Go to Kindle Store, log out of your account, and you'll be able to see the price of your book in different regions

Self-publishing is changing. I think that in 2012 indie authors should go global. One of the important topics to raise is how to price books for international customers. My advice is simple: keep them low.

The report on top self-published Kindle books of 2011, which I’ve recently released, shows a downward trend in both the number of self-published books in Top 100 and the average price. One of the major reasons is the growing price competition.

The perception of $0.99 is not only affected by Kindle Daily Deal, but also by the fact that more and more legacy publishers offer their titles for $1.99 or less. Those books easier become popular, because they convince price-sensitive users not only with a price, but also with a reputation of the publisher.

This means that tagging the book with $0.99 price is not as effective as it was a year ago, when there were $0.99 self-published books and $5.99+ books from legacy publishers.

There is also one more factor, which encourages self-publishers to increase prices. If they enroll their books in KDP Select, they sooner or later come to the conclusion, that for a Prime member, who is eligible to borrow from Kindle Owners’ Lending Library only one book per month, getting for free the book with a regular price of $0.99 is not a deal at all.

Authors who sell books at $0.99 earn $0.35. They were able to earn $1.70 in December from a single KOLL borrow. The fund Amazon gives to support KDP Select is raised in January from $500,000 to $700,000. It doesn’t mean that a single borrow can give a royalty higher than $1.70 as there are more books in KOLL and more people who can borrow them. But it means that the deal is still encouraging enough to sacrifice regular sales.

So, where is the pricing for international ebook users? I think, that even if you decided to raise prices of your books for US customers, keep them low for readers from abroad. 

There are a few extra factors to keep in mind, when it comes to prices for users from different countries:
1. Many books from big publishers are not available outside US – for more details check this report on international availability and prices of Kindle bestsellers,
2. Many books are priced by publishers higher that in US – what this comparison of prices of Steve Jobs biography shows,
3. Prices are higher due to taxes,
4. Prices are higher because of international fees (in case of books from Kindle Store US).

Readers from abroad are aware that they have to pay more for the books. In fact, they hardly experienced $0.99 price shock from the beginning of 2011. So, the low price strategy which worked so well in US, seems to have chances in other countries.

How to keep prices low? There are two things you can do:
1. Offer lower prices in localized Kindle Stores,
2. Get rid of international fee.

1. Offer lower prices in localized Kindle Stores

In the KDP dashboard the author can set up prices for Kindle Stores in UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain either automatically (based on a price from US) or manually. If you increase the price in US, it doesn’t mean you have to do it in other Kindle Stores.

Here’s what I did. My flash-fiction geek stories, Password Incorrect and Failure Confirmed are a very narrow niche, but they were doing unexpectedly well in KOLL in December. It’s probably because of the fact that they’re addressed to geeks, like the ones who have bought/received Kindle Fire. New owners of this device have one month of Prime/KOLL free.

I’ve increased the price of books to $5.99 (bargain for KOLL users), but in other Kindle Stores kept prices with $0.99 tag in respective currencies. To do that I had to select 35% royalty option – there is no possibility to choose different royalties for different locations.

Set different prices in different Kindle Stores

2. Get rid of international fee

International fees applied by Amazon to Kindle ebooks sold to users from abroad are a serious issue. They influence the way international readers buy the books. Therefore they should also influence the way authors price their books.

Kindle ebooks are being sold to over 170 countries and destinations. If you set up in KDP the rights for your book to “all territories”, readers from those 170+ locations will be able to buy it.

The fees are different for different regions, but they are usually up to $4. For example, the $0.99 book costs usually $3.44 in Poland, where I live.

You can check how much your books cost by going to Kindle Store US, selecting a region and searching for your book. Read this post if you need a detailed tip on how to do it.

