig in a Park, which was the first
  e- book to final in Romantic Times Reviewers
  Choice Award for Best Contemporary Romantic
  Suspense.

13
Past
What happened after Riding the Bullet?

• The expected surge in e-book sales did not appear
  after Kings phenomenal ride. E-publishers came
  and went, and only those with true commitment and
  a business plan that looked at the long haul
  survived.

14
Past
Contributing factors to the post-Bullet slump

• 1. Expensive reading devices and the sale of
  Rocket eBook to Gemstar
• 2. Digital format security
• 3. New York enters the e-book market and prices
  their content out of the market place
• 4. Continued reluctance of readers to curl up
  with a small hand-held device

15
Past
Market Savvy Retailers Enter the Marketplace

• In June, 2000, two brothers entered the e-book
  distribution market by launching a web site
  called Mindwise Media, an Internet consulting
  company. They started with 100 short fiction
  titles mostly in science fiction and fantasy
  genre, pricing them from 29 cents to two dollars.
  
• In the first two months, over 3000 e-books were
  sold, far exceeding their expectations. They
  split out the e-book part of the company into
  Fictionwise, in October,2000.

16
Past
Market Savvy Retailers Enter the Market

• Other retailers soon followed such as eBookad.com
  in 2000. Amazon.com, Powells.com and BN.com
  also added e-content to their sites.

17
Past
But still the market does not boom.

• From the end of 2000 through 2001, the
  e-publishing industry was mostly in a dark place
  with the failure of two major digital rights
  management companies, Digital Goods and
  Reciprocal.
• But things picked up in 2002 with Palm Digital
  Media, Gemstar eBooks and Fictionwise scrambling
  to offer more content to their e-book hungry
  customers.

18
Past
Fictionwise and Palm Digital Have Booming Years

• Fictionwise reported that 2001 revenue was at a
  400 increase over 2000. The number of downloads
  sold in 2001, 100,000.
• Palm Digital Media sold 180,000 downloads in 2001
  and doubled its revenues in the same year.
• In 2002, Fictionwise more than doubled its
  revenue over 2001 at 240, on sales of 165,000
  downloads.
• In 2003, FW doubled its revenue again on sales of
  260,000 units downloaded.

19
Present
The Market Is There, But Still Not Fully Tapped

• Sales have increased.
• On-line retailers seek more and more content,
  both from small independents and the New York
  conglomerates.
• Newer devices have come onto the market that lend
  themselves to ease of reading, plus have multiple
  other functions as well.

20
Present
Markets

• While the library market is booming, the
  marketing to general consumers is still not what
  it should be.
• The student market is woefully under-represented,
  especially considering that textbooks would fit
  easily onto most hand-held devices with the use
  of memory sticks and add-on hard drives.
• While the business market has, as a whole, been
  good, there is room for improvement with better
  devices that could show color pictures, graphs,
  charts and so on.

21
Future
What will it take to make e-books and
e-publishing as common and convenient as print
books?

• The reader is too costly. The other thing
  slowing things down is trying to find secure
  formats. Pauline Jones, e-author.

22
Future
Whats being done?

• The Open eBook Forum is searching for a unified
  format and a way to protect the e-book from being
  pirated.
• New reading devices are in the works.
• New York Publishers and e-publishers have figured
  out what sells and are targetting the content to
  the market.
• New York Publishers are using free e-book content
  to help promote print sales.

23
E-Publishing
So you want to publish an e-book?

• As with any publishing venture, the proof is in
  the track record of the publisher. Do they have
  a contract? Is it fair? What rights do they
  take?
• A good place to check out the general reputation
  are the following two web sites
• Preditors Editors www.sfwa.org/prededitors
• Piers Anthonys website www.hipiers.com/publishi
  ng.htmlpublishers

24
E-Publishing
Organizations

• EPIC is the first professional organization for
  e- published authors. www.epicauthors.com

25
(No Transcript)