This is all new to me...

[GraceCreekPress]

This is all very new to me, so please be understanding when I say something clueless.

I've never actually read an ebook, but my sister loves them and is encouraging me.

I'm actually an independent publisher of old fashioned, paper books (boo hiss, I know) but trying to move up a century or so.

I've been given electronic distribution rights to an approximately 200 page book that will be of the most interest to people who spend a lot of time on the internet. Since I'm used to dealing with distribution of paper, I have no clue where to begin.

I've visited a few sites that sell ebook compiler software that put the files into either a pdf or .exe file (which seems like a good route since the target audience is computer/internet users). I am obligated by my agreement with the author to somehow protect the content from copying/printing by the purchaser. The primary route of distribution will be email.

I'd love the thoughts and opinions of serious ebook readers.

I can be contacted directly at mccutct@yahoo.com if you prefer.

If you're interested in seeing our first release (yes, in caveman paper only) you can visit the author's site www.MenAtHouseWork.com. It is a very funny read written by a stay at home dad.



Tim
Grace Creek Press

[pdurrant]

Welcome to Mobileread. You've found the right place to gets lots of useful info, and lots of opinions.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) -- to "protect the content from copying/printing" -- is useless. PDF, ePUB, LIT and Mobipocket DRMs have all been broken. Apart from that, paper books can be scanned and OCRed. All it does is annoy your actual customers, and it doesn't inconvenience "pirates" at all.

However, if you can't persuade your author of that, your hands are tied.

Ebook distribution: There are several large ebook retailers/distributors, and several popular ebook formats. Many distributors/retailers won't accept direct submissions from publishers who don't have at least half a dozen books by more than one author.

PDF is easy for you to produce, but a poor ebook format, as the text can't be resized or reflowed for different display and/or font sizes. However, it does turn out to be quite popular with noviceebook buyers who just want to read on their computer screen.

People more into ebooks (like most here on mobileread) usually hate PDF as an ebook format. ePUB and Mobipocket are the way to go. Both are forms of HTML.

ePUB has DRM only through the Adobe servers - I don't know how you go about signing up with them.

Mobipocket is owned by Amazon, and you can sign up with them, creating the ebook with the free Mobipocket Creator. Going through Mobipocket will also get your ebook available on the Amazon Kindle, as well as most other ebook retailers. They do take 65% of the retail price though.

Smashwords.com is worth taking a look at - they take 20% of retail.

Best of luck!

Originally Posted by GraceCreekPress

I've been given electronic distribution rights to an approximately 200 page book that will be of the most interest to people who spend a lot of time on the internet. Since I'm used to dealing with distribution of paper, I have no clue where to begin.

I've visited a few sites that sell ebook compiler software that put the files into either a pdf or .exe file (which seems like a good route since the target audience is computer/internet users). I am obligated by my agreement with the author to somehow protect the content from copying/printing by the purchaser. The primary route of distribution will be email.

I'd love the thoughts and opinions of serious ebook readers.

I can be contacted directly at mccutct@yahoo.com if you prefer.

If you're interested in seeing our first release (yes, in caveman paper only) you can visit the author's site www.MenAtHouseWork.com. It is a very funny read written by a stay at home dad.



Tim
Grace Creek Press

[rlparker]

Hi Tim, welcome to MR.

It's cool to have someone around who's "in the business". I'm sure you'll get lots of good advice and opinions--besides what pdurrant already gave you. If you don't get enough here in "Introduce Yourself", you can try additional posts in the more technical forums. Don't worry about saying something clueless. We do it all the time around here

[DixieGal]

If you read through the threads, you will see that serious ebook consumers despise DRM. It just causes difficulty all around for purchasers, who curse and swear they will never again buy anything that author writes. And anyone who wishes to break into it and pirate the story will do so anyway. Luckily, this has not proven to be a big problem in ebook world. Sure, there are some pirates, but they are in the suburbs of fringe and do not make a big impact. Mostly, pirates seem to excel in getting non-ebooks digitized, by scanning paper versions for their own use and sharing. I've never encountered a tale of a pirate who was selling ebooks, but instead, the ones I've heard of have free downloads of mostly obscure and/or textbooky type things, with copies of their own personal pbook collection thrown in as well.

Meanwhile, your customers who paid money for the book are stuck with something that may or may not be useable to them. Every ebook reader is a bit different, and what looks great on one will look weird or not even load on another. That is where DRM crosses the line into alienating potential repeat customers. If they have to strip the DRM and reformat it, then they are forced to make the decision of whether or not to break the law in order to read something that they bought and paid for. I promise, when that happens to me, I do not hesitate to broadcast it to the 40,000 MobileRead members, and will never again pay good money to buy that author's work.

If I am not mistaken, aren't there levels of DRM? Can't it be set so that the book can not be printed, without restricting it otherwise?

[MickeyC]

Hi Tim and welcome to MobileRead

[kazbates]

Welcome to MobileRead, Tim!

As you can no doubt see, people here have strong opinions and a great deal of knowledge about ebook publishing! We're glad to have you with us.

Happy reading (and publishing)!

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by GraceCreekPress

I am obligated by my agreement with the author to somehow protect the content from copying/printing by the purchaser.

You cannot prevent ebooks from being copied. Cannot, cannot, cannot. The purpose of a computer is to copy bits; ebooks are just one more type of bit-collection that can be copied.