Is there a way to get rid of the fee? Looks like it is. What I’ve observed is that the charge is applied only until the certain amount of books is being sold. I sell my books from Kindle Store, also the ones written in Polish, so I’m determined to keep their prices low in Poland. I’ve counted that if you sold around 100 copies, the price of the book goes down to the level set up in KDP dashboard.

What you can do is to raise the price of the book in Kindle Store US only after there are no or little fees in other territories.

I wonder whether giving books for free within KDP Select affect the international fees. If anyone has noticed that, please share it in the comments. If this works, the easy way to get rid of the charges it to run a 5-day promo and raise prices afterwards.

What is also good to keep in mind is that Kindle Daily Deal books cost the same in all countries – there is no international charge applied, no matter how many books were sold to different regions. This means that $0.99 KDD book costs $0.99 (and it’s a one-day deal), while your book, supposed to be a constant deal, costs $3.44.

* * *

When thinking about international readers it’s also very good to analyze other distribution channels. Kobo and Smashwords are best picks. First, their offer is available without territorial restrictions. Secondly, they don’t apply fees like Amazon does.

If you want me to write how the distribution could look from a perspective of a European self-publisher, please let me know in the comments.

Hope it was a helpful post.

Related posts

• 03.06.2011 -- How to Effectively Publish and Promote Books to iPad and iPhone Users
• 07.05.2011 -- Kindle for the Web – How It Can Be Used by Authors
• 06.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Build Better Relations
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 27.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Learn and Improve

"Pricing of Self-published Books to International Readers" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

As I don’t want to republish every interesting article from there, I’ve managed to add articles from Ebook Friendly to this feed (Yahoo Pipes work fine for this).

I hope you’ll enjoy tips and workarounds for users of ereaders and ereading apps as well as posts and reports promoting self-published books. And make sure to benefit, too.

Recent posts from Ebook Friendly’s Tips & More feed are listed below. Don’t worry, they’ll be filtered and only the best articles will appear in your feed.

Wishing you a quiet, distraction-free Christmas! 

• How-to: Download Own Books to Kindle Touch [Screenshots]
• How-to: Check Whether Kindle Will Connect via WiFi in Your Country
• Kindle Touch Is Not Yet Shipping to UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain
• Me and My Kindle #34 [Picture]
• Top Self-published Books in Kindle Store – January 2012
• Kindle Touch Is Available Internationally – Here’s the Country List
• Funny: the New Reading Technology [Cartoon]
• Using the Ereader [Cartoon]
• Page-turning in Ebooks Now Gets Much Smarter [Video]
• Music, Games, Movies and Books on the Rise [Infographic]
• Oscar Nominee: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore [Video]
• Funny: The Most Creative Way to Turn Pages in the Newspaper [Video]
• Me and My Kindle #33 [Picture]
• Wish List: 5 Improvements I’d Love to See in the iBookstore [Opinion]
• Most Quoted Books of 2011 [Infographic]
• Apple Publishing Event – from Rumors to Twitter Reactions [Storified]
• Me and My Kindle #32 [Picture]
• Why I Haven’t Bought a Single Book in the iBookstore [Opinion]
• How-to: Download a Software Update to Kindle Touch [Screenshots]
• Top Self-published Kindle Ebooks of 2011 [Report]

Related posts

• 08.07.2011 -- Books Help Focus in Times of Distraction [Video]
• 04.07.2011 -- Best Self-published Books in Kindle Store in June, John Locke Out of Top 100
• 17.06.2011 -- 4 Ways Writers Can Use Readability
• 11.06.2011 -- Simple Tip to Embed All Readability Buttons on Your Blog
• 04.06.2011 -- Readability Adds Kindle Support – Great News for Readers and Writers

"Quick Note: Adding Most Useful Posts from Ebook Friendly to This Blog’s Feed" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

For more helpful tips on ebook formatting, check Paul’s book How to Format Your eBook for Kindle, NOOK, Smashwords, and Everything Else.

What the Heck is EPUB?

