e-books: Distribution Channels,Acquisition and Management

SSP WebinarOctober 8, 2013

e-books: Distribution Channels

Tim Cross | Allen Press

Commercial Publisher Solutions

Society Publisher Solutions

How do you get started?

How do you distribute?

• Discovery• Logistics– Payments– Customer support– Channels

How do you distribute?

Where are your readers?

• Reader and consumer habits• Article vs. book• STM book vs. trade book

Where are your readers?

• Archos Diffusion• Broadband eBooks (BBeB) • Comic Book Archive file• Compiled HTML• DAISY - ANSI/NISO Z39.86• DjVu[• EPUB• eReader• FictionBook (Fb2) • Founder Electronics• Hypertext Markup Language• iBook (Apple) • IEC 62448• KF8 (Amazon Kindle) • Microsoft LIT• Mobipocket• Multimedia eBooks• Newton eBook• Open Electronic Package• Portable Document Format• Plain text files• Plucker• PostScript• SSReader• TEBR• Text Encoding Initiative• TomeRaider• Open XML Paper Specification

What file types?

What file types?

DRM

• How many devices?• Copy?• Print?• Time limit?• Pro’s and Con’s

DRM

Payments and transactions

Transactions• Online payments• Offline payments• PayPal• Customer Support• Technical Support

Channels

Retailers

Upside

• Discovery• Sync with reader habits• Payment processing• Marketing• Customer Support• Native environment for devices– Amazon | Kindle– iTunes | iPad– Barnes & Noble | Nook

Downside

• Managing retailer relationships• Mark-up– Apple

30%– Amazon

55%– B&N and Others

50%

Bookstore

Upside

• More control over pricing and mark-up

• Control branding• Drive traffic to your other sites• Direct relationship with readers• Ad sales

Downside

• Less visibility• Not syncing with reader habits• Pricing rules from retailers

How do you do it?

Solutions• Scholarly publishing vendor• Digital publishing vendor• Marketing-distribution-publishing

provider

Resources

• EPUB 3.0 Support GridMaintained by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)

• International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)IDPF develops and maintains the EPUB® standard