What are options for this circumstance?

[j.p.s]

Calibre is not required to copy a file from a computer to a kindle over USB.

[Dabcar]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, I do hope this eBook is going to be sold without DRM.

Correct.

Originally Posted by dwig

The exact nature of the ebooks and their structure (tables and other formatting requirements) does influence what formats are appropriate.

I agree. They are reflowable.

Originally Posted by Hitch

With all due respect, they don't treat ePUB or MOBI any different way. And with Calibre being around, someone can turn your ePUB or MOBI into a distributable PDF in about 30 seconds, too.

Point taken.

Originally Posted by Hitch

And with more all due respect, I think you have absolutely NO idea what the tech support requirements will be like. I tell people this all the time, and they assume I'm being a drama queen, but my second largest expense, in my company, behind my direct labor costs for my bookmakers, is unpaid tech support. And mind you, we TELL our customers that we're not tech support, we don't provide tech support.

This is a point that Tex2002ans made, too. You are both correct; I wasn't aware of the amount of support that would be required.

Originally Posted by Hitch

SIDELOADING? Trying to get a file onto their device? MWAHAHAHAHA. If Amazon, iBooks or B&N isn't delivering it through the magic of wifi, fuhgeddaboutit. And when they sideload that file to their iPad and it looks like crap? Which, no matter WHAT you say on your website, they're going to do? Then what? Someone going to sit on the phone with them, walk them through connecting their iPad to their computer, through iTunes and oh, yeah, tell them how to build an AZK file, too?

I agree, the sideloaded version to Kindle on iPad is atrocious. Actually, there is no more "through iTunes", iTunes no longer exists (well, at least on my version of MacOS X). What's more, all the advice on the web still points to iTunes, which only adds to your main point about support.

Originally Posted by Hitch

... they'd much, much rather pay Amazon than have to deal with it themselves.

Believe me, I'd rather simply give it to Amazon, but as I mentioned in my original post, these books are written for this specific community, not for the general public. Not that there's anything to hide, but they are written for the interest group alone. The printed books, likewise, are distributed to specific outlets within the community, not on Amazon or any major distribution service or bookshop. If you have any suggestions here, that would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by Hitch

I mean..you're not going to listen to me, so...have at it.

Not at all! I'm listening with trepidation. I will, however, approach one of the outlets for the books and ask them how they get on with selling their existing range of ebooks from their website. Actually, they only provide the EPUP version along with instructions on how to view it (I think they may recommend ADE). They simply point them to . It will be interesting to find out how they get on with their approach.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Dabcar

Believe me, I'd rather simply give it to Amazon, but as I mentioned in my original post, these books are written for this specific community, not for the general public.

Depends on your genres too.

This sounds like Non-Fiction, which gears more heavily towards PDFs/Print. Genres like Romance/Sci-Fi are geared more towards ebooks.

Originally Posted by Dabcar

The printed books, likewise, are distributed to specific outlets within the community, not on Amazon or any major distribution service or bookshop. If you have any suggestions here, that would be appreciated.

Learn how to use Styles in InDesign (none of this manual override crap!).

Create templates and consistent CSS across the board.

Decide on a source format and use that as your master (DOCX, InDesign, EPUB, [...]).

This would allow you to automate a lot more of the conversion, but each output format still requires unique manual finagling.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Minor nit. One acquaintance is still using an old Sony PRS-500 ereader which she never bothered to send to Sony for the update to allow EPUB so she's stuck with LRF. There's one in every crowd...

Which is why any other formats can be derived.

More obscure formats like LIT/LRF are completely abandoned by any current retailers/readers.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, I do hope this eBook is going to be sold without DRM.

Agreed. DRM does absolutely nothing besides hinder legitimate customers.

Plus, trying to run your own DRM servers/schemes for ebooks is extremely expensive—as in tens of thousands $ per month. (That's been discussed on MobileRead many times over the years.)

Anyway, probably best if we don't derail this entire thread into DRM... Just look up:

DRM site:mobileread.com

in your favorite search engine, and you'll find plenty of topics/discussion around it. It's been discussed to death.

Originally Posted by Dabcar

I know, if anyone wants, they can pass on an epub, but most are less inclined to do so.

I don't think there's any basis to this claim.

Originally Posted by Dabcar

The reason for not doing PDF was that many of these books will be sold. It seems that people get the idea that PDFs (even bought ones) are somehow free to distribute to others.

