Online publishing: a personal take
Nov. 17th, 2014 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteOn Facebook and LinkedIn, I noted that two of my novels were now available on Smashwords in EPUB format. For the record, these are two fantasy novels, a loosely linked diptych:
Chords
Jester
Two more will follow as soon as I receive revised files from my colleague, Karen Lofstrom, who did the formatting for me. (I don't speak EPUB yet, didn't have time to learn, and wanted to do the job right. She does the job right.)
A friend asked me why I'd chosen Smashwords and how my e-publishing strategy had evolved. So let's start from the beginning: I'm a firm believer that all modern publications should be available both in print (some people still prefer ink or toner on paper) and in electronic form, particularly now that everyone has a smartphone or tablet. So my first book, Effective Onscreen Editing, was published via Lulu.com as a print-on-demand book, and via my Web site in eBook (but not EPUB; see below) format. This was a very successful experiment, and sales have been about 3 or 4 eBooks per 1 printed copy. All of my books have been available in both formats ever since, and will continue to be.
If online publishing were simple, there'd be no need to describe the various alternatives: we'd just have one infinitely flexible format that worked for all needs. This may still happen within my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath or betting the beer fund on this prospect. This leaves authors facing the dilemma of which of at least half a dozen formats to choose -- each with their own benefits and drawbacks. The two broad categories to consider are fixed-format designs (i.e., PDF, HTML with really rigorous CSS), in which you control the minutiae of the layout right down to the last line break, and flexible-format designs (e.g., EPUB, Mobi, HTML), in which you control only the words, and the reader's software controls the display.
Fixed-format offers several advantages over flexible: First, it allows indexing because you can generate the index, complete with clickable links, from the same software you used to generate the print version -- assuming you created a decent embedded index. You simply can't do that right now from most* of the flexible online formats because the software is probably 5 to 10 years away from including this as a standard feature. (Programmers simply don't consider indexes useful, presumably because they have never tried searching a non-fiction document other than a programming reference for specific concepts. Thus, they don't understand why authors who actually give a damn about their readers will spend tens of hours or hundreds of dollars crafting an index.) Second, fixed-format obviously lets you control the format, so if you're a decent typographer, you can craft something lovely and eminently readable. The downside is that you have to pick a suitable size and resolution for the reader's screen, and given how many resolutions there are, it can be tricky to create a satisfactory one-size-fits-all solution. For my editing book, I spent a significant amount of time crafting a PDF design that would display well (in landscape format) on all screens that editors were likely to be using. It was a big hit, specifically because of my time investment in understanding how people would use the book. My next book (coming Real Soon Now -- watch this space!) will again be PDF, but because tablets are ubiquitous and most people now use large screens, it will be optimized for use on a mid-sized screen such as an iPad mini and usable on most larger screens.
* For Web-based documents, you can create effective indexes using a little-known gem HTML indexer. Should I win a lottery (which would require actually buying a ticket), I'll retire and take my own advice to index my Web site this way.
Flexible-format offers two huge advantages over fixed: First, the text re-wraps to fit any screen size. That means the same document will be usable on a 4-inch phone screen and a 30-inch LCD monitor. Second, the reason why it's usable across that spectrum is that the font and font size are both user-selectable, within reason. This means that readers with various visual impairments can choose fonts that work best for them. This is the first era in history in which we've been able to give our readers this gift. There's also a smaller third advantage: flexible-format files tend to be kinder to screen-reader software, which makes them available to the blind. Adobe Reader now offers a read-aloud option for PDF files, but because PDF files tend to be layout-intensive, the results won't be as good. The major drawback of flexible-format is that you have much less control over graphics. EPUB is a few years away from "getting it right", but it's the lowest common denominator, and works acceptably for pretty much all reader software and devices, and is easy to convert into Mobi format (for Kindle), so it's my format of choice for the moment.
Now we come to the thorny issue of distribution -- getting your book into the hands of your readers. When I started publishing with my first book Effective Onscreen Editing, I had to choose between a home-grown solution versus something more closely tailored, including an off-the-shelf solution like a shopping cart. Publishing exclusively through Amazon was not an option, as I'll discuss below. So I hired a colleague to try creating a shopping cart for me. It cost a bunch, and didn't actually end up working. The largest part of the problem is that this kind of technology takes considerable expertise to implement, and it's not the kind of expertise you pick up just by reading the manual and playing with the software for a few days. It takes hours of focused study, and the diversity of the available software is so high that you really need an expert to configure any given piece of shopping cart software. The situation has probably improved in the past 10 years, but I'm not optimistic that it's ever going to be easy.
Because I'm insanely busy, and have to steal time just to write, I don't have time to acquire this level of expertise. So I opted for the simplest solutions whose constraints I could live with. For my printed books, I chose Lulu.com: they weren't the cheapest option by a long shot, but they had a good reputation for high print quality, and the setup and management were simple. I published my books, and every month, Lulu deposits the proceeds into my Paypal account. Can't get easier than that! Nonetheless, I'm looking into Lightning Source/Ingram. They'll be more complex to configure, but they have as good a reputation as Lulu for quality and will get my books into key places like Amazon and library catalogs without me lifting a finger.