The EPUB format is an open source standard that defines how the content and metadata of an eBook should be packaged and how eReading devices and software should render the format to the reader. EPUB is the most widely-adopted standard for eBooks and is the format utilized by the Barnes & Noble NOOK store, iBookstore, Sony eBook store, and many others. The notable exception is the Amazon Kindle store, which is discussed below. The open source philosophy of web design and development has fostered a culture of sharing best practices and lessons learned online, and this has allowed developers to write new software and iron out bugs for web browsers that have greatly enhanced the internet in the last 15 years–making web pages evolve from the dull designs of the 1990s to the new digital reality of the 21st century. It is reassuring that eBook design and development is following a similar trend of openness and cooperation, and this will greatly benefit the reader’s experience and adoption of eBooks on an international scale.

Since eReaders and rendering software comes in so many shapes and sizes, an eBook cannot be organized like a fixed-layout print book. It needs to have reflowable content to accommodate differently-sized viewing windows on the reader’s screen (from a big desktop monitor to a tiny iPhone). That is why the EPUB format looks more like the source code of a website rather than an actual manuscript. You can head on over to my eBook formatting tutorial or buy my How-To guide if you’re looking for help on turning your manuscript into an eBook. Essentially, the entire EPUB format is a collection of XHTML and XML files (plus images) that defines the content, reading order, and metadata of an eBook. Alright, so what the heck is XML and XHTML? eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a way to transport and store data, while XHTML is a specification for the language used for web pages based on XML that is being phased out in favor of HTML5.  Using this type of code allows eReading software and devices to render data on a wide variety of screens, and it’s great for standard fiction or non-fiction eBooks. This is what is widely used today – the EPUB 2.0.1 specification.

However, many readers want more than just the standard content that would be similarly available in a print book. Comic books, text books with complicated mathematical formulas, and the ability to read foreign languages that are nothing like English (Korean, Japanese, Thai, Arabic, etc.) are just a few features that the EPUB format being utilized today has trouble with. Also, the next evolution of the internet is HTML5/CSS3, which is slowly replacing XHTML and plug-ins like Adobe Flash. This will facilitate a better system to embed audio, video, and other media content. That is why the International Digital Publishing Forum endeavored to come up with a revised standard – the EPUB 3 specification.

What’s Can the New EPUB 3 Do for Me as an Author/Publisher?

The EPUB 3 specification was finalized in October 2011, and new software and eReaders that support this format will hopefully be out in 2012. Azardi has an EPUB 3 reader that is available for free if you are interested. The EPUB 3 specification allows for a variety of new features that EPUB 2.0.1 does not support, and they will provide great enhancements to the eBook experience. Here is a brief snapshot of some of the new things to expect:

