The Creative Penn » Ebooks and Technology

Podcast: Creating iPhone Apps For Your Books With Tom Evans, The BookWright

Joanna Penn — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:48:32 +0000

This podcast is for authors and writers considering iPhone apps as a way to make sales and promote themselves. Making an app is one of my goals for 2010 so this interview was one of the first steps along the way.

Tom Evans is an author, bookwright and poet who mentors writers on how to unleash the book inside themselves. He specialises in removing writer’s block which we covered in a previous podcast. Tom has also just released 3 iphone apps as well as starting an iPhone app publishing platform, Commutabooks.

In this podcast, you will learn:

How you can publish your own books in multiple formats to a) get more readers and b) make more income. Tom has done this with ‘100 years of Ermintrude‘ and it has previously been published in print, PDF, audio and video.
How your fans will buy the same book in multiple formats, for example, I have Gary Vaynerchuk’s ‘Crush It’ in print, audio book, Kindle version and Vook format.
How Tom has created Commutabooks to publish ebooks for the short commute market
How creativity and tech can blend, just like the alchemists!

The steps you need to take in order to create an iPhone app

Understanding even the basic technicalities will save you money and help on design, so download the Apple Developers Kit. Tom also bought a few books on how to build an app.
Decide on what you want to do and whether you already have the material/text/images etc

Design the app by knowing what you want to achieve as well as how the technology can be used.
Find yourself a programmer. Tom used Twitter, but you can also use Elance, Guru or Odesk
Submit to the Apple store for the approval process

Is it worth it to have an iPhone app? Tom explains how the marketing aspect is very valuable even if you don’t make huge sales, although some apps do sell and make money for authors. There is a market for book apps, especially while it is a new idea.

Marketing on the Apple store. You have to market your app just like marketing a book. There are tags that can be used on the app store. You can also market to app review sites with free promo codes. Get people talking on the social networks and try to achieve the ‘tipping point’ that gets you in the Top 25 on the store.

On opportunities for the iPad including interactive experiences
It is also easier to migrate to other platforms once you have material converted e.g. Google phones, possible
Tons of ideas for what can be done with the apps – think experience, not just as a text based book

You can get Tom’s iPhone apps here (priced free, 99c, $1.99 so all affordable)

You can also get Tom’s book ‘Blocks’ here which I also mentioned in the podcast.

Here is a really useful post from the Guardian that basically outlines the same steps.

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Podcast: Ebooks Q&A With Joshua Tallent From EBookArchitects

Joanna Penn — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:48:10 +0000

Ebooks are everywhere in 2010 and many people email me asking for more information on what they can do to jump on the wave of digital publishing. I just had to interview Joshua as he is an expert on the biggest platform out there, the Amazon Kindle.

Joshua Tallent is the author of ‘Kindle Formatting” and is a specialist in formatting books for the Kindle and other ebook platforms. He is also the founder of EBookArchitects.com, converting print books into high quality formatted ebooks and taking the pain away from non-techy authors!

In this podcast you will learn:

What has changed in the world of ebooks in the last year that has meant the explosion of ebook consumption
Why you should care about ebooks as a reader, AND as an author
The steps you need to take your Word document and publish it on the Kindle platform
The level of technical skill you need to create a Kindle book – and how you can get help if you don’t want to DIY
What books are most suitable for ebooks vs print books
How children’s books can also be ebooks and which platforms are best for picture books
What the best platforms are for publishing ebooks and how you can get started
Ideas for selling ebooks on your own website

You can find Joshua at EBookArchitects.com or on Twitter @jtallent

You can download the transcript here => Transcript Joshua Tallent

or read it below the links.

Links from the Intro section:

Write or Die software
Holly Lisle’s shop – lots of great resources [affiliate link]
Storyfix – Larry Brooks
Storylogue – Robert McKee
Bali Writer’s Retreat details
Simon & Schuster.biz site Author online tools

To read the transcript, click right to Show => show

JP: Hi everyone. This is Joanna Penn with The Creative Penn podcast. Today I’m interviewing Joshua Tallent from ebookarchitects.com but first I’ve got a few updates for you just to keep you in touch with what’s going on and try and make this a bit more of a personal podcast. Okay, so my novel which is actually now called, I guess working title is Pentecost, because I found that’s actually one of the themes of the novel. It is a religious thriller so that’s pretty exciting. Okay, so my word count currently is 24,182 words of very first draft writing and I have a goal of 40,000 words by mid April. That’s probably not such a big goal. I’m just finding at the moment I just don’t have that much time. My work is – my day job is particularly tiring and busy at the moment and I’m also trying to learn to write a novel at the same time. So, you’ll be seeing lots of blog posts on novel writing aspects in the coming months. I do have a good plot, I’m happy with the plot and I know what I want to say. It’s just not coming out in the way I want it to which I think is a common issue with writing a novel. Definitely very different to writing non fiction.

One of the things I am finding useful and I mentioned this last time, is the Write Or Die software which actually gets me to write down even if it’s broad brush strokes of what I want to portray but it is really first draft stuff but I am enjoying it. When I actually get down to it I really enjoy it and I’ve also been listening to rain, you know, rain on iTunes which is really good cause it’s been so hot here in Brisbane that it’s just – it’s really been quite out of everybody’s comfort zone. And listening to the rain has actually made me feel quite comforted and I guess being British the rain helps me. Yeah, so that’s pretty fun. As research I’ve been reading a lot of Holly Lisle’s books and also Larry Books from Story Fix, on characterisation. I’ve also been reading Soul Stein which is an older book actually but really very good and I’ve also joined Robert McKee’s story log which is video based for writers. So, I’m basically a beginner with the craft of writing so all of this is really helping me learn.

So, yeah I’m still very busy at my day job. Somebody asked me what I do and I basically I’m an IT consultant for a large mining company in Australia, in Brisbane. At the moment I’m just sort of doing banking, setting up banking for this company so it’s interesting but it’s not obviously what I’d love to be doing full time. So yes I do this blog and the podcast for fun and not income. Because I’m I guess really busy and tired at work in the heat I’ve cancelled my live Brisbane workshop, full day workshop as it exhausts me and it takes about three days. And I’ve been turning down speaking engagements that are not directly related to writing. I am speaking on the Gold Coast this weekend however, and the Bali writer’s retreat is definitely on for October. So, I’d love to see you there if you’re interested in Bali and we’ll be doing a lot on author platform as well as actually getting your book done. Even though I might be struggling with my novel, I have still managed to get through three non fiction books. Anyway, if you’re interested in Bali then it’s thecreativepenn.com/Bali and there is some details there or details on the main page.

