Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
The big difference is the coding that can fly by when you're FTPing files, rather than uploading them through the KDP interface. You can have embedded video, audio, that sort of thing.
|
Exactly.
You have the extremely rare things (that an even smaller percentage of ebooks even need):
- <audio> + <video>
- Hell to code, and a ton of devices don't even have sound.
- Kindle in Motion
and then a lot of B2B enhancements, which again, nobody needs unless you're mass selling:
- FTP Upload
- Can you imagine all the dreck self-publishers would be uploading?
- ONIX
- A metadata standard that allows you to programmatically push/update information across retailers.
- If you wanted more info on this, see this ebookcraft talks:
- Magazines/Journals
A self-publisher who publishes a few books a year... they don't even need access to those "special tools", and they don't even have the technical background needed (ONIX is itself this crazy XML standard).
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowsmile
And, before you ask, I don't know what the special services are because they're never broadcast on the Web and seems to be a well-kept Kindle secret -- you could try asking Hitch about that side of it.
|
"If I tell you, I'd have to kill you."
Great sidestepping, masterful work!
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowsmile
I disagree with most of what you say mainly because you haven't scaled in Amazon's greed factor for profit.
|
If they're so "greedy for profit", all the more reason they would want to cut costs dramatically. (Which they have done, consistently, then pass on all those savings to customers + authors [in much higher % royalties].)
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowsmile
Most people know that the Big Five publishers already get special treatment by Amazon which they will happily pay for but the ordinary indie publisher cannot afford. And I hardly think that Amazon would reveal their "special treatment" of the Big Five at conferences. That would create quite a stir wouldn't it, with indie publisher's angrily screaming "Unfair advantage!!".
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Again, this is just absolutely absurd.
If anything, they put self-publishers on a drastically MORE even playing field. Anyone can get their books sitting on Amazon right next to any of the big guys.
In the old bookstores, you can't even get your books on the shelves (and in many ways, self-publishers STILL can't).
Amazon has enabled more self-publishers to make even more money than ever before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I don't need special treatment to upload a well formatted eBook to Amazon or Kobo or Smashwords. I just ave to make the eBook properly and there is no way I would put out an eBook that wasn't well formatted with good clean code.
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Exactly. And Amazon has done more for self-publishers than anyone else within the past few decades:
- Ease of use
- Ease of selling/buying
- Ease of creation
- Easy ecosystem
- One click on Kindle and bam, book is in your hands, all synced up.
They've blown the pants off the competition... which is why they're dominating ebook sales.
Side Note: A lot of this discussion reminds me of Steam in the PC video game market. Here was a recent talk they gave at GDC 2019 (Game Developers Conference):
Steam Business Update / GDC 2019
They consistently outperformed all their competitors by always innovating (both for customers + developers), and always expanding to new markets:
- New languages/countries
- Accepting new monies+forms of payment
- expanding into Linux gaming
- [...]
So again, a look into the behind-the-scenes of a multi-billion dollar Amazon-like company.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
How is the code from Jutoh? Is there an ePub to look at that was made with Jutoh?
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For a book club I'm in, I recently got an ebook that was formatted in the "amazing" Vellum. The code looks... not great:
with a bunch of hideous CSS (that would definitely break/not work in many readers):
Spoiler:
Code:
[...]
.connect-block {
display: block;
margin-top: 1em;
text-align: center
}
.connect-item {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
display: block;
font-size: 0.75em;
height: 1.75em;
hyphens: auto;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0 0 0.25em
}
.connect-item1 {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
display: block;
font-size: 0.75em;
hyphens: auto;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0 0 0.25em
}
.connect-oldschool-block {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 0.5em
}
.content-external-link {
color: rgb(93, 31, 52);
text-decoration: underline
}
.created-with-vellum {
display: block;
padding-top: 0.5em
}
.created-with-vellum-image {
height: 1em;
width: auto
}
.created-with-vellum-image-container {
display: inline-block;
float: left;
height: 1em;
margin-top: 0.05em;
padding-right: 0.25em
}
.element {
display: block;
margin-left: 8%;
margin-right: 8%;
text-align: center
}
.element-number {
display: inline-block;
font-size: 0.75em;
min-width: 1.5em;
padding-left: 0;
text-indent: 0
}
.element-number-block {
display: block;
min-height: 2em
}
.element-number1 {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: inline-block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 0.75em;
font-weight: bold;
hyphens: manual;
min-width: 4em;
padding-bottom: 0.4em;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
margin: 0;
border-bottom: rgb(111, 46, 46) solid 1px
}
.element-title {
-webkit-hyphens: none;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
hyphens: none;
padding-left: 1.5em;
text-align: left;
text-indent: -1.5em;
margin: 0
}
.element1 {
display: block;
margin-top: 80px
}
.element2 {