For my eBooks, I originally opted for a simple hack permitted by Paypal's "buy now" buttons. When you tell Paypal how you want to encode the button (a quick and easy task via a fill-in-the-blanks form on their Web site), they allow you to specify a redirect page: once the payment goes through, Paypal sends you to the specified Web page. In my case, that page was the PDF or EPUB file of the book I've just sold, which then displays in your browser or downloads (depending on browser and settings). About once per month, someone doesn't read the instructions or a browser fails to display the file, and I have to send someone the file manually. I can live with that. I've created a "no-robots file" to stop the PDF from turning up in Google searches. Most other reputable search engines will also obey this file.
The obvious question is why I was not worried about piracy with this approach, since anyone can simply copy the URL for the file and share it with their friends. Explaining why this isn't a huge worry requires a brief digression. First and most important, I'm a huge opponent of digital rights management (DRM), a technology that usually inconveniences pirates only briefly but causes endless grief to the honest people who buy your books. The examples of several science fiction authors (most famously, John Scalzi and Corey Doctorow) makes it clear that if you produce a quality product and price it fairly, most people will be honest and pay for your wares. Apple's iTunes provides an even bigger example of how this works. Thus, I opted to avoid DRM for my books, and my logic is that once someone has my non-DRM book in their hands, they can simply pass it along to anyone. That being the case, the lack of security in my download method isn't an issue for me. I've undoubtedly lost some unknown amount of sales to pirates and cheats, but the money keeps rolling in, so I'm willing to accept what appear to be acceptable losses.
So we finally arrive at my friend's question: Why have I chosen Smashwords for eBooks of my fiction, and soon, probably for my non-fiction? Again, simplicity. Like Lulu, Smashwords has a good reputation (it was recommended by two experts whose opinions I respect), and from my few interactions with their staff, they seem like a decent bunch of people. Their fee structure seems fair, and they'll handle all the thorny details for me, including getting my books listed with all major booksellers. I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon, but as a friend pointed out, I'm sacrificing 80% of my sales if I exclude them from my marketing. So I've swallowed my principles this far and will allow my books to be sold via Amazon. But I won't buy books from them anymore if I can buy them elsewhere; I'd rather support the small booksellers of the world, who gave me many hours of browsing pleasure and some fine conversations over the years.
Questions? I'll answer as time permits.
Chords
Jester
Two more will follow as soon as I receive revised files from my colleague, Karen Lofstrom, who did the formatting for me. (I don't speak EPUB yet, didn't have time to learn, and wanted to do the job right. She does the job right.)
A friend asked me why I'd chosen Smashwords and how my e-publishing strategy had evolved. So let's start from the beginning: I'm a firm believer that all modern publications should be available both in print (some people still prefer ink or toner on paper) and in electronic form, particularly now that everyone has a smartphone or tablet. So my first book, Effective Onscreen Editing, was published via Lulu.com as a print-on-demand book, and via my Web site in eBook (but not EPUB; see below) format. This was a very successful experiment, and sales have been about 3 or 4 eBooks per 1 printed copy. All of my books have been available in both formats ever since, and will continue to be.
If online publishing were simple, there'd be no need to describe the various alternatives: we'd just have one infinitely flexible format that worked for all needs. This may still happen within my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath or betting the beer fund on this prospect. This leaves authors facing the dilemma of which of at least half a dozen formats to choose -- each with their own benefits and drawbacks. The two broad categories to consider are fixed-format designs (i.e., PDF, HTML with really rigorous CSS), in which you control the minutiae of the layout right down to the last line break, and flexible-format designs (e.g., EPUB, Mobi, HTML), in which you control only the words, and the reader's software controls the display.
Fixed-format offers several advantages over flexible: First, it allows indexing because you can generate the index, complete with clickable links, from the same software you used to generate the print version -- assuming you created a decent embedded index. You simply can't do that right now from most* of the flexible online formats because the software is probably 5 to 10 years away from including this as a standard feature. (Programmers simply don't consider indexes useful, presumably because they have never tried searching a non-fiction document other than a programming reference for specific concepts. Thus, they don't understand why authors who actually give a damn about their readers will spend tens of hours or hundreds of dollars crafting an index.) Second, fixed-format obviously lets you control the format, so if you're a decent typographer, you can craft something lovely and eminently readable. The downside is that you have to pick a suitable size and resolution for the reader's screen, and given how many resolutions there are, it can be tricky to create a satisfactory one-size-fits-all solution. For my editing book, I spent a significant amount of time crafting a PDF design that would display well (in landscape format) on all screens that editors were likely to be using. It was a big hit, specifically because of my time investment in understanding how people would use the book. My next book (coming Real Soon Now -- watch this space!) will again be PDF, but because tablets are ubiquitous and most people now use large screens, it will be optimized for use on a mid-sized screen such as an iPad mini and usable on most larger screens.