Okay, industry news. Interesting and I will be blogging, I have – or I will have blogged about this by the time you listen to the broadcast. Simon & Schuster who are a huge publisher have started a new site, they just opened a new sit simonandschuster.biz. It’s a new web site and it’s good this page for author resources for online tips and tools and they’re actually advocating that authors use blogs, social media book sites and video. So, interesting to see that the author platform idea is now mainstream. I’m actually going to be relaunching my Author 2.0 online course at some point, probably after Easter, but I’m also going to do some many modules I guess available on each topic. I’m thinking of doing blogging, podcasting, e-books and social networking as separate modules but do please e-mail me or leave comment if you have any particular things that you are interested in. You can also go to author2zero.com, that’s author number two zero dot com forward slash sign up to put in your email address if you’re interested in pre release specials that I will be doing. Okay, I think that’s about it. So, let’s get on with the interview and as ever please do leave comments and let me know what you’d like to hear or if you have any recommendations for speakers for interviews on the blog I’d love to hear from you.

Welcome back to The Creative Penn Podcast and today I’m interviewing Joshua Tallent. Joshua is the author of Kindle Formatting and is a specialist in formatting books for the Kindle and other e-book platforms. He’s also the founder of ebookarchitects.com, converting print books into high quality formatted e-books and taking all the pain away from us non techie authors. So welcome Joshua.

JT: Thank you. Good to be here.

JP: Oh, thanks for coming on the show. So, maybe for those people who haven’t heard of you yet, maybe you could tell us briefly a bit about yourself and about your businesses.

JT: Well, I’m an e-book formatter, developer by trade. I’ve been doing e-books for about seven years. I started out working for a software company working on their proprietary format and then as the Kindle came out and e-books started to take off, I found that I could help people like – especially independent authors who were having problems trying to get their books into right format. So, I kind of jumped on that and started answering questions in the Kindle forums and it turned into a little side job. And I thought, oh this is great, I can do this on the side and still work my day job and then about nine months later it had grown to about thirty and forty [0:06:54], yeah it’s time to change. So, I started E-book Architects back in January of 2009 and so it’s been smooth sailing and really great. The e-book world is growing very fast and it’s great to just kind of sit on top of the wave and watch as everybody figures out how to do e-books and how to get their e-books out there for people to buy and it’s a great place to be right now.

JP: And I guess – I really started my blog about a year ago as well and I’ve been aware of you I guess since then, but it seems like things have really moved on in that one year since January 2009. And like I said, you’ve been speaking everywhere and e-books are everywhere so can you maybe outline what has been changing in the world of e-books in the last year or so.

JT: Some of the biggest changes have been in the device market. You’ve seen a lot of devices kind of crop up in the last year. Before the Kindle came out in 2007, in November 2007, Sony already had its reader out and it was already – it had already been in the market for a while and nobody really knew what E Ink was or what the devices that they could use to read e-books were, but Amazon came out with a device and all of a sudden the market just got inundated. And then in the last year we’ve seen a lot of new devices come out. There’s probably twenty or thirty E Ink devices out there. Some of them are only in certain parts of the world, based for certain geographical areas but other than that, I mean it’s a pretty wide open field. And we’ve seen a lot of people come together behind the EPUB format which is the industry standard format and that’s really good to see. Cause then someone buys a book, they don’t have to worry too much about being able to read it on just one device like you get with some proprietary formats like the Kindle format. The restrictions are not quite as bad with that, with the EPUB format so it’s great. There is a lot of good technologies happening.

The iPad obviously is a really good thing to see and really interesting change in the market and e-books are growing quickly. If you look at the numbers – you know IDPF, the industry groups that does the EPUB format and manages the EPUB format, they release statistics every quarter about e-book sales and how things are increasing. And every year, just year over year the last couple of years, there’s been increasing 150, 200% and that’s great for authors, it’s great for publishers, it’s great for anybody who wants to sell their content and especially for authors. I have to say, the last year has been great for independent authors who don’t have necessarily the backing and all the money and all the things that a big publishing company might have. Being able to self publish your book and being able to, especially self publish your e-book and get it out there in the hands of people, is much easier now than it was just two years ago.

JP: No, absolutely and I guess maybe I could ask your opinion on the whole sort of U.S. versus international market because we only got the international Kindle just before Christmas and I believe Canada only got it this year. Is the rest of the world catching up I guess with the U.S.?

JT: Yeah, in some ways the rest of the world has been behind the U.S. in this and in some ways it hasn’t been. The Kindle really is the big dog in the e-book world so it’s great to see it go international and I think that is a sign that e-books are going to spread. And you see a lot of – I mean I’ve been contacted by certain people in like Europe, Eastern Europe and South America who are looking at, you know, they don’t have e-books in their country. It’s completely open market and they’re trying to get it on e-book retailing presence and tyring to figure out how to do conversions and things like that. And it’s definitely growing very quickly in other parts of the world but I think one of the things Amazon has going for it is kind of a unified front and that’s why Sony wasn’t able to necessarily get the traction even though the Sony reader was available internationally for a while before the Kindle came out. It’s that front that Amazon has, that fact that they really do provide a lot of the book buying online, they’re [0:11:09] to move international so easily. It’s great.

Hopefully we will see it happen and I really do hope to see this, is we’ll see devices that will come up in certain areas like in Australia where you are, that are specific to the market and the people in the area so that not everybody has to be on the same kind of device. You don’t have to be on the Kindle or the Sony but you can have a device that really is geared towards the needs of the people in that geographical area and that’s something that I think will happen in the next couple of years.

JP: That’s fantastic. So, I guess hopefully people listening to this call are interested in e-books in general but some people are still unconvinced. I regularly get emails from people saying, why do you talk about e-books so much and do you have any words I guess to say to one, authors and two readers as to why should they care about e-books.

JT: Well, e-books are in a lot of ways the way of the future. I mean there is – I don’t think print books will ever go out of style or ever stop being used. I still like reading print book periodically myself and that’s – there are some things that just never are never going to work very well as an e-book. But especially for fiction, especially for content that people want to be able to read easily, they don’t necessarily want to spend the twenty five dollars for a hard back, an e-book is a really good way to get your content, as an author to get your content into the hands of people who may not have even found you otherwise. If you’re an independent author and you’re not able to get your book distributed into the book stores, you’re having trouble getting that print distribution that you really would want, an e-book is a good way to meet your customer base in a way that you wouldn’t be doing in print. There is a lot of opportunities to get your book into a variety of retailers online in e-book formats and so it’s a good way for people to get to know you as an authors. Some authors actually will if they’ve got a couple of books. They’ll even make their older books available for free or for a couple of dollars so it’s a really easy buy in for someone and those people get hooked. They read your content, ‘Oh wow this is a great story, I really like this’, or ‘this is a great – they have a great writing style, I like this author’ and they’ll come back and they’ll buy your print books and they’ll buy – they’ll buy into you as an author. And that’s a – it’s a really good way to market yourself and market your content.