display: block;
margin-top: 10em
}
.first {
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
font-size: 0.75em;
hyphens: manual;
text-align: left;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0.75em 0 0
}
.first-letter {
-webkit-line-box-contain: block inline replaced;
float: left;
font-family: Baskerville, "Sorts Mill Goudy", Malabar, serif;
font-size: 500%;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 120%;
margin-bottom: -0.31em;
margin-right: 0.1em;
margin-top: -0.35em;
text-decoration: none;
text-transform: uppercase
}
.first-letter1 {
-webkit-line-box-contain: block inline replaced;
float: left;
font-family: Baskerville, "Sorts Mill Goudy", Malabar, serif;
font-size: 500%;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 120%;
margin-bottom: -0.31em;
margin-right: 0.09em;
margin-top: -0.35em;
text-decoration: none;
text-transform: uppercase
}
.first-letter2 {
-webkit-line-box-contain: block inline replaced;
float: left;
font-family: Baskerville, "Sorts Mill Goudy", Malabar, serif;
font-size: 500%;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 120%;
margin-bottom: -0.31em;
margin-right: 0.05em;
margin-top: -0.35em;
text-decoration: none;
text-transform: uppercase
}
.first-letter3 {
-webkit-line-box-contain: block inline replaced;
float: left;
font-family: Baskerville, "Sorts Mill Goudy", Malabar, serif;
font-size: 500%;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 120%;
margin-bottom: -0.31em;
margin-right: 0.08em;
margin-top: -0.35em;
text-decoration: none;
text-transform: uppercase
}
.first1 {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
display: block;
font-style: italic;
hyphens: auto;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0
}
.first2 {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
display: block;
font-size: 0.75em;
hyphens: auto;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0
}
.heading {
min-height: 10.5em;
text-align: center;
margin: 60px 6% 2em
}
.heading1 {
min-height: 6em;
text-align: center;
margin: 64px 6% 2em
}
.implicit-break {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
clear: both;
display: block;
font-size: 0.75em;
height: 1.4em;
hyphens: auto;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0 0 1.4em
}
.inline-image {
clear: both;
display: block;
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
margin-top: 1.5em;
text-align: center;
width: 100%
}
.inline-image-container {
display: block;
margin-left: 32.5%;
margin-right: 32.5%;
width: 35%
}
.social-icon-image {
background-color: rgb(147, 147, 147);
border-bottom-left-radius: 1em;
border-bottom-right-radius: 1em;
border-top-left-radius: 1em;
border-top-right-radius: 1em;
height: 1.75em;
margin-bottom: -0.5em;
margin-right: 0.2em;
width: 1.75em
}
.social-link-block {
display: inline-block;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 0.4em;
text-align: left
}
.subsq {
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
adobe-hyphenate: auto;
display: block;
hyphens: auto;
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 1.5em;
margin: 0
}
.title {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: bold;
hyphens: manual;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0.1em 0 0
}
.title-page-contributor {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1.125em;
font-weight: normal;
hyphens: manual;
line-height: 1.2;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
margin: 0 0 0.5em
}
.title-page-contributor-block {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
min-height: 80px
}
.title-page-contributor-name {
letter-spacing: 0.05em;
line-height: 1.2;
text-transform: uppercase
}
.title-page-contributor-primary-block {
display: block
}
.title-page-subtitle {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: normal;
hyphens: manual;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 1.5em 0 0
}
.title-page-title {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
border-left-color: rgb(111, 46, 46);
border-left-width: 1px;
border-right-color: rgb(111, 46, 46);
border-right-width: 1px;
border-top-color: rgb(111, 46, 46);
border-top-width: 1px;
display: inline-block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1.41667em;
font-weight: bold;
hyphens: manual;
letter-spacing: 0.03em;
line-height: 1.4em;
padding-bottom: 0.4em;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0;
border-bottom: rgb(111, 46, 46) solid 1px
}
.title-page-title-subtitle-block {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 2em;
margin-top: 140px;
min-height: 140px
}
.title-subtitle-block {
display: block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
min-height: 2em;
padding-top: 3em;
width: intrinsic
}
.title-subtitle-block1 {
display: block;
min-height: 0;
width: intrinsic;
padding: 0;
margin: 0 auto
}
.title1 {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
display: block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: bold;
hyphens: manual;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0.1em 0 0
}
.toc-backmatter-group {
display: block;
margin-top: 0.5em
}
.toc-frontmatter-group {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 0.5em
}
.toc-title {
-webkit-font-kerning: auto;
-webkit-hyphens: manual;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
border-left-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);
border-left-width: 1px;
border-right-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);
border-right-width: 1px;
border-top-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);
border-top-width: 1px;
display: block;
font-family: Palatino, Malabar, serif;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: bold;
hyphens: manual;
padding-bottom: 0.7em;
page-break-after: avoid;
page-break-inside: avoid;
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0.5em 0 16px;
border-bottom: rgb(117, 117, 117) solid 1px
}
.underline {
text-decoration: underline
}
.vellum {
font-weight: bold
}