That will stop absolutely nothing. It's up to YOU to then supply customers with all the formats, in all the ways people want, at a reasonable price.

This is why YOU should be the one supplying it to every store you can get your hands on (Amazon, B&N, Kobo, [...]) and trying to make the customer's life as easy as possible.

Even IF there is a free version available, people are still willing to pay for ease-of-use, "one-button push", and other advantages (like syncing notes/highlights across devices).

And remember, most people are not technically savvy, and would rather just pay a reasonable fee for a "it magically shows up on my Kindle" rather than figuring out sideloading... (even though the reality is: it's as "easy" as drag/dropping).

Source: Almost all the books I work on are released under variants of the CC-BY license (as close-to-public-domain as possible), and are released for free in all 3/4 formats... along with paid versions.

Side Note: I'm also reminded of my post from a few months ago where I brought up why Amazon was dominating self-publishing... and the similar parallel with Steam+video games.

Originally Posted by Hitch

And with more all due respect, I think you have absolutely NO idea what the tech support requirements will be like. I tell people this all the time, [...] but my second largest expense [...] is unpaid tech support. And mind you, we TELL our customers that we're not tech support, we don't provide tech support.

Originally Posted by Hitch

At least 4x daily, one of my bookmakers needs me, to walk a customer through simply DOWNLOADING files. The average person apparently thinks that 'downloading" means, clicking a link in an email. If they don't have a program on their computer that will open that file, when they click it, OMG, the world will come to an end.

Didn't we also discuss this recently, where many browsers are auto-opening PDFs within the browser and causing extra headaches too?

And then in a personal email, we just ranted about Microsoft Edge's built-in EPUB Reader (which is being removed in Windows 10 2004 when Edge changes to a Chromium-backend.).

On my own customer support story from a few months ago:

I ran into firsthand confusion over Google Drive! Google Drive of all things!

My steps to the author were "simple":

1. Open my Google Drive link.
2. Download the DOCX.
3. Do your corrections, and send me back the DOCX.

Guess what happened? Total confusion.

The first screen you see when you click on the link IS NOT a download screen. It's a View + "Open in Google Docs" screen.

To any technical user, you ignore all that and click the little download button in the upper right, then download the DOCX.

I got complete chaos on my end, and had to do multiple emails back/forth to iron this out. (Not to mention if they open it on their phone... the UI is completely different from what I'm seeing.)

After I ranted to Hitch about this customer support, she warned me to DISABLE THE EDITING PERMISSIONS on the file, then send the link.

This would force Google Drive to only give the user an actual download link.

Originally Posted by Hitch

I've told this story here before--since 2010, we've had a number of professional customers, lawyers, doctors, etc., decide that they didn't want to pay Amazon, et al, so they would sell their eBooks form their own website. Right? [...]

Of all of those customers, do you know how many still do that?

NONE. Not one. Every single one gave it up because the unpaid tech support demands were so excessive that they decided that they'd much, much rather pay Amazon than have to deal with it themselves.

I was trying to find a few of those topics/posts real quick, but couldn't. Have any links to some of those posts or give a hint of what to type in search?

Originally Posted by Frizzell

I'm not sure why PDF appears to be a 'stand-offish' format, since there's hardly a tablet cell phone, PC or Mac on the planet that can't view PDFs.

PDFs are designed as a Print/"Fixed Format" format. They are great if you visually want an exact reproduction of the original... but they're absolutely dreadful for reflowability + customizability + reading on devices that are smaller than the page size (the "pan and scan" issue).

Originally Posted by Frizzell

Even Kindle reads PDF Documents,

Are you speaking from experience?

Sure, they can "read" PDFs, but the actual usability is extremely subpar.

Example: Depending on how the PDFs are created, the page turning and loading is atrociously slow.

See this post of mine from 2017 + The Digital Reader showing sluggish page turns on a Kobo Aura One.

Also, because of the small device sizes, you have to apply hackish workarounds like:

• Cropping margins (to try to fill smaller screen with the entire text box)
  
  • Can't physically shove a 8.5"x11" page into a 6" device.
    
  • Straight cropping typically breaks when dealing with left/right pages with different inner/outer margins.
• Zoom into text
  
  • Scanned text will look abysmal
    
  • Can't choose custom fonts/font sizes
• Wasted space with Headers/Footers
• Running the PDF through k2pdfopt to try to "fit" your device.

The reading experience between PDF and a proper ebook is night and day!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Didn't we also discuss this recently, where many browsers are auto-opening PDFs within the browser and causing extra headaches too?

