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Making Simple eBooks and Making eBooks Simple
This presentation explores how authors, publishers and literary agents Presented by Mark Coker at the Publisher's Launch eBooks for Everyone conference in San Francisco
Making Simple eBooks and Making eBooks Simple
- 1.
- 2. Our Simple MissionMake ebook publishing & distribution Fast Free Simple and…
- 3. … andprofitable for our authors, publishers, agents and retail partners
- 4. Simple is GoodSimple is faster, smarter, cheaper ~80%* or more of ebook units sold are “simple” Simple = well-formatted straight narrative, or narrative + images Complexity bad Added cost & risk for publisher Added cost to consumer * BISG estimates 51% of ebook units sold are fiction. Fiction is narrative. My assumption: 60%+ of remaining 49% is narrative, or narrative + images
- 5. What Matters toReaders? “ Foo foo” is the frilly stuff most readers won’t miss if it’s not there, like drop caps. Kind of like lint in the belly button. Readers want well-formatted, accessible and quality books with great words. This is what I think. You’re welcome to think different.
- 6. How are simplebooks working for us?
- 7. 31,000+ Number ofauthors, publishers, agents served by Smashwords
- 8. 7,000+ ebooks releasedat Smashwords last 30 days
- 9. 82,000+ ebooks publishedat Smashwords
- 10. Indie ebooks publishedat Smashwords 140 6,000 28,800 82,000 (11/2/11)
- 11. How did wedo it?
- 12. Bags of VCMoney? No. We haven’t accepted a penny of venture capital money, nor do we want it. We’ve been profitable for 13 months.
- 13. Army of super-heroninja squirrels ? No. We’re 11 people (up from 3 one year ago).
- 14. Did we shakedown authors? It’s against our DNA to charge fees. We earn a commission if we sell something, and earn nothing if we don’t.
- 15. No bags ofmoney, squirrels or shakedowns. We provide FREE publishing and distribution tools We never stop making our tools faster, simpler, better
- 16. Here’s how wemake books
- 17. Step 1: BYO Word Processor & Manuscript Microsoft Word Open Office Writer
- 18. Step 2 –Implement our Formatting Tips (over 130,000 copies downloaded!)
- 19. Step 3 –Instant, FREE Conversion Smashwords Meatgrinder High-quality multi-format conversions for narrative & narrative + images, fast/free updating
- 20. Meatgrinder creates qualitybooks that make readers happy … Reflowable Custom styling Hyperlinks NCX navigation Automated formatting error detection and correction EPUBCHECK compliance Instant updates/revisions
- 21. Meatgrinder limitations Althoughwe think Meatgrinder is cool, it’s not without limitations, so here’s where we think we need improvement Doesn’t support direct .epub/.mobi/.pdf/ etc uploads of pre-formatted files Drop caps weak Support for bullets and numbered lists needs improvement Hand-coded books (as opposed to automated conversions) will always provide more precise control (but do readers really care about foo foo for simple books??)
- 22. Step 4 - Distribution to Apple, B&N, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, others
- 23. Final Thoughts Simpleworks great for vast majority of books readers want to buy fiction narrative non-fiction Simple is good for books, good for authors/publishers/agents/retailers simple books can also = high-quality books cuts production costs/risks faster time to market enables lower prices for consumers
- 24. Thanks for listening!Connect with Mark Coker: Web: www.smashwords.com Blog: blog.smashwords.com Twitter: @markcoker