As far readers are concerned one of the biggest things for readers is just the lower price point. A lot of people buy e-book devices and they’ll spend $300 on a device because they’re not spending $15, $20, $25 on a book. They’re spending $10 on a book or $7 on a book and it makes it a lot easier for people to purchase content and purchase more content and be able to read more and engage more with the content that they want to read.

JP: Absolutely and I talked about this before and business books here in Australia are around $40 Australian which is I think is around $30 U.S. so we’re really penalised for business books especially and they cost around $11 on the Kindle. So, it’s quite clear, that it’s quite obvious that it is cheaper to buy it on the Kindle. The other thing I was going to say there as well about you saying people getting hooked on multiple books, I think Joe Conrath was saying he’s got thirty odd books now I think on the Kindle and people tend to buy them all. So, as soon as he hooks somebody they will go and just read his whole backlist and they can just click the bottom and if there is another link to another one of this books and it just goes on and on and on doesn’t it. It’s brilliant.

JT: Exactly. Yeah it’s perfect.

JP: Brilliant. So, I mean I’m obviously a convert and so are you. I was just trying to be an evangelist out there for e-books. Okay, so I have published on the Kindle just basically but I wondered since your first site is Kindle formatting and you do have a book there on the topic, maybe you could just briefly outline the steps someone would need to do to convert like just a plain text novel into a Kindle book?

JT: Well, assuming you’ve got say a Microsoft Word document that you’re trying to convert into a Kindle book, the process is not really that difficult. You can take that Word document and make sure that it’s clean and you don’t have any editorial problems with it. Proofread it, get a friend to edit for you if you can and then go through the book and actually do as much clean up on the content, the formatting as you can. Microsoft Word especially it has a styles process and a lot of people don’t know about the styling system that’s built into Word but you can learn about it very easily. Go in and style your book, use content styles on your headings, use them on the paragraphs and make sure that’s nice and clean. Page breaks in between your chapter, in front of your chapters and things like that. Then once you’ve got it nice and clean then you can do a couple of things. One, you can import it directly into say Mobipocket Creator, which is really the best way to do that. You want to get the book into Mobipocket Creator and it converts it into HTML and then you can go into that HTML file and clean it up. Or you can save the file from Microsoft Word into what they call filtered HTML which is kind of a cleaner HTML format that Word can create.

And then you go into the HTML, do a little bit of cleanup there and I’ve described that in my book, but that part even isn’t necessarily something you have to do if you’ve done a good job with the styles. And then you build the book as a Mobipocket book using Mobipocket creator and the process for that is very easy. It’s an easy interface to use and once you’ve built the book it gives you a PRC file. That .prc file is what you would upload to the Amazon digital text platform to publish and you’re good to go. There’s a lot of things that you can do as an Internet author to get your book out there that don’t really require a lot of techie-ness, that don’t really require you to dig into the HTML code or do anything like that.

JP: And there are some people now freaking out with all HTML and PRC and Mobipocket, so at what sort of level of techie-ness do people need and how can e-book architects help I guess? What do you offer to help other people?

JT: The level of techie-ness is basically if you’re good with Word and you know what you’re doing to Microsoft Word and you’re not afraid to try something new, getting into Mobipocket Creator. You could even upload that Word file directly to Amazon if you wanted to though I don’t usually suggest that. It’s not terrible. If you’re comfortable enough with the computer and you can play around with it, it should be pretty easy. What I do is I take that Word file and essentially follow that same kind of process, but because I’ve been doing this for seven years I’m really fast at it. So I can turn around what might take an author a couple of days or a couple of weeks even to try to figure out and hack through, I can usually do in about an hour of my work time. And that conversion process I get it into HTML and the benefit of using someone like me and their other people who do what I do as well, but the benefit of using e-book architects is that you’re getting a file that’s been cleaned up in the source code. We don’t do our editing in Microsoft Word. We do our creation in HTML, which is the base format for the Kindle. So you really – when you get into HTML it’s much more powerful. I have a lot more control over the formatting and how much – how things look and I can do little things to make a book just look really good on the Kindle device. And then there are some functionality things that you can do that like making way point navigation available in your book which essentially if you’re on the Kindle 2 or the Kindle DX, then you’re reading a book that has way points, you will see little dots in the location bar. And as you right click or left click on the [0:19:11] way controller, you can jump from chapter to chapter, section to section to those dots if they’re in the way point that are in the application bar. And that’s a really good feature for people who are reading a book, even a fiction book cause it gives a much – it’s kind of an easy navigation option. And then there is things like the embedded cover which I can create an embedded cover and put it up in the books so whenever someone goes to the very beginning of the book to the cover image, it’s actually full screen. There is no white space around it and it looks really nice and is a good feature to have in your books. So, those are the kinds of things, just little things that make a book go from being okay to being just fantastic.

JP: And I guess it is one of the most annoying things on the Kindle is when there are sort of badly formatted books that are hard to read and sometimes I resort to the native PDF thing and then the screen’s really tiny, the words are really tiny. So absolutely I think that’s brilliant. Can I ask about pricing. So, for example I’ve got a sixty thousand word just plain text book say that’s just in Microsoft Word, could you give me a price on that so people get an idea?

JT: Yeah. Usually the price for fiction and any kind of straight font text is going to be about $100. On a larger book, let’s say something that would end up being like three or four hundred pages in print, then maybe like a $150, but fiction books are really easy to do and as long as the formatting is not really weird and there is nothing really intense going on in the book as far as formatting is considered, $100 is pretty much the normal rate for a fiction book.

JP: Yeah, that’s brilliant, fantastic. So, highly affordable for most people and the authors who get their books on the Kindle I think are generally very pleased as long as their marketing obviously in getting the [0:21:06] so that’s brilliant. Okay, let’s move on. So, one question I also get a lot, I get children’s book authors, picture book authors, other sort of highly formatted text authors sort of emailing me and saying what is the most effective e-book format for them. Is it just PDF, what will the iPad, so do you have any answers for sort of those picture books and highly formatted books?

