Ebooks 101 presentation, August 2009

Arthur Attwell Electric Book Works Ebooks 101

Preface

Think of the Internet as the Great Database of Human Knowledge

‘Ebooks’ = Adding the world of literature to the Internet

‘Ebooks’ do not replace print. Print is too brilliant a way to distribute the information in the Great Database.

The excitement about ‘electronic books’ is a phase. That said, right now, what should we know?

Preface, done.

1/5 Ebook readers (hardware + software)

Kindle, Sony, iRex Iliad

Desktop PCs, netbooks

iPhone, Android phones

Phone web browsers

Ebook readers, done.

2/5 Ebook distribution (where you find ebooks)

Ebook retailers

Audiobooks

Archives: Internet Archive

Archives: Google Books

Libraries

Content sharing sites

Free/sample PDFs

Books as website content

Ebook distribution, done.

3/5 Stats and speculation

In US and UK, ebooks only 1–3% of turnover, but

APA stats for wholesale trade ebooks: Jun 09 +136%. ($14,000,000 vs June 08 $5,900,000)

On Amazon.com, when print and Kindle editions are available, Kindle = 35% of sales

Ebooks in South Africa? Developing countries often adopt technology later but faster than developed ones

Don’t think it’s all about ereaders and laptops, think mobile phones and institutional computers

Stats and speculation, done.

4/5 Consumer basics

Know a bit about file formats: esp. PDF, epub (mistakenly called ‘Adobe’ formats)

Know how to spot DRM (digital rights management) and what it means:

the unspoken rules of ‘ownership’ are changing: what you’re allowed to do is no longer the same as what you’re able to do with your digital files

Consumer basics, done.

5/5 Publisher basics

Be curious about technology

Challenge the way you think about rights, pricing, and piracy, try something new

Experiment: there are no established no- brainers (so pick a cheap, flexible approach to learn by)

You can’t work alone: use simple, non- exclusive, popular services (e.g. Scribd, Symtext, Stanza, Mxit)

Publisher basics, done.

electricbookworks.com

twitter.com/electricbook

thank you

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Ebooks 101 presentation, August 2009

by Arthur Attwell on Sep 04, 2009

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Ebooks 101 presentation, August 2009 — Presentation Transcript