søndag 17. februar 2013

Amazon’s markup of digital delivery to indie authors is ~129,000%

So my book about travel came out last week! Think about buying it directly from me: This Book Is About Travel .mobi (Kindle Version) or This Book Is About Travel .pdf. A pretty exciting time. I’ve decided to write a few posts covering the launch and lessons I’ve learned. I self published it (wrote, designed, marketed and even did the layout for it) and am really proud of the project.

This post is about the where the sales of the book are coming from, and why Amazon takes 48% of digital book sales. Surprising eh? I thought Amazon was the BEST for indie authors, right? We will get into that later.

Andrew Hyde

Self-publishing a Landscape Photography Book

In 2012, I self-published my first book of landscape photographs. I raised the funds to do this via the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.com.

I needed $11,000 to produce 1,000 copies. By its completion, the project had raised $39,383 from 341 backers - 358% of the original goal. Due to the success of this campaign, I increased the size of the book from 112 to 128 pages, printed 3,000 copies and produced an additional luxury leather-bound edition.

The fundraising was so successful that the book was profitable before it ever went to press, and I'm going to share the details of how this was achieved below.


Self-publishing a Landscape Photography Book

fredag 15. februar 2013

Kapitalisten og moralisten

Kulturdepartementets høringsutkast til ny boklov som ble sendt ut for et par uker siden, heter det at «den digitale utviklingen åpner for uante muligheter med hensyn til å utvikle nye produkter, utforske nye kulturuttrykk basert på boken som et utgangspunkt og å nå ut til nye kundegrupper». Påstandens beskjedne presisjonsnivå er betegnende for debatten rundt e-bøker og digital publisering.

Teknologientusiastene som utgjør majoriteten, har til felles begeistringen for billige e-bøker fra Amazon og det Eirik Newth en gang kalte Apple-kunders religiøse kjærlighet til dingsene sine. De faktiske konsekvensene for norsk litteratur og formidlingen av den havner lett i skyggen når kommentatorer som Aftenpostens Vidar Kvalshaug bekymrer seg mest for at folk ikke vet hvilket lesebrett de skal kjøpe til familiene sine til jul (Aftenposten, 2. januar 2012 og 19. desember 2012).

Om fremtidens bokmarked vet vi svært lite. Det hindrer ikke skråsikkerheten: I pamfletten Kultur for kulturens skyld (Civita, 2012) viser Kristian Meisingset og Anna Katharina Fonn Matre (begge tilknyttet tidsskriftet Minerva) til «den amerikanske suksessen», særlig Amazon og Apple, som et ønskelig fremtidsscenario. I likhet med Kvalshaug karakteriserer de Europa og Norge som en teknologisk bakevje. BI-økonom Anne-Britt Gran hevder at det å argumentere mot e-bøker er det samme som å «argumentere mot verdien av kulturformidling» (Morgenbladet 8. februar).

Kilde: Morgenbladet

torsdag 14. februar 2013

Scratch Documentation Site

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

About Scratch

mandag 4. februar 2013

Enhanced E-Books: Blowing Up the Book

The new novel "Chopsticks" tells the story of a troubled young piano prodigy—using family photos, letters, documents, instant messages and YouTube videos. It's a love story, a mystery and a parable about creativity and madness.

It's also an experiment, one that could have far-reaching implications for the book industry, as publishers stretch the definition of what constitutes a book. "Chopsticks" straddles the digital divide that is transforming the publishing world—it's both a novel and a digital app.



WSJ.com

Creating MultiMedia eBooks

Presentasjon med en del linker verd å sjekke ut:


Creating MultiMedia eBooks - wesfryer

Fixed layout eBooks

Fixed-layout eBooks are a popular format for eBooks today, especially for children’s eBooks and for complex non-fiction like cookbooks and textbooks. Unlike standard eBook files, these eBooks can keep the same layout and designs as their print book counterparts, and can sometimes contain enhancements that make them more interesting and interactive. These eBooks are not PDFs. They are fully-functional HTML-based eBook files in every way, however, the specific styles and layouts used in these files are not re-flowable like standard eBook files.

eBook Architects - Fixed layout eBooks

Enhanced eBooks

As the eBook market expands we are seeing a surge in the demand for "Enhanced eBooks." Most authors and publishers only think of video or audio as enhancements, but there are many more things that we can do to make your eBook stand out from the crowd. Because of inconsistent progress in eBook technologies over the last few years, some of these enhancements are limited to specific eBook apps or devices.

The most prominent candidate for eBook enhancements is Apple's iBooks application. We can create great-looking ePub files with features that are unique to the iBooks platform, some of which will not even be valid in the current ePub specification. Please be aware that an ePub file with enhancements will require a new ISBN, one that is different than the print file and different than the standard ePub file built without the enhancements.

eBook Architects - Enhanced eBooks