JT: It really kind of depends on the book itself. There are some things that you can do with a children’s book in say EPUB format or even Kindle format that are pretty good. It’s when you get into books that have lots of worksheets and that really would require someone – if they were in print someone would be sitting there writing, filling in a worksheet or writing content in the book, that’s the kind of thing you really can’t do as an e-book very well, that really should be kept as a PDF file. But when you’re doing say a children’s book, you can do a lot of really cool things with children’s books especially if you’re focusing in on a certain sized platform like the iPhone and you’re building say an application for the iPhone. You an do really nice things with those kinds of books. EPUB is a really good format for more intense formatting because EPUB is an open source standard, it has a lot more flexibility in formatting. So, I do suggest that people who have more intense formatting themes try to go with EPUB. One of the problems that EPUB has though on the counter point is that there are couple of different EPUB rendering engines, software programs that actually do that display of EPUB files. And so while you may make an EPUB file that looks really good on Sony reader, it may not look the same, actually probably won’t look the same on the iPhone in say the stanza application. So, you have to take that under consideration. Right now that’s probably the biggest limitation of the EPUB format is that problem of worrying about what your book is going to look like in the different areas.

So, a lot of times if you’ve got a very intense book and you have the ability to sell a PDF file, for right now that might be the best option for you. Is just to keep it in PDF, but if you’ve got the ability to play around with it a little bit and if you don’t mind not necessarily making it look exactly the same way that it looked in the print version, then you can play around and get it into the Kindle format or into EPUB format and it can look pretty good if you try really hard.

JP: And do you think that the apps for things like the iPad, and I think Amazon’s opened up the Kindle to developers, hasn’t it as well, so are apps the sort of way of the future or will books stay on the e-book reader apps I guess?

JT: I think books are here to stay. I mean applications, iPhone apps are really cool, it’s an easy way to get your book. Well, not necessarily easy but it’s a good way to get your book in front of a different type of audience then say someone who has a Stanza or someone who has an Iceberg reader or something on their iPhone, they [0:24:13] for books through the stores on those applications. But if you’re putting an app on the iPhone – I mean on the iTunes store then you’re hitting people who don’t even necessarily know anything about Stanza or any of these other applications that are kind of library systems. They can buy your book directly and install it on their iPhone that way. The iPad will change some things I think. I think the biggest thing the iPad is going to change, is it’s going to be hopefully more competition for Amazon on the front of ease of publishing. If Apple opens up their system like Amazon has, where anybody including independent authors can go and publish their content, then that will make the big difference. If Apple doesn’t do that and they’re still limiting themselves to only working with publishers, then I don’t think it will change very much at all cause really all the iPad is, is just a big iTouch, you know, iPod Touch. And a $500 price point is kind of steep for some people for something that may not do exactly what they’re willing to do. I don’t think it’s the killer application. I still think that dedicated e-book readers will be the primary way that people read electronic books in the future but the iPad has the potential to give Amazon a run for its money if Apple pulls it off the right way.

JP: No, absolutely and I really love my Kindle. Actually we all only have the black and white kind of – we don’t have the DX or I think the Kindle 2 or anything so we only have the basic one, but I absolutely love it, it’s brilliant. So, and that basic screen is what I actually like and I use my iPhone for different things. So, I agree with you there. Are you going guys going to be doing iPhone apps?

JT: Yeah, I’m actually working with the makers of Stanza. I’ve been putting this off and putting it off because I just don’t have time to mess with it right now to get my systems set up for it, but in the next few months we will be offering iPhone applications as an option for our clients, yeah.

JP: Fantastic. We’ll keep an eye out for that. That’s one of my goals this year is to get an iPhone app done, but there is so many options.

JT: Yeah.

JP: Okay. So, a couple more questions. We’re almost out of time. When do you think it is appropriate to have an e-book versus a print book or should you always have both?

JT: It really depends on the author and on the contents. Some books are just going to work better as an e-book especially things that, you know, if you’re going to be making a lot of changes to it because it’s say a fast moving business industry or something that you really need to get out right now because of something that’s going on politically or something that’s going on financially, that you want to get the content out there right away, e-books work really well for that kind of thing. If you’re writing fiction, I think you really should do both if you have ability because you’re going to hit a different market with print than you would with your books, and print books still sell more than e-books. E-books only make up a small percentage of the total sales in the publishing world so, you’re definitely going to – you’re missing out on sales if you don’t have a print book available. I think as far as timing is concerned, a lot of big publishers are moving to this let’s wait on the e-book, we’re going to wait four months before we release the e-book version. Personally I think it’s a bad idea. I think that authors – I mean publishers can make the decisions to sell the books at a later time but that doesn’t mean people are going to buy the print book instead of buying the e-book. I’ve got a Kindle. If I want to read a book I’m going to go look on the Kindle first and see if it’s available and see what the price is. And if I really, really, really want to read that book, I’m probably just going to wait until it comes out on the Kindle.

I think most people who have Kindles have that kind – or have e-book readers have that kind of thought. They have spent $300 or $200 or whatever on a device that they use to read books and if they have to wait a couple of months, it’s not a big deal. People wait for a couple of months to read the same book from the library because they’re on the waiting list for it. So, I don’t think that’s going to affect things the way the publishers expect it to.

JP: No, I agree with you. I think Mur Lafferty had something like this on her site as well this week and I went on and said, well I will buy a print book if it’s not on Kindle but only if I really, really, want the book like Seth Godin’s Linchpin that came out last week and is not on the Kindle here. Anyway, that’s the other thing. You guys get some of the books and we don’t. That’s really annoying.

JT: Yes.

JP: But yeah sometimes you do end up buying a print book but generally I want to buy them on the Kindle. That’s exactly right. Okay, another question, I guess this is probably the last one, where are the best places for people to start selling e-books. So, for example do they go to Smashwords, do they put them on their own web site, do they go straight to the Kindle, what do you think? If someone is ready with their e-book where do they put it?

JT: Definitely on Amazon. Right now from what I’m hearing Amazon sells 50 to 70% of e-books that are sold across the retailers and that number comes from the big publishers. It may not necessarily apply to an independent author but Amazon is a great place to put your book up for sale. So, I do suggest to everyone, get a Kindle version, get it up on the Kindle and if you do nothing else go there. If the iPad – if the iBook store is available and open, I would highly suggest that people go there as well as the second stop. Make sure that you’re out there on the iPad if that becomes an availability for independent authors. Places like Smashwords are really good. There are some issues with Smashwords because their formatting is not necessarily as good as you can create yourself and definitely not as good as what I can create myself, but it’s a good place to get your book out there and get your name out. If you have a market, let’s say you’re a business writer and you have a very consistent market, let’s say you’re doing speaking engagement and things like that, then definitely try to get your e-book for sale on your web site. You can even sell coupons or something on your book table at your speaking engagements and let people download your book. But they e-book from you at your book table and then download it from the web site or something like that. There is a lot of options available.

Make your e-book part of your platform. If you’ve got a good platform then your e-book will sell and your print book will sell and you can point people to wherever you’ve got it up for sale to make those sales. That’s the best thing. It’s just to get that platform working and make it work for you.