You can (attempt) to prevent ebooks from being *readable by unauthorized persons.* This is an _important_ distinction. Anyone can download the file and copy it 500 times on their computer... and each of the copies will have all of the original protections.

If you're required to use commercial DRM software, you may have to look into a Mobi contract, a .lit contract, or ADE locks. (If you're intending to use ADE's DRM, I'd suggest ePub instead of PDF if that's at all possible for you; the ebook readers will thank you for it.)

However: every form of ebook DRM you can place on your ebook has been cracked. (The only two that haven't are Amazon's Topaz, and Sony's .LRX formats.) And even those are susceptible to screencap software & OCR programs. A devoted person can create unauthorized, usable copies & share them.

If you're *not* limited to DRM-by-programming, just a contractual obligation to prevent unauthorized readers & printing, you can lock the files against printing (for most formats), and use some kind of "social DRM"--for example, placing the purchaser's credit card number on each page of a PDF, or on a splash page at the beginning of the ebook. This prevents unwanted sharing without preventing use on whatever device the reader has.

[GraceCreekPress]

Thanks everyone, that gives me a lot to think about.

It sounds to me like I really have two different potential audiences to think about, serious ebook readers such as yourselves and folks that are more like me and just want to download and read something from time to time straight off the computer screen.

Let's focus on the latter group first, since that is where the author sees the greatest market. Since such potential buyers are already sitting at a computer, I would think that pdf or an exe file would be the way to go. What do you guys think?

As it turns out, simple pirating and loss of revenue isn't the author's only concern. The book is one that could be considered "controversial" in nature. Therefore an additional concern is that the work could be altered and then distributed in an altered form by someone who doesn't like what the book says and wants to discredit it or even someone who likes the book but wants to change a conclusion slightly. I've personally never heard of that sort of thing, but then I'm not really in the ebook world.

It also seems to me from the feedback so far that serious ebook readers are a completely different market and would warrant releasing the book in a format that is easier for you to work with, rather than sticking you with the pdf or exe designed for the first market. Would you agree?

Thanks again for all the feedback!

Tim

[Elfwreck]

Ebook reading devices are indeed a different market from computer-readable files. PDFs formatted for reading on a computer screen are usually awful on mobile devices (which range from the 10" iLiad down to 3" PDAs, and there are a lot of people who want their files to be shift-able from computer to whatever device they happen to use.

The hard part for publishers to deal with, is that each person wants the file optimized for his or her device--and they're all different.

<i>additional concern is that the work could be altered and then distributed in an altered form by someone who doesn't like what the book says</i>

Don't worry about this. It doesn't happen.

Okay, it could happen. It probably does, in some tiny corner of the internet. However, the few attempts to do anything like it generally just result in better publicity for the original; changed imitations don't have the same authenticity as the original, and it's usually obvious even to casual readers. Anyone who wanted to put enough effort into it to fool most readers, could just buy the print book, scan it, OCR the scans, and change whatever they liked. Ebook security won't affect the ability of a dedicated rival to produce realistic-but-flawed imitations.

I believe no portable ebook devices read .exe files. (Which I believe are mostly bundles of HTML files with enough code to make them run when clicked on. I have no idea what kind of security they have, or can have.)

[GraceCreekPress]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The hard part for publishers to deal with, is that each person wants the file optimized for his or her device--and they're all different.

So let's go back to the market of serious ebook readers... Given Elfwreck's statement, what is a publisher to do? Is there a format that is coming closest to becoming the industry standard? (Please don't tell me that Kindle is winning, Amazon is such a pain to deal with). If we are no where close to an industry standard yet, is there a format that is easiest for the average ebook reader to optimize themselves?

Can't we all just get along?

[Elfwreck]

ePub and Mobi are clawing it out for "industry standard," and ePub is slowly winning because it's open source. EPub is the dominant format in Europe, and if Amazon keeps on its current path, it'll eventually be the dominant form here, because all non-Amazon devices will include it instead of Mobi, which has exclusivity requirements on its DRM.

The way to deal with different readers is to use a reflowable format that fits whatever screen it's put on, preferably with enough default settings to look okay for most people, and enough customizability for those who care to tweak the standard settings to get the view they want. EPub and Mobi both have that. (HTML has that, but is utterly lacking in anything resembling copy protections.)

What they don't have, is easy ability to print. Which is an advantage for some publishers, but a drawback for others.

PDF isn't user-end customizable (for the most part), and that means it either looks right for the reader--or it's useless. PDFs on a computer are somewhat adaptable; the viewing window can change sizes, and the document can switch between screen width, full page, or zoom in to whatever level the reader wants. But most mobile devices don't have nearly the flexibility of Acrobat Reader, nor even the same flexibility as Foxit or Sumatra. (If nothing else, there's no "resize the viewing area" option on a mobile device. You have the whole screen, not a window within that.)

Most ebook buyers aren't aware what the customizeable options are... all they notice is whether or not they enjoyed reading the ebook. If they did, they might buy another; if they didn't, they might decide "ebooks aren't for me," without ever noticing that the problem might be with the software or formatting, not the fact of reading on a screen. (Which is why we're prone to being a bit fanatic about ebook formats and so on. We'd like more people to read ebooks, and if they don't enjoy the very first one they download, there's a good chance they'll give up on the whole concept.)

[Lady Blue]

Hi Tim, and to Mobileread.