* For Web-based documents, you can create effective indexes using a little-known gem HTML indexer. Should I win a lottery (which would require actually buying a ticket), I'll retire and take my own advice to index my Web site this way.
Flexible-format offers two huge advantages over fixed: First, the text re-wraps to fit any screen size. That means the same document will be usable on a 4-inch phone screen and a 30-inch LCD monitor. Second, the reason why it's usable across that spectrum is that the font and font size are both user-selectable, within reason. This means that readers with various visual impairments can choose fonts that work best for them. This is the first era in history in which we've been able to give our readers this gift. There's also a smaller third advantage: flexible-format files tend to be kinder to screen-reader software, which makes them available to the blind. Adobe Reader now offers a read-aloud option for PDF files, but because PDF files tend to be layout-intensive, the results won't be as good. The major drawback of flexible-format is that you have much less control over graphics. EPUB is a few years away from "getting it right", but it's the lowest common denominator, and works acceptably for pretty much all reader software and devices, and is easy to convert into Mobi format (for Kindle), so it's my format of choice for the moment.
Now we come to the thorny issue of distribution -- getting your book into the hands of your readers. When I started publishing with my first book Effective Onscreen Editing, I had to choose between a home-grown solution versus something more closely tailored, including an off-the-shelf solution like a shopping cart. Publishing exclusively through Amazon was not an option, as I'll discuss below. So I hired a colleague to try creating a shopping cart for me. It cost a bunch, and didn't actually end up working. The largest part of the problem is that this kind of technology takes considerable expertise to implement, and it's not the kind of expertise you pick up just by reading the manual and playing with the software for a few days. It takes hours of focused study, and the diversity of the available software is so high that you really need an expert to configure any given piece of shopping cart software. The situation has probably improved in the past 10 years, but I'm not optimistic that it's ever going to be easy.
Because I'm insanely busy, and have to steal time just to write, I don't have time to acquire this level of expertise. So I opted for the simplest solutions whose constraints I could live with. For my printed books, I chose Lulu.com: they weren't the cheapest option by a long shot, but they had a good reputation for high print quality, and the setup and management were simple. I published my books, and every month, Lulu deposits the proceeds into my Paypal account. Can't get easier than that! Nonetheless, I'm looking into Lightning Source/Ingram. They'll be more complex to configure, but they have as good a reputation as Lulu for quality and will get my books into key places like Amazon and library catalogs without me lifting a finger.
For my eBooks, I originally opted for a simple hack permitted by Paypal's "buy now" buttons. When you tell Paypal how you want to encode the button (a quick and easy task via a fill-in-the-blanks form on their Web site), they allow you to specify a redirect page: once the payment goes through, Paypal sends you to the specified Web page. In my case, that page was the PDF or EPUB file of the book I've just sold, which then displays in your browser or downloads (depending on browser and settings). About once per month, someone doesn't read the instructions or a browser fails to display the file, and I have to send someone the file manually. I can live with that. I've created a "no-robots file" to stop the PDF from turning up in Google searches. Most other reputable search engines will also obey this file.
The obvious question is why I was not worried about piracy with this approach, since anyone can simply copy the URL for the file and share it with their friends. Explaining why this isn't a huge worry requires a brief digression. First and most important, I'm a huge opponent of digital rights management (DRM), a technology that usually inconveniences pirates only briefly but causes endless grief to the honest people who buy your books. The examples of several science fiction authors (most famously, John Scalzi and Corey Doctorow) makes it clear that if you produce a quality product and price it fairly, most people will be honest and pay for your wares. Apple's iTunes provides an even bigger example of how this works. Thus, I opted to avoid DRM for my books, and my logic is that once someone has my non-DRM book in their hands, they can simply pass it along to anyone. That being the case, the lack of security in my download method isn't an issue for me. I've undoubtedly lost some unknown amount of sales to pirates and cheats, but the money keeps rolling in, so I'm willing to accept what appear to be acceptable losses.
So we finally arrive at my friend's question: Why have I chosen Smashwords for eBooks of my fiction, and soon, probably for my non-fiction? Again, simplicity. Like Lulu, Smashwords has a good reputation (it was recommended by two experts whose opinions I respect), and from my few interactions with their staff, they seem like a decent bunch of people. Their fee structure seems fair, and they'll handle all the thorny details for me, including getting my books listed with all major booksellers. I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon, but as a friend pointed out, I'm sacrificing 80% of my sales if I exclude them from my marketing. So I've swallowed my principles this far and will allow my books to be sold via Amazon. But I won't buy books from them anymore if I can buy them elsewhere; I'd rather support the small booksellers of the world, who gave me many hours of browsing pleasure and some fine conversations over the years.
Questions? I'll answer as time permits.