Questions for the pros

[GraciousMe]

Hi everybody

I live in northern Europe and I am a published author (two published books). Not saying that to brag, just so that you have a little background. I am definitely not a computer wizard, quite the opposite. And English it not my main language. My books are (currently) not in English but Hungarian and perhaps some other language.

I just joined mobileread and have some questions for you professionals.

My coming books are going to be paper books as well as audio books, and ebooks. Some smaller ones maybe only ebook.

1) I have heard the .epub is a better format in Europe than .mobi, which is supposedly bigger in the US. Is that correct?

2) Should I try to use ebook software like Sigil or Jutoh for my coming book? Are they good software for a rather non-technical type? Also, they leave all the rest of the work to me, like selling and publicising.

3) Are sites like Lulu and Smashwords any good? Or only for amateurs? I see that Smashwords are promising to distribute and sell my "masterpiece" at major ebook retailers, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony and the Diesel eBook Store.

They say my book "will be readable on any e-reading device, including the Amazon Kindle, the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, the Sony Reader, the Barnes & Noble nook, Android devices, and others."

Sounds very good, no? Input welcome.

One last question: Is there a problem if you are not publishing in English? More difficult?

GM

[Kumabjorn]

Not a pro, but

1) Yes
2) Sigil has a strong following, active community and large installed base.
3) Smashwords is very popular among MR members.

Not publishing in English means you reach a smaller reading base. Right now Iäd say that more than 90 % of eBooks sold are in English.
The rest of the world is playing catch up.

Ooops, almost forgot.
Welcome as an active participant!

[Rob Lister]

Neither a pro, but

1) always go with the standard, epub. There's nothing wrong with having mobi also.

2/3) if you can afford it, have your work professionally converted. That ensures all the i's are dotted, all the t's crossed, and all the tags closed. Plus you have someone to yell at if it isn't done correctly.

[jbcohen]

Even though you speak english like a native, much better than my hungarian I like to recommend to authors who will be using different langueges Open Office, which is the only word processor available that speaks over 120 different langueges like natives. For you I would recommend openoffice.org/hu. Open office is a pro at languege translations and I recommend that authors use it to translate into any of the many different langueges on this globe. For shorter translations try translate.google.com.

Annak ellenére, hogy beszélek angolul, mint egy őshonos, sokkal jobb, mint én magyarul szeretek ajánlani a szerzők, akiknek a különböző langueges Open Office, amely az egyetlen szövegszerkesztő áll rendelkezésre, hogy beszél, több mint 120 különböző langueges, mint a bennszülöttek. Mert akkor tudom ajánlani openoffice.org / hu. Open Office egy profi languege a fordítások, és azt ajánlom, hogy a szerzők, hogy lefordítani bármelyik sok különböző langueges ezen a világon. Rövidebb fordítások próbálja translate.google.com.

Translation by Google Translate. Fordítás a Google Translate.

[GraciousMe]

Thank you folks

I would have thought that Smashwords was too simple or "cheap", somehow. But that is maybe just my masochistic side talking.

[James_Wilde]

[QUOTE=jbcohen;2067012]Even though you speak english like a native, much better than my hungarian I like to recommend to authors who will be using different langueges Open Office, which is the only word processor available that speaks over 120 different langueges like natives.

Not wanting to start a flame war, but LibreOffice must be up there with Open Office on the number of language versions. I was an OOo user for many years. Good product back then, but there is virtually no development going on. LibO is VERY active at development and is backwardly compatible with OOo, as it comes from the same stable.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by GraciousMe

Thank you folks

I would have thought that Smashwords was too simple or "cheap", somehow. But that is maybe just my masochistic side talking.

Smashwords is the major player in the smaller indy publishing market. If you do not have a publisher behind you, they are pretty much the defacto place to go currently. In USA, you can also publish directly with Amazon, but I do not know how that works internationally. My book is being sold in Europe through Amazon, but really only folks in the UK buy it.

I do not know the non-USA market at all, but I would think that you would be best off releasing your book in both mobi and epub. The more access you give your readers the better your chances are of reaching your target audience.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Open office is a pro at languege translations and I recommend that authors use it to translate into any of the many different langueges on this globe. For shorter translations try translate.google.com.

... sorry to butt in, but you're not actually seriously suggesting anyone use machine translation for anything beyond the purpose of getting an approximate idea of content written in another language, are you?

It's just that machine translation works reasonably with certain big languages right now (English-German, English-French) and by "reasonably" I mean that you get the gist of the meaning reasonably well and occasionally maybe even a shorter sentence will come out actually correctly, but it's still not at a good enough level for full machine translations of technical texts, and for fiction - forget it.

For many smaller languages, machine translation is currently as good as useless even for understanding fictional texts.

I've seen one author offer machine translations of her novels from English into German, for sale. It was... not pretty.

As for the original post, I'd also say that offering ebooks both in epub and mobi would be the best solution. Epub is probably the leading format in mainland Europe, but more and more people have bought Kindles (not just in the countries with their own Kindle stores, but also others), so offering a Kindle-compatible format instead of expecting a significant share of potential customers to convert the epub files into mobi themselves would not be a bad idea.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Even though you speak english like a native, much better than my hungarian I like to recommend to authors who will be using different langueges Open Office, which is the only word processor available that speaks over 120 different langueges like natives. For you I would recommend openoffice.org/hu. Open office is a pro at languege translations and I recommend that authors use it to translate into any of the many different langueges on this globe. For shorter translations try translate.google.com.

Sorry, JB, but this is terrible advice. Machine translation should be avoided like the plague for anything that's going to be published. It's fine for replying to an e-mail in a language you don't understand, but for a book? No.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

I do not know the non-USA market at all, but I would think that you would be best off releasing your book in both mobi and epub. The more access you give your readers the better your chances are of reaching your target audience.

Exactly. Mobi for the Kindle, ePub for everything else. The Kindle sells massively well, even in the non-English-speaking world, and it supports Hungarian just fine.

[ApK]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, folks, but I believe Amazon accepts epubs as submissions now, and unless you make use of some uncommon formatting or features, their conversion will work perfectly well.
So if you take the time to create a decent epub, then mobi, which is mostly of concern only to Amazon users, will be handled for you.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ApK

Correct me if I'm mistaken, folks, but I believe Amazon accepts epubs as submissions now, and unless you make use of some uncommon formatting or features, their conversion will work perfectly well.
So if you take the time to create a decent epub, then mobi, which is mostly of concern only to Amazon users, will be handled for you.

Yes, they've accepted ePubs for a couple of years now.

[frahse]

-- wrong place --

Sorry.