A public presentation first given at The Book Lounge in Cape Town, covering the basics of the ebook industry.

1. Arthur Attwell
Electric Book Works
Ebooks 101

2. Preface

3. Think of the Internet as
the Great Database of
Human Knowledge

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

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

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

7. Preface, done.

8. 1/5
Ebook readers
(hardware + software)

9. Kindle, Sony, iRex Iliad

10. Desktop PCs, netbooks

11. iPhone, Android phones

12. Phone web browsers

13. Ebook readers, done.

14. 2/5
Ebook distribution
(where you find ebooks)

15. Ebook retailers

16. Audiobooks

17. Archives: Internet Archive

18. Archives: Google Books

19. Libraries

20. Content sharing sites

21. Free/sample PDFs

22. Books as website content

23. Ebook distribution, done.

24. 3/5
Stats and speculation

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

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

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

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

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

30. Stats and speculation, done.

31. 4/5
Consumer basics

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

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

34. 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

35. Consumer basics, done.

36. 5/5
Publisher basics

37. Be curious about
technology

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

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

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

41. Publisher basics, done.

42. electricbookworks.com

43. twitter.com/electricbook

44. thank you

45. EBW