You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'online book' tag.
Due to technology’s far-reaching arm, cell phones are becoming cheaper than ever. The younger generations are texting more than they are conversing, as well as choosing to read books on their tiny phone screens.
Ebooks are not ragingly popular, however. When the question is posed on the internet ‘would you abandon paper books for eBooks’ the answers are overwhelmingly similar… “Yes, IF the reading format was easier to use, like using the iTouch or iPhone system”. The answer lies in easy readability, which currently reading systems are woefully lacking in.
The magic of books has a simple key: the ease of use. One must simply lift a page, turn it with one deft movement of the hand and continue reading.
Ebook’s one mass appeal is the ease of storage. Instead of lugging around 25 books in your tote bag (which can harm one’s posture and cause shoulder pain) you can carrying 700 books in the plam of your hand. If you have the foresight to carry extra batteries you can read them anytime, anywhere.
The second fun fact of eBooks are the low, low cost… usually 1/4 of the price of waltzing into Barnes and Noble and picking up the latest offering from your favorite author. Even self-published, on-demand authors are finding that ebooks are by far cless expensive to produce, let alone they are sendable world-wide at the click of a button, with no postage costs whatsoever.
It is more fun and nostaligc to hold a real book in ones hands and turn the pages as so many of our ancestors have done. I have shelves filled with classic books which i read often. Howeve,r more and more my clients find theuir dollar stretches farther in purchasing digital books and are willing to go in such a direction, despite the slightly harder method of reading them. Folks thought texting would never catch on, nor replace talking on the hone but the younger set forced themselves ot leanr how out of popular demand and now the fingers fly with mind-boggling speed… becoming to them ‘the norm’.
One day, there will be eBooks for everyone… and most everyone will read eBooks.
What a fantastic tool for new authors.
PDF is fast becoming last year’s news; our customer have hinted heavily that they want a better formatted system for their PDAs as PDF is just too wide and cumbersome for viewing. Since most folks are switching from average cell phone to PDA, we decided to go hunting for an eBook service/software that could format our books into PDA compatible files.
We found MobiPocket… a French-based company that had the foresight to be new/unpublished author friendly not only in categorization but in their software. Its free to download, fairly straight-forward to use and they provide their customers with free reader software that is highly customizable.
As a result, they have thousands of quality, single-format eBooks on their site (mobipocket.com); I was so impressed with the quality of the cover graphics presented that I re-did a few of our just to put them up alongside and not look too shabby. They do take a percentage of the book’s sale revenue, so figure that into your price when you are configuring your upload.
How it works: if you use Word it will be easier. You download their publisher free software and upload your Word file. It converts your book into a Word html file which you can edit a little in Word as well (to space out your chapters. It tends to lump them together a little.) The wizard then walks you through uploading your cover, tweaking the settings, compression and encryption. You also get the option of putting in a synopsis or free chapter, along with any reviews you want to include. Then you set up a publishers account with user name (still free), upload and activate your books individually. Your books show up on their site within seconds.
Here are some of our book listings: (We’ll have all seven up by Sunday.)
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=125156
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=125165
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=125162
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=125182
All in all we give this site two thumbs up, considering the small percentage taken, the broad category ability, the fairly equal advertising and that it connects to your PayPal account, for free. Good luck writers. May you reach all available PDAs worldwide.
Meredith Greene