And then in a personal email, we just ranted about Microsoft Edge's built-in EPUB Reader (which is being removed in Windows 10 2004 when Edge changes to a Chromium-backend.).

Yes, we did and it happened again today. The woman I was ranting about, with the PDF? That was it. She was using Edge, not Reader, even though she INSISTED that she was, in fact, using Reader.

On my own customer support story from a few months ago:

I ran into firsthand confusion over Google Drive! Google Drive of all things!

My steps to the author were "simple":

1. Open my Google Drive link.
2. Download the DOCX.
3. Do your corrections, and send me back the DOCX.

Guess what happened? Total confusion.

The first screen you see when you click on the link IS NOT a download screen. It's a View + "Open in Google Docs" screen.

To any technical user, you ignore all that and click the little download button in the upper right, then download the DOCX.

I got complete chaos on my end, and had to do multiple emails back/forth to iron this out. (Not to mention if they open it on their phone... the UI is completely different from what I'm seeing.)

After I ranted to Hitch about this customer support, she warned me to DISABLE THE EDITING PERMISSIONS on the file, then send the link.

This would force Google Drive to only give the user an actual download link.

This helps--but I still get 5-6 "requests" to edit the file each week, and I have to email them to say "nope, that's the master, download it..." etc. It's exhausting. I know, I know, it sounds like whiny, but after years of it, it wears you down.

I was trying to find a few of those topics/posts real quick, but couldn't. Have any links to some of those posts or give a hint of what to type in search?

Y'know, I'm not like you, keeping detailed outlines of where I post what. Oddly enough, I just posted it a few days ago here somewhere and I talk about it, in the DRM post on my own site--but it's the same thing that I've said here.

The reading experience between PDF and a proper ebook is night and day!

Amen brother.

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, we did and it happened again today. The woman I was ranting about, with the PDF? That was it. She was using Edge, not Reader, even though she INSISTED that she was, in fact, using Reader.

Customer Support Rants Below

And mine was an EPUB accidentally being opened in Edge's EPUB Reader.

They were asking why the formatting on Amazon was absolutely bonkers... they show me a screenshot, it's impossible, because the code being displayed wasn't even IN the MOBI!

Turns out, they weren't submitting it to Amazon at all... lol.

So when I got on screensharing, they "did the same steps they did before", and poof, everything was magically working (because this time they actually uploaded the MOBI to Amazon's backend).

Originally Posted by Hitch

This helps--but I still get 5-6 "requests" to edit the file each week, and I have to email them to say "nope, that's the master, download it..." etc. It's exhausting.

And that Google Drive DOCX, he got into the Google Docs version, then started editing (via Mobile?). And I was getting emails/comments on nearly every, single, keystroke, he was doing.

- Add a space
- Delete that accidental space
- Accidentally press "enter" in a list
- Change color to red + add a comment to tell me what to change

... and there would be about 5+ "changes" + Google floating comment boxes in the margins (telling me he added a space) + 5+ emails telling me what changed in the document. I have absolutely no idea how such a thing would be possible (besides Mobile fat-fingers).

So yeah, it was awful trying to Reject/Accept the changes, because there were so many that the floating box wouldn't be anywhere close to the actual issue.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Y'know, I'm not like you, keeping detailed outlines of where I post what. Oddly enough, I just posted it a few days ago here somewhere and I talk about it, in the DRM post on my own site--but it's the same thing that I've said here.

Hey, I don't keep track of where I post what either. I've just been getting much better at digging through the Google to find my old posts... and only recently I've been indexing where I say what.

Plus, it helps when you use consistent wording over the years, like "pan and scan" helps find all of our PDF sucks rants (and Fixed Layout EPUBs too!).

Like I said in that other topic:

our username + any topic site:mobileread.com

finds you anything on ebooks. We've written about it all!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Customer Support Rants Below

And mine was an EPUB accidentally being opened in Edge's EPUB Reader.

OMG, yes, this^ too. Constantly. Drives me bats**t.

They were asking why the formatting on Amazon was absolutely bonkers... they show me a screenshot, it's impossible, because the code being displayed wasn't even IN the MOBI!

Turns out, they weren't submitting it to Amazon at all... lol.

Ayup. I feel ya.

So when I got on screensharing, they "did the same steps they did before", and poof, everything was magically working (because this time they actually uploaded the MOBI to Amazon's backend).