JP: I agree with that and I sell just PDF copies of my books from my web site and they sell pretty well actually for the same price as the Kindle but obviously I make a bit more money when it’s from my web site. So, that sort of PDF versus Kindle, I’m totally an advocate of being everywhere.

JT: And if you have the ability – if you have the ability to sell a PDF, then go and sell the Kindle and EPUB version on your web site too because PDF will hit a certain market but I prefer, much prefer to read a Kindle version of a book on my Kindle than the PDF version of the book because of the thing that you’d mentioned earlier about the text being smaller in the PDF and it being harder to read. If you’re already selling PDFs, hey get the EPUB and Kindle versions out there as well on your web site and you may draw some people away from buying it at Amazon and you only getting 35% of the cut.

JP: Ah good point. I hadn’t thought of that. I just linked to my Kindle page, but you’re right, I should just sell the format myself. Brilliant idea. Thank you for that. Okay, so finally, where can people find more about you and about your services?

JT: I am available at ebookarchitects.com, also at kindleformatting.com. My e-book architects web site has an information about the retailers and formats that are out there and also talks about my services and what I can do to help you out. I’m also available any time if someone wants to call me. I’m available in the U.S. 512 939 3466, which is my cell phone, so feel free to give me a call or on Skype at joshua.tallent, that’s T-A-L-L-E-N-T. And all that information is on my web site as well.

JP: Brilliant. Well, thanks ever so much for your time Joshua, that was brilliant.

JT: Thank you.

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International Ebooks and Ebook Readers: An Update

Joanna Penn — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:29:10 +0000

There has been some big news in the ebook world recently, and authors should know about these changes in order to take advantage of them. I wrote a post back in October that lamented the situation for international publishers, but things have certainly changed!

Apple

If you didn’t hear the news yet, Apple released their iPad last week after months of secrecy and online hype from fans. For all the details on the device, read this post.

For writers and readers, there will be an iBooks app which will contain ebooks from some major publishers but there is no idea yet how indie authors will be able to publish on the app. It is apparently DRM only, but I can see that changing as they changed music after a while.

It is certainly a multi-functional device, and I will be having a look when they get to Australia, although the website currently has the iBooks only available in the US. If you are a published author, then check with your publisher whether your books will be in the iBooks store. If you’re indie, then we’re waiting to see what will happen!

If you want to get on the Apple bandwagon right now, you can still create an iPhone app for your books or your brand that is globally available through the app store – and the iPad will still be able to use the apps. Some authors who have done this recently are Scott Sigler, Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It as a Vook and Tom Evans, The Bookwright. (Tom will be coming on the podcast soon to talk about how he did it). Also, check out this article with Al Katkowsky who released a popular iPhone app.

Amazon

In the last few weeks, Amazon have proactively done the following, most likely getting ready for the hype around Apple:

Publishers (and self-published authors) can now receive 70% revenue when publishing on the Kindle
International publishers and authors can now publish on the Kindle
You can publish in multiple languages on the Kindle

You can choose to publish the book in a non-DRM format with a simple checkbox
The Kindle in basic and DX format are now available and being sold internationally
More books are being released in Kindle format every day (we finally have big name authors and new paperback releases in the Australian Kindle Store)
Amazon is opening up the Kindle to developers so expect some apps for more functionality
Kindle has 90% of the ebook market right now and recently announced they have sold “millions” of Kindles

What does this mean for you? If you have books that you own the digital rights to, then get them onto the Kindle, either through the Amazon DTP or with Smashwords below.

If you are a published author but you own the digital rights, you might want to follow the example of Stephen Covey, self help author of “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” who has gone directly to Amazon with his ebooks.

Here’s why I like the Kindle and how it has changed my reading habits. I am still a Kindle fan, and I buy more books on it every day. It doesn’t need to be multi-functional because I only use it for reading – no distractions. So even if I do invest in the iPad sometime, it won’t be a dedicated Kindle replacement.

Smashwords

Smashwords.com expanded their offering last year to include publishing on the Kindle as well as Sony Reader, B&N.com and in many other ebook formats.

The site remains the easiest to use as it formats your book for you from a basic text edition. They have recently won the distribution of ebooks for BookViewCafe, a collective of well known writers including Ursula Le Guin.

You can register and load your books directly at Smashwords.com. Here is an article with some tips for publishing with them.

DigiBookWorld

Last week the DigiBookWorld conference kept many of us glued to Twitter and the blogs to see what was going on. That the conference even exists demonstrates that times are changing, so if you are not convinced about digital publishing, then check out the roundup of the posts here and the links from the main site here.

Here are just some of the topics discussed:

That’s it for the round-up! Are you excited about ebooks? Do you have a Kindle? or are you an e-skeptic?

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5 Reasons Writers Need To Embrace Technology

Joanna Penn — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:04:00 +0000

Many people I meet say “I don’t like computers” or “It’s too hard to use all these sites” when I mention words like ebooks, social networking, online author platform and blogs.

But if you are serious about your career as a writer/author, think about these 5 reasons you need to embrace technology (by which I primarily mean the internet!).

People are online. Those people could buy your book. Even if you don’t like consuming ebooks or on mobile devices, millions of other people do and more join the fun every day. You want to reach them so you need to be online or at least have your information available to be found. If you are engaging on social network sites, providing information on your blog or producing your work in podcast audio format, you are more likely to get readers of your work than if you just wait for a publisher to find you, or bookstores to stock your book.

It is the best way to build an author platform. The author platform is now critical for everyone except the top authors and famous celebrities. It means people will find you, hopefully engage with you and then be interested in your writing/books or business. The old way of building a platform was through traditional media and PR (which costs money), or through 1:1 contact/networking as well as speaking. All of this is still relevant, but if you also have an online presence you will reach people globally when they are searching or browsing. You can also utilize word of mouth online which can boost your platform much faster and much further.

The tools have never been easier and they are free. You don’t need to know how to program to have a website or blog now. You don’t need $20,000 to have a website. You can have one for free. You don’t need to know much except how to drive a mouse. Point and click is all you need for most of these tools plus the confidence to try them out. The recent list of the most influential websites in the world included Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, all of which are great tools for platform building and all very easy to use. For more ideas, check out my free Author 2.0 Blueprint which contains other free sites you can use.

Publishing is changing and ebooks are exploding. Ebooks and ebook readers will become far more common in 2010 as prices come down and people realise how brilliant they are. Readers are avid consumers of books and ebook readers enable faster consumption. You need to get in on the act (even if you don’t want one yourself). Enable people to buy your book in any format they like. Check out Smashwords.com if you already have a book, and also author Joe Konrath’s Kindle predictions and success. Also check out what publisher Michael Hyatt has to say about the end of publishing as we know it.

Mobile devices are exploding and the internet is going mobile. You may not know people with an ebook reader, but how many of your friends and family have a mobile device? Most of them? All of them? In fact, 1 billion mobile web users are predicted in 2010. Some of these people absolutely love what you do. They want to know you, connect with you and read what you produce. You need to be online to connect with them. The exciting thing is that this opens up the market to millions of people in countries who can’t afford a computer but who can surf the web on a mobile device. Wow! A whole new world of readers.

Check out this video if you need convincing, it’s a brilliant look at this mobile, connected world.

How can you embrace technology and not go mad?

Pick a site and start somewhere. Grow from there. That’s it! Here are the most influential websites online – they include some great sites to start playing with technology including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

If you are overwhelmed, start with these 3 : Decide on your goals. Set up a blog. Start on Twitter. [Read the whole article here].

Yes, you will get frustrated. You will find it a bit hard to get started. You will have to play around, spend some time with it, and you may get it wrong. But the rewards are endless!

Please do let me know any questions you have on this. I’d like to help you!

Personal note: I am an IT consultant, but not a programmer. I am Gen X and was not brought up with the web or computers in general. I got my first email account at 21. My degrees are in theology and psychology, not IT. I am a geek but I have learnt this stuff, it doesn’t come naturally. So this is something I am still learning myself! Come and join me!

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Update on the Amazon International Kindle and What It Means For Authors

Joanna Penn — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:44:30 +0000

I’ve had my International Kindle about a month now and wanted to report on how my reading has changed, and how this affects you as an author. I was positive before, but I am even more so now I have a decent e-reader that is improving my life as a biblioholic!

How my reading and book buying behaviour has changed

I buy more books. I read fast and the instant gratification means I finish one book, and then I am recommended the next in the series or a related topic, which I can get delivered instantly. I also browse the Kindle store for fun during day job lunch hours. While I am reading one book, I also jump to the store if other books are recommended.

I take a chance on books I wouldn’t buy in print. It is also easy to get a sample delivered so you can read a chapter for free. I have bought several ‘unknown to me’ books this way, and also rejected some.

I buy books for knowledge or entertainment, not for a physical product. This was interesting to me as it was unexpected. I am a sucker for self-help and development books. I take notes as I go and actually, it’s the knowledge I want, not the physical book. I am happy to spend $11/$12 for the knowledge I gain from your book, regardless of the format.

I love the note-taking and bookmarking ability. This is made all the better with the Kindle for Desktop application. I read and make notes on the Kindle, then write blog posts/articles at my computer with the notes pages in front of me. Brilliant!

I prefer to buy on the Kindle. Firstly I have just moved house and I have over 1000 books that I have paid to ship from UK to NZ to Australia. I seriously can’t hold any more stock here! So I am trying to move to buying less paperbooks, and culling what I have to retain the most loved print books. Saying that I have ordered 2 books in print that I read on the Kindle first. Second, it is cheaper for me. As mentioned before, prices of books in Australia are astronomical and make print books a budget breaker. I can get 3 Kindle books for the price of 1 new paperback. Thirdly, the risk is lower. I can read samples when I like and buy for cheaper without feeling ripped off if the book is no good. (I stopped reading the Scarpetta that sparked the last post!)

What is not good about the International Kindle?

Basically, not all books are available either in Australia or in Kindle format anyway. This is lost sales in my opinion as I am actively not buying print books (unless they are really special!) in favour of buying Kindle books. I am confident that this will change as the ebook market grows and in the meantime, there are hundreds of thousands of other books available.

I previously mentioned the DRM (Digital Rights Management) as a negative, but personally, I have not even noticed. I buy mostly from Amazon.com anyway so it is natural for me to continue with them as a preferred source.

It is an amazing distraction from NaNoWriMo! (both a positive and a negative!)

How this applies to you as an author

Get on the Kindle – it’s another market even if you are not into reading ebooks yourself. If you are a US citizen, then you can do this straight from dtp.amazon.com. Or you can use a company like EBookArchitects.com

UPDATE: Smashwords now has distribution onto the Kindle so anyone can publish in Kindle format. You just load a Word document and it is converted into .mobi as well as being in multiple other formats.

The Kindle is another revenue stream. Check out Joe Konrath’s revenue streams here. It is only going to grow as the Kindle and other ebook readers are rolled out world-wide (Canada was added last week!). So get your backlist on it ASAP! The Kindle also takes shorter forms so you can publish short stories, essays etc.

Get yourself a blog and get onto the social networks. Books sell by word of mouth. As soon as I hear of a book I fancy, I look in the Kindle Store and get a sample if it’s available. Then if it’s good, I buy it. Get your books out there and talked about. Make sure people are seeing your books around and hearing about them on the social networks. If people can find your book instantly, they are more likely to buy than if they write down or try to remember the title and then go to their local bookstore in an attempt to find it!

IMAGE Credit: Flickr Creative Commons GoXunoReviews and here

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International Kindle: A Review From A Biblioholic Stuck In a Land of Expensive Print Books

Joanna Penn — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:10:08 +0000

Joanna Penn reading a James Rollins thriller on the Amazon Kindle in the hammock

I now go to bed with my Kindle! It joined the ranks of much loved technology within about 2 hours of receiving it. I have already bought 3 books and read for a number of hours on it. It’s fantastic!

The Kindle might be old news to Americans, but for the rest of us, it is brand spanking new!
If you are not in the US, you can order a Kindle Wireless now – no more waiting, it’s finally here.

Why is the Kindle so great?

Easy win: Availability. I live in Australia and it is the first decent e-reader available here. Sony don’t sell the E-Reader here and the others haven’t had great reviews. I ordered my Kindle and it arrived in it’s beautiful box very quickly. It is easy to set up and very very easy to spend money on!

It saves me money immediately. I am a fast reader and I love reading. I don’t have a TV and buying digital music/movies and now books is essentially my entertainment. I will devour fiction in one (long) sitting but since moving to Australia have not bought much because of the expense. New books are between $30 – $45 here (that’s almost equivalent in US $ at the moment). This is utterly ridiculous and I earn a good wage plus have a budget for books, so I wonder how others manage. I will get the book from the library or order print off Amazon.com with shipping rather than pay those prices. Yesterday, I bought Socialnomics for $12 and Trust Agents for $12 on the Kindle, both are around $40 in the print bookshops here. That is a huge saving, even though you might consider it a high price for an ebook! I will have paid the cost of the Kindle off in no time with the number of books I buy.