1. Audio/Video Support – Support of embedded audio and video using HTML5 tags is a feature that will make eBooks really stand out from print books. While the file sizes of the eBook itself will obviously become larger with embedded audio and video files, this will hopefully be offset by improved storage capacity of tablets and improved communications/cellular infrastructure to allow quick file transfer. Also, another benefit of embedded audio and video means better support for text-to-speech for readers with disabilities.  [spec]
2. Mathematical Equations – For the huge textbook market, the current version of EPUB does not allow for representation of complex mathematical equations. Generally, an eBook designer has to embed the equation as an image inside the eBook, which bloats the size of the file and can make for a somewhat clunky reading experience. The new EPUB 3 supports MathML which is a way to encode equations in a similar fashion that web pages are encoded. This will help eBooks gain wider acceptability in the textbook market. [spec]
3. Headers and Footers – It is standard practice for print books and PDFs to have headers and footers on every page outside of the body content (e.g. the author’s name, book title, page number, etc.) With eBooks, you often only see headers and footers based on what the eReader decides to put there (usually it’s some piece of information extracted from the eBook’s metadata). With the current EPUB format in use today, you can’t really define what should be a header and footer, because you have no idea what the size of the page will be for the reader. However, for the new EPUB 3 specification, there are new tags where the designer can actually define what should be in the header and footer of every page. [spec]
4. JavaScript – JavaScript is a simple programming language that was designed for web pages in the 1990s. While the technology has been around for a while, the only place where it can be used inside an eBook is on the iBookstore. Even then it’s sort of confusing about how the current EPUB format is supposed to process it. With the new EPUB 3 specification, it defines how the eReading device is supposed to render it and what to do if there is no support for JavaScript. This will allow for all sorts of neat features in eBooks, which we have taken for granted on the internet, such as pop-up footnotes, rotating pictures, dynamic color changes, and everything else. This will provide a whole new level of interactivity and help give the children’s book market a much-needed jump into the digital world. [spec]
5. Embedding Fonts and Advanced Text Styling – While you can embed fonts in the current version of EPUB, the new EPUB 3 specification dictates better support for this feature. This is critical for eBooks to gain acceptance in foreign languages. The EPUB 3 specification makes use of the advanced CSS 3 properties to allow better control of how text is displayed (note: CSS or Cascading Style Sheets are a specification for styling how content should be presented, and they are generally used in web design and eBook design). For instance, you can decide whether text should be hyphenated at line breaks or not. It should be noted that there is a lot of hand-wringing over how licensing and legalities for fonts works in eBooks, so embed fonts with caution. [spec]
6. Better Graphics and Perhaps Animation – The new EPUB 3 specification allows for better use of SVG-type images. Scalable Vector Graphics are useful, because the quality doesn’t change as the image is made bigger. This is in contrast to bitmap graphics (like JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc.), which degrade in quality as the image is expanded or zoomed in on, since they are a grid of pixels. Additionally, the new CSS3 specification has support for creating animation, and you can see an example here (note: recommend not viewing with Internet Explorer). Hopefully, developers will create EPUB 3 rendering software that can recognize the powerful animation features of CSS 3.

It will be exciting to see what kind of software developers come up with to read eBooks written in the EPUB 3 format, and we will hopefully start seeing some this new generation of eBooks soon. More interactivity will allow eBooks to gain even further market share over print books.

How Does This Tie in with the Amazon Kindle store?

Amazon owns and still utilizes the MOBI/AZW/PRC format in their Kindle store, which is somewhat similar to the EPUB format. There are some very serious downsides to MOBI as opposed to EPUB, but Amazon continues to utilize their own proprietary file type, probably for various business reasons as opposed to technical. With the release of the Kindle Fire, Amazon announced a new “Kindle Format 8″, which boasts similar functionality to some of the new EPUB 3 features. Amazon has not informed the public of how this format will work yet besides a quick press release, but it appears that, like EPUB 3, it will support a lot of the things that HTML5 and CSS3 can handle. Luckily, Amazon provides their own software, KindleGen, which easily converts the EPUB format into MOBI for upload to the Kindle store. Hopefully, the conversion process from EPUB 3 to Kindle Format 8 will be equally as simple, but we have to wait and see.

Paul Salvette is an author who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife, Lisa, and newborn daughter, Monica. He grew up in the United States and served in the Navy from 2002 to 2009, with some time in Iraq. His day job involves working at a Thai foundation that focuses on poverty eradication, philanthropy, and education. He hopes to stay in Thailand until he is deported or dies of natural causes, whichever comes first.

Learn more about Paul at http://paulsalvette.com or follow him on Twitter @PaulSalvette.

Related posts

• 04.11.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #3 – Images, Metadata, TOC, Finalization
• 21.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #2 – Styling and Chapters
• 07.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #1 – Getting Started
• 28.05.2011 -- Polskie książki na Androida
• 23.03.2011 -- Polskie książki na iPada

"What’s New With EPUB 3?" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

This is a last part of the Sigil tutorial by Paul Salvette. You’ll read about how to add images and metadata to an ebook, how to deal with table of contents, and finally – how to convert epub file to mobi format, if you want to make it available for Kindle devices.

