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Date : 25 Feb 2014

Digital Publishing For Authors

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Tonight

Introductions

Digital publishing (tips, tools and why you have to do this)

Q&A

About Me

Public Affairs | Tech/Political Writer | Educator | Motorcyclist

@kegill | gplus.to/kegill | wiredpen.com| kegill.com

Introductions

Who are we?

What do you want to do?

What is your digital publishing experience?

When Robert de Graff introduced $0.25 paperback books in 1939,

publishers scoffed.

History of ebooks

History of ebooks

3 in 10adults read an

e-book last year.

Under 30? 1-in-2

What is an ebook?

A distributable digital edition of a book Text file – project Gutenberg HTML PDF epub/mobi AZW – proprietary Kindle format An app – (Al Gore, Our Choice)

Audio books may be digital but they aren’t ebooks

Your experiences? How differ from print?

Source: Statista

7 in 10adults read an

paper book

1 in 7adults listened

to an audio book

Projection:end of 2014

1-in-2 will have purchased an

ebook

What does this mean for authors? Go where readers are

eBooks > Kindle (better for text/fiction/BW) eBooks > iBook (iPad only, better for color/interactivity) eBooks > Nook/Fire (better for color) POD > print is a different format! Audiobooks (beyond scope!)

Formats Kindle/AZW

Fiction, few illustrations, for basic Kindle (B/W) No control over flow, page breaks, etc

ePub (a standard! – International Digital Publishers Forum) Images, color, cross-platform Reflowable HTML, CSS, XML, zip (compression) Fixed layout sometimes used for iPad/Kindle Fire

Formats Mobi (a standard!)

Images, color, cross-platform

PDF Fixed formatting (this is a print spec)

iBook author (enhanced, epub3) Can also export as PDF or text

See more at Wikipedia

How will you be found?

Self-publishing v “being published”

Single service providers

Delivers one or more services (formatting, design, editing, printing, promotion)

You retain control

Kobo, Lightning Source

Writer.ly helps writers find services

Guru/eLance – marketplaces for independent contractors

“Pick and mix”

Offers a package with menu of services (critique, editing, design, print, production, marketing, promotion, distribution)

Lulu, CreateSpace (the author-services company of Amazon)

Photo books > See Blurb

Do it all

Like “vanity press” of old

Can be costly

Author Solutions, Lumina Press

Emerging models

Kickstarter (crowd-funded)

WattPad (beta-readers+

Crowdspring (crowd-design)

Subscriptions (Safari Books, Scribd)

pod!

Conversion : complexity rises

Plain text

Plain text with links (this includes endnotes)

Plain text with images or tables

Formatted text (columns), images with wrap-around text, boxed features, sidebars, etc

Fixed layout

Enhanced

Covers!

How will you be found?

Not every innovation is worth mastering.

Copyright / examples

A word about DRM (Amazon v O’Reilly)

Published author chooses to self-publish – fiction

Published author chooses to self-publish – nonfiction

Fiction: Maria Murnane

The Book Deal (inside view of publishing)

+Contact

Kathy E Gill

kegill at uw dot edu or gmail or @kegill

This lecture: wiredpen.com

http://faculty.u.washington.edu/kegill