Reading plain text is great on the Kindle. There is criticism that the Kindle is not a multi-functional device, it’s not colour and doesn’t have much functionality. But this is essentially a book! It is very easy on the eyes and great to hold. It’s light and slim and beautiful. For reading plain text books, it’s perfect. I zipped through some chapters of Socialnomics before starting a James Rollins thriller. You can also save books in your want pile, so you don’t have to buy them all at once.

It’s wireless. Gorgeous! I love this feature! This is brilliant for authors and for publishers who embrace this (and of course, for Amazon!) It means I can buy a book and have it in minutes, sitting here in my house. I can be reading the blog of some brilliant new author, and immediately make a purchase of their book on Kindle. I don’t have to remember to order it from a store. With the lower prices, it’s lower risk so people will buy more. There is evidence that Kindle owners buy more books, and now I can see why.

These are my main reasons, and I definitely recommend buying a Kindle. If you are a devourer of books, then it’s definitely worth it!

Incidentally, my books are also available on the Kindle: “From Idea to Book”, “From Book to Market” and “How to Enjoy Your Job”.

What are some of the downsides of the Kindle?

The main criticism is the Amazon behemoth DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue, where the formats are locked and incompatible with other devices. This is a common discussion amongst ebook afficionados but I don’t think most users would even notice. If you are an Amazon buyer, you are happy to buy Amazon ebooks on your Amazon device. There are also some hacks to get around the issue of putting other documents on the Kindle if you are tech-minded.

My main criticism is that non-US authors/publishers can’t publish on the Kindle yet. I think they will change this pretty soon with the release of the international Kindle as that is leaving a lot of money on the table. I currently publish using a friend in America.

So I am definitely a fan of the Kindle, although I am also saving for the elusive Apple tablet that may appear in 2010. Technology is so elegant these days, it is hard to resist!

Here’s a video I did on my iPod Nano video player – I’ll be doing lots of these for #NaNoWriMo as well. I’m embracing video

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Podcast: Matthew Cavner from Vook.com on How the Vook is Changing Publishing

Joanna Penn — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:09:41 +0000

You will know by now how much I love new technologies and publishing!

A few weeks ago, I bought ‘Embassy’ as an iPhone app, one of the first Vooks from Simon & Schuster. You can read my review here, but I enjoyed it and I can see the amazing potential with this platform. I was so excited when Vook agreed to an interview for the podcast, so here it is!

Matthew Cavnar is Brand Director at Vook, a company producing books with new technology blending ebooks and video to create a whole new experience for the reader. They have recently launched the first 4 Vooks with Simon & Schuster here.

In this podcast you will learn:

What is a Vook anyway? A new innovation that blends a book with videos and connects with social media to create a whole new experience in story.
What the first Vooks are about and which genres were targeted
How ‘Return to Beauty‘ was picked up by women’s health- Vital Juice – health and lifestyle. Natural facial creams that show you how to make them. The videos are showing you the how-to and even take your mobile device to the store.
How the romantic fiction Vook ‘Promises’ by Jude Deveraux was on the front page of the iPhone app store, which is a huge boost for sales
The aim of the videos are to bring the story to life for the fiction, increase immersion into the story

How the company Vook got started, and their partnership with publishers to deliver video experiences in this new genre. How the vision for this new publishing venture came into being and the excitement of being involved with a new invention!
The possibilities that the Vook enables are exciting – what could the future look like when books can go multi-media on hand-held devices? Think about travel books, cookery books and also story enhancing videos… there is so much potential!
This is video supporting books – not a fully fledged film set producing movies. The story has to support the concept of video.
How doing a video of the author really enhanced the Vook, and some potential applications for this for future Vooks, including having a book club in your Vook, or Vooks that just feature author interviews for future book releases.

A brief discussion on the price point for the Vooks – premium products cost more.
What is the potential for self-published authors to use the Vook platform? Vook specialises in producing high quality video right now, but the company is very new and they are looking at possibilities.
What is the future of ebooks and where does Vook fit? Technology is catching up and the (possible) Apple tablet is possibly the break though device where technology catches up with ideas. There’s room for different technologies though and text only devices are still appealing, like the Kindle.

If you have ideas for a Vook, email: matthew@vook.com

You can see all the trailers for the 5 available Vooks (and counting) here, including the latest one, “The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen”.

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What is the Problem with International Ebooks?

Joanna Penn — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:43:52 +0000

This is a bit of a rant from the non-US perspective of ebooks and ebook readers and how crazy it seems to be right now.

On Amazon.com

It is a fantastic development to finally have the International Kindle available. I bought one as soon as it was announced and eagerly await it. I have not even seen a real one yet, and the iPhone is just too small for full on book reading. Books are ridiculously expensive in Australia so I buy mostly from the US Amazon Store anyway (crazy world!). The ebooks are still expensive on the Kindle but a lot cheaper than the print stores.

One example is Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business by Erik Qualman which I have been wanting to read. It is priced AU$42.50 (US$38) at a business bookstore for the print version. The Kindle version will be US$11.99 (AU$13) so I will be waiting to buy it there.

The Kindle Store is now segregated by the country associated with your account, which I understand has something to do with overseas rights. However, the Kindle publishing platform is still only available for those publishers/authors with US address, bank account and tax number. This basically excludes most publishers and authors in other countries. I currently publish on the Kindle through a friend, and the money goes into his bank account – not the best arrangement but all I can manage to be published on the platform.

This is a big criticism of the International Kindle, and one I hope is soon solved. Opening up to non-US publishers will explode the Kindle content and offer the chance for more sales for publishers, more opportunity to sell for authors and more money for Amazon. I would be fine with being paid by Paypal or even by Amazon store credit if the problem is the bank account.

I emailed Amazon Kindle and this was the response (Oct 28, 2009). It looks pretty positive but no date yet.

Thank you for contacting us regarding your interest in selling your title in the Amazon Kindle Store.

We are in the process of expanding our Digital Text Platform to accept international publishers. However, we are not yet accepting publishers through DTP without a U.S. address and bank account.

We will contact you once we have completed our transition. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you, Amazon.com

On Scribd.com

Scribd is driving me totally nuts because they only allow US residents to actually sell AND BUY on the site, although anyone can load free content there (which I do here).

Firstly, I love Scribd. It’s a great platform but why can’t I sell my ebooks there? I own all the rights to my 3 books, there is no foreign rights problem. I have a Scribd account, I have a Paypal account. It has been in Beta for months now. What’s the problem Scribd? I’m still waiting for a response to my questions.

This is even stranger. I can’t even BUY ebooks on Scribd, despite the format being a downloadable file. This is not a foreign rights issue as I can’t buy self-published books either. I wanted to get “The God Patent” by Ransom Stephens (only $3.95) but get a message saying the store is still in Beta and therefore I can’t buy as a non-US resident. Crazy times.

Later addition after reply from Scribd.com

jgoure, Oct 21 11:00 am (PDT):

Hello Joanna,

Many of our international members have expressed interest in the Store. However, there are several important legal and logistical issues to work out first and unfortunately, I honestly cannot estimate when the Store will open to users connecting from outside the USA.

Jerry Goure, Scribd, Inc.
Customer Care Representative

On Smashwords.com

Go Smashwords! It seems to be the only site to allow truly international ebooks from any author globally. You can publish your books in multiple formats and be paid by Paypal. There is even a multi-language option coming I believe. Smashwords books are also sold on the iPhone through Stanza, as well as through Barnes & Noble ebook store and now Sony has also partnered with Smashwords.

I have written a post on how to publish your book on Smashwords here. It is pretty simple and they have many tools to help you publish, so if you want to get started with ebook publishing, definitely start there!

Can you publish on all of these platforms?

I had this question from a reader, and the answer is “Yes, if you have the digital rights to your books”. If you are a self-published author, or if you haven’t sold the digital rights, you can publish your book wherever you like. I currently sell my ebooks from this website as PDF, on Smashwords in multiple formats, and on the Kindle. I will get on Scribd as soon as I am able. You can do the same! This gets your ebook to as wide an audience as possible. Brilliant!

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Podcast: Neal Hoskins on Publishing Books as iPhone Apps

Joanna Penn — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:15:20 +0000

I am an iPhone geek! I love mine and it enables most of this business as I also have a day job. It is my means to the online world wherever I am. I have already read static ebooks on the iPhone and now they are proliferating in the App Store, I thought it would be great to talk to a publisher who is embracing this new technology.

Neal Hoskins is a publisher with Winged Chariot Press, specialising in children’s books on the iPhone. Their first iPhone book is The Surprise. He and his virtual team are based around Europe.

In this podcast you will learn:

How Neal started as a publisher with Oxford University Press, and then started up Winged Chariot Press to produce children’s books in translation in print and digital format.
Winged Chariot works as a virtual team, with a designer in Prague, developer in Cambridge and Neal works in Portugal. They work digitally and are now producing digital content. As publishers, they have support with Walker Books, a picture book publisher.
The iPhone/iPod Touch is very suitable for children’s books publishing. They are the only devices with colour visuals, touchscreen, hand held and audio, which render picture books in a great new way. Children can have their own story tellers. Electronic devices can be reading mentors. Children can listen and learn on their own or read with parents.

Market research on the proliferation of iPhones and iPod Touch in UK and across the world and how families use it together. 1.7 m iPhones 1.3 m iPod Touches in UK. Figures in Australia (1 million of population of 20m so considerable).

Marketing the book is the biggest challenge as the App Store is so big, but this is no different to marketing any print book with considerable competition. They did buy ads on TwitterMoms, an influential online network. They were also the first publisher to bring a picture book to the iPhone so got a lot of press for that.
Market across borders because the iPhone is global. Don’t constrain yourself. It does involve hard work online but do things within your cost base.
Winged Chariot have now started developing their own books as opposed to outsourcing the coding. The books still need the editorial publishing process, edit, check demo and details, but now working with other publishers as a digital provider. Essentially images of the book that are put into sequence with functionality like swipe screen, audio and other functions.
Small publishers are struggling so it is important to stand out and embrace technology. It is a creative process. There are huge possibilities for authors and publishers to work together on projects like these. Make digital about new forms of stories, not fear of the transition.
Handheld learning conference: the transformation of education. Platforms and research and ideas to rewire the education system. One of the devices given away was the iPod Touch.

The transition will happen – within the year you will see other publishers on this platform. The Kindle is great for novel based reading, but US based. Impossible at the moment for non-US publishers to publish on the Kindle, but perhaps that will change with the international release.
If you want to DIY an app on the iPhone, it would be best to outsource the coding to a registered developer. Or, use the older style webapps which render your book for the iPhone.
Discussion on price point. Can you actually make money with an iPhone app, or should you just treat it as marketing material? Authors and publishers will make money with this, but it will take time before the market settles down. It is just another platform and good books will win out.
Popularity on the digital platform may lead to print publishing, in the same way it has happened with podcasting and blogging.

You can buy The Surprise in the app store for around $1 equivalent.

You can also find out about Winged Chariot Press here. Winged Chariot are looking for artists to work with, so please do get in touch if you are interested.

Neal is on Twitter @utzy or you can email: neal at wingedchariot.com

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Review of Vook “Embassy” by Richard Doetsch

Joanna Penn — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:10:55 +0000

I am a sucker for new technology and all things publishing, so I just had to buy one of the new Vooks for my iPhone! (Read this if you need to know what a Vook is!)

Here are my thoughts on “Embassy” by Richard Doetsch

Overall, I am impressed and enjoyed the experience. I would definitely buy another one. I heard about the Vook back in April and have been waiting for it to arrive. I’m not disappointed and I can see the application to many different kinds of books.

The ebook format was easy to read on the iPhone, although I wanted to be able to keep scrolling through the chapters instead of going back to the menu to choose the next one. You could change the text size but the default text was good for me.

The videos were tastefully done in the main, and did not detract from the story or reveal too much. I particularly liked the scenic videos with music, which gave atmosphere and depth to the text. I liked seeing the stone which was central to the story, and I wanted to see the boat on the ocean. The news flash video did bring the story alive, but the running video and hostage video added nothing to the story. I preferred the videos with no talking and I didn’t want to see the characters, as I think the videos should enhance the text, not influence what my imagination does with the story. Generally, a good idea but not necessary in every chapter.

I really liked seeing the author, Richard Doetsch, on video at the end and this is an excellent way of building a relationship between reader and author. It should also help build the author brand, and help sales of other books which are mentioned at the end.

The story itself was fine, but more of a novella and I expected a longer book for the price. A longer book would not need more video so needn’t be more expensive from that angle. Even just having a video of the author at the end of a standard ebook is a good idea for starters. I won’t buy another novella for that price – I would expect a full length ebook next time.

How could the Vook be expanded? Having read Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’ last week, I can immediately see the application of these types of video to stories like that. I would have loved to see the Washington architecture as it was described, as well as the actual video that is used as a plot device by Dan Brown. I would also like to buy travel books with these types of video – not just the guides, but travel narratives. I recently reread “Inhaling the Mahatma” by Christopher Kremmer. I love India and have been myself, but I would love to see what he saw and wrote about. These video clips don’t need to be so ‘professional’ as the ones in the Vook, travel narrative could have raw local footage.

I want to know how to DIY! I am a relentless explorer of new tech and I am dying to do something like this myself. I want to be published in all the available mediums! I am investigating how to build iPhone apps and I am writing a novel, so watch this space!

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