My toothgrinder is when they sideload the MOBI (not the AZK) to an iOS device, even though our instructions CLEARLY STATE, "do NOT sideload your mobi to your iOS device..."


[snip GDrive rant, although mine would be pretty much identical]

Hey, I don't keep track of where I post what either. I've just been getting much better at digging through the Google to find my old posts... and only recently I've been indexing where I say what.

Plus, it helps when you use consistent wording over the years, like "pan and scan" helps find all of our PDF sucks rants (and Fixed Layout EPUBs too!).

Like I said in that other topic:

our username + any topic site:mobileread.com

finds you anything on ebooks. We've written about it all!

We certainly have. For all I know, there are other MRers out there that wish we'd shut the hell up, lol! (Geeze, I hope not...)

Hitch

[Quoth]

It's very informative and makes me feel better.

[phillipgessert]

Re: tech support rants. In my experience, a great many people default claim to have viewed a PDF “in Acrobat” after viewing it in practically anything else. My theory is that they think PDFs are created “in Acrobat” so simply viewing a PDF is always “in Acrobat” in the same way you might read a document “in English.” And certain browsers opening EPUBs natively (and poorly) is definitely a source of headaches. For whom was this a priority?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

Re: tech support rants. In my experience, a great many people default claim to have viewed a PDF “in Acrobat” after viewing it in practically anything else. My theory is that they think PDFs are created “in Acrobat” so simply viewing a PDF is always “in Acrobat” in the same way you might read a document “in English.” And certain browsers opening EPUBs natively (and poorly) is definitely a source of headaches. For whom was this a priority?

Y'know, that's an excellent point.

The thing that sort of makes me feel exhausted, so often, nowadays, is that I've tried everything under the sun, truly (short of bankrupting myself with minute-by-minute handholding) to provide prophylactic help. To say things like "don't open your MOBI in iOS," or "if you're going to do X, make sure that you do Y first," or whatever and they can't be bothered to read it.

I've ranted about this here, as well, even though this isn't really the place; I have 5, count 'em, 5 different articles about ISBNs in my site. I have a "FAQ ATTACK" document that I hand out to new customers, explaining, in short (very short) that you do need an ISBN for X, you don't for Y, etc. Oh, and I have a handout that shows them how to get a free ISBN from Amazon, if they choose to go that route, right?

And how many times does each new-to-us author (and some repeats, mind you!!!), ask me "do I need an ISBN?" At least once per client. I mean...WT-high-holy-F? I mean, WHY?

I am screechingly frustrated over the choices. I can either answer it, which makes me grind my teeth, or I can say "read the damn FAQ ATTACK document that we already gave you," which will not earn me "nice" points from the customers, or I can give them links to our existing articles, which, btw, they will then say that they read "but didn't understand" and so on. I typically end up quite literally copy-pasting the same exact text, from the site or the FAQ ATTACK, into the email and then--then--they're happy that I've answered them.

The truth is, most of them simply can't be bothered. I think that even though "tech support" has horror stories everywhere, in self-publishing, the unspoken reality is, most self-publishers are in self-publishing against their will. They drag themselves into it kicking and screaming; they don't WANT to be their own publisher. Not remotely.

They're still harboring that dream--that the Random Houses of the world will find them, will pay them big advances and all that, and do all the "icky" stuff like marketing, promoting the book, all that pesky s**t. So, they actively resist learning what they need to, to be a publisher proper. It's a form of denial; if they can get their layout house to do that job for them, well, they can still feel like a published author in their heads.

I think that's the only explanation for the subsidy presses of the world, the Outskirts Press, where they (for example) charge 5x what we do, for the exact same eBook output. Quite literally, 5x. The only explanation is that OP is their "publisher;" they handle everything, do all that icky marketing stuff, etc. I mean, why pay, for example, $3500 for a publishing package that you could get from a midrange layout house (print, cover and eBooks) for under a grand? You're paying $2500 more for...what? For not having to think about things like trim sizes, fonts, whether you want a modern looking layout or a traditional, whether you need an ISBN or not and not having to upload. For NOT having to think like a publisher. (For some, for erroneously thinking that OP, Balboa, etc., are going to do your marketing for you...)

I mean it. I know, it seems nuts, but...that's the only rational explanation that I can come up with, for this behavior. When I talk to other print designers, other eBook formatters, we ALL struggle with the same exact pattern from our customers. That can't be a coincidence or accidental.

There doesn't seem to be any rational explanation for it, so that, above, is my $.02 on it, for what it's worth.


Hitch

[phillipgessert]

I think the reason the prophylactic approach often doesn't work is because many folks are sort of headstrong and just think they know better. Not necessarily "you are wrong" but maybe "I actually don't need this info." I do think it's a little strange that when something doesn't work, they don't at least try to follow the instructions. Though there is a slight childish pleasure in being able to say, "what happened when you tried the approach I mentioned?"

For me it seems like the majority of the time spent is in clearing up what exactly I'm being asked, because the verbatim request usually doesn't reveal much:

I downloaded it and... (actually viewed it in browser)
I downloaded it but couldn't save it... (??? likely same as above)
I opened it and... (no mention of what that means)
I opened it in Kindle and... (doubleclicked and it opened in iBooks) and of course
I couldn't open the file. (end of message)

...leading to an awful lot of back-and-forth just to get to square one. The worst is that I'm obviously never 100% sure there's not a legit problem being reported, so I spend a fair bit of time double-checking only to discover later that it's because they've attempted to review the file using their microwave.

In any case, OP it sounds like you want to avoid Amazon because the book(s) are so specific to your circle, but there are lots of books like that on Amazon. Folks publish family histories, etc. all the time, that have no interest to anyone outside of the family. And I'm sure you wouldn't have to dig far to find even more esoteric things like personal manifestos and the like. I would think it would be relatively harmless to let Amazon deal with all this, because outside of your circle I would think folks would just disregard it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I think the reason the prophylactic approach often doesn't work is because many folks are sort of headstrong and just think they know better. Not necessarily "you are wrong" but maybe "I actually don't need this info." I do think it's a little strange that when something doesn't work, they don't at least try to follow the instructions. Though there is a slight childish pleasure in being able to say, "what happened when you tried the approach I mentioned?"

For me it seems like the majority of the time spent is in clearing up what exactly I'm being asked, because the verbatim request usually doesn't reveal much:

I downloaded it and... (actually viewed it in browser)
I downloaded it but couldn't save it... (??? likely same as above)
I opened it and... (no mention of what that means)
I opened it in Kindle and... (doubleclicked and it opened in iBooks) and of course
I couldn't open the file. (end of message)

...leading to an awful lot of back-and-forth just to get to square one. The worst is that I'm obviously never 100% sure there's not a legit problem being reported, so I spend a fair bit of time double-checking only to discover later that it's because they've attempted to review the file using their microwave.

Yup. What kills me is I'll ask, "exactly where in the instructions did you get stuck?" and of course, do I get an answer? NO.

We even hand out a page, with our quote--so not after, mind you--saying "what does a client need to know?," so that they know that they're going to need to know how to download files, install software (readers) if they don't already have them, download, edit, save and upload/email Word files/forms, etc., to work with us through the process. And do they read it? Do they make sure that they can do all this s**t?

They do NOT.

In any case, OP it sounds like you want to avoid Amazon because the book(s) are so specific to your circle, but there are lots of books like that on Amazon. Folks publish family histories, etc. all the time, that have no interest to anyone outside of the family. And I'm sure you wouldn't have to dig far to find even more esoteric things like personal manifestos and the like. I would think it would be relatively harmless to let Amazon deal with all this, because outside of your circle I would think folks would just disregard it.

I mean...you could put the files in a cloud somewhere, but the ubiquitous is STILL going to happen. And yes...unless it has mortifying details that the family would croak over being revealed, I'm all for letting Amazon handle it. Trust me, NOBODY will find it if you don't want them to.

Hitch

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Which is why any other formats can be derived.

More obscure formats like LIT/LRF are completely abandoned by any current retailers/readers.

Minor nit time again. At least one retailer still supports several obsolete formats. I've attached a screen cap of the formats available from Baen when downloading their monthly bundles (individual books give the option of downloading an uncompressed version as well the .zip files).

[Jellby]

Why not just sell a Kindle with the book(s) preloaded?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Why not just sell a Kindle with the book(s) preloaded?

Well, that's an idea. An eInk Kindle is pretty cheap, really and Amazon would probably sell you some at a discount....

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, that's an idea. An eInk Kindle is pretty cheap, really and Amazon would probably sell you some at a discount....Hitch

I honestly don't understand why Amazon still supports the MOBI7 format. IMHO, 10 years of support for MOBI7-only devices is more than enough, since the projected lifespan of the earlier eInk screens is only 10 years anyway.