You can read two previous articles here and here. For more helpful tips on ebook formatting, check Paul’s book How to Format Your eBook for Kindle, NOOK, Smashwords, and Everything Else.

Adding images

The EPUB format supports JPG, GIF, PNG, and SVG images. The JPG format is good for photographs and has a small file size, the GIF format is good for text, line art, and tables, and the PNG format has a large file size that is good for images you want to look sharp (like a company logo). To add an image click on this button in the menu:

Adding metadata and a table of contents

Metadata is information about the eBook that is embedded into the EPUB file. This includes the eBook’s title, author name, publishing date, etc. You can even add relatively obscure data like the name of your photographer. This metadata is important for search engine optimization (SEO) for potential readers to locate your eBook, so do not neglect it. To access the Metadata editor, click on “Tools” and then “Meta Editor”.

Many eBook retailers (like NOOK and iBookstore) require certain information in the metadata. As a best practice, you should add the following meta as a minimum: title, author, language, description (the back jacket blurb), date of publication, date of creation, and subject (you can add multiple subjects and they function like keywords). Some sample metadata is as follows:

The next step is to add a meta Table of Contents (also called the NCX Table of Contents). To do this, you simply pull up the Table of Contents under “View” or press Alt+F3. Then, you click on “Generate TOC from headings”. Sigil will look for anywhere that you defined text as “Heading X” and incorporate that into the Table of Contents.

Finalizing your EPUB and a trick to make a file for Kindle

Now you simply click “Save” and you will have a valid EPUB file. Try opening it on your PC using a program such as Adobe Digital Editions or NOOK for PC and see how it looks. If you aren’t happy with it, you can always adjust it in Sigil or learn about XHTML and CSS coding to accomplish more fine tuning of your eBook.

You may be disheartened that the Amazon.com Kindle Store does not accept the EPUB format. Amazon.com uses the proprietary AZW/PRC/MOBI formats for their eBooks rather than the open standard EPUB. However, it is a relatively simple process to convert and EPUB to MOBI, because they are quite similar formats. If you unzip your EPUB file using a program like 7-zip, you can open the content.opf file with MobiPocket Creator, which is free. Alternatively, you can use a command line program from Amazon.com called KindleGen to easily convert the EPUB format to MOBI format. If that is not working for you, try using the open source eBook management system Calibre.

* * *

Thank you very much to Piotr for allowing me to guest post, and I hope that this quick tutorial on Sigil will be helpful for the self-publishing community. If you want to learn more about eBook formatting, please visit my website at http://PaulSalvette.com or say hello on Twitter @PaulSalvette.

Paul Salvette is an author who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife, Lisa, and newborn daughter, Monica. He grew up in the United States and served in the Navy from 2002 to 2009, with some time in Iraq. His day job involves working at a Thai foundation that focuses on poverty eradication, philanthropy, and education. He hopes to stay in Thailand until he is deported or dies of natural causes, whichever comes first.

Learn more about Paul at http://paulsalvette.com or follow him on Twitter @PaulSalvette.

Related posts

• 21.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #2 – Styling and Chapters
• 07.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #1 – Getting Started
• 02.12.2011 -- What’s New With EPUB 3?
• 28.05.2011 -- Polskie książki na Androida
• 23.03.2011 -- Polskie książki na iPada

"Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #3 – Images, Metadata, TOC, Finalization" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

iBookstore w iTunes - kliknij, by powiększyć

Kilkanaście dni temu iBookstore oficjalnie wystartował w 26 nowych krajach, w tym również w Polsce. Księgarnia dostępna jest przez iTunes Store (pasek górny » Books), a także z aplikacji iBooks (przycisk Store).

Od razu uprzedzam, że jest słabo. Polskich książek jest kilkadziesiąt i wcale nie jest łatwo je znaleźć. Apple, otwierając e-księgarnie w kolejnych krajach ewidentