Self Publishing 101

http://www.slideshare.net/chadmairn

@cmairn

Agenda

• Understanding formats and DRM issues• Highlight some publishing tools• Options for distributing and selling

Express yourself

Success Story

Source: http://goo.gl/4oGHd

Self publishing author Colleen Hoover with copies of her books. Hoover's novels have made the New York Times bestseller list!

www.colleenhoover.com

Fill these three roles and the potential

benefits are greater than with traditional

publishing!

Formats and DRM

E-formats• We have an alphabet soup of formats:

– AZW, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, TXT, DJVU, LIT, etc.

• For a thorough explanation/comparison, see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats

• The big ones (right now) are EPUB, PDF and AZW/KF8 (Kindle).

• “Everyone” else uses EPUB and PDF.

Official ePub logo, International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

Dueling Formats

The cassette/CD format difference is easy for people to see and understand. But .EPUB

vs .AZW/KF8… ? Not so easy.

Dueling formatsAZW EPUB

Is it legal to convert e-book formats?

YES and NO

“You might be tempted to look for some way to remove DRM from e-books in order to facilitate conversion. A word of warning about doing this: In the USA there is a law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection system (DRM is such a copy protection system). It also makes it illegal to produce tools, distribute tools, and aid in circumvention. Not everyone lives in the USA, but many countries have similar laws. Check your local laws and realize that even though you may only want to read an EPUB book that you’ve legally purchased on your Kindle, it may not be legal to do so. If you don’t like this silliness—and I don’t—then speak up to whoever in your country makes the relevant laws.”

So, what’s this DRM thing?

• Digital Rights Management.

• A software “lock” that controls access to a file (e-book, e-music, e-movie). You must have the correct software “key” to unlock it.

Is DRM a good thing or is it an evil thing?

Yes!

• Like speed limits and banking regulations, DRM schemes can be a good thing and can protect an author’s livelihood.

• Like speed traps and unreasonable lending practices, DRM schemes can infuriate and frustrate our readers.

Same Format, Dueling DRMs

EPUB w/ Adobe’s ADEPT DRM EPUB w/ Apple’s FairPlay DRM

Dueling Formats and DRMs

AZW using Amazon’s DRM EPUB using Abode’s DRM

What?!

E-books, I hope, will eventually be like CDs (i.e., they can be played on most any CD player).

Do you think this will happen? If so, when?

DRM-free e-books

http://drmfree.calibre-ebook.com/

http://overdrive.com/

http://www.gutenberg.org/

http://openlibrary.org/

Publishing Tools

Upload local content to “Community Reserve.”

createspace.com

kdp.amazon.com calibre-ebook.com

vook.com/

mobipocket.com

What is calibre?

calibre is a “free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books.”

http://calibre-ebook.com/

What can calibre do?• Find an e-book and transfer it to a device.• Manages your e-book collection.• Convert a DRM-free e-book to another format.• Over-the-air (OTA) e-book transfer to a Kindle Fire and others.• Syncs to a variety of e-readers.• Downloads RSS feeds & converts to an e-book.• Comprehensive e-book viewer.• Content server for online access to your collection.

More info: http://goo.gl/Ng0zM

Note: Some titles are NSFW!

live demonstration Calibre

CreateSpace

Source: http://goo.gl/AcVNM

Source: http://goo.gl/f9ttC

self publishing for tons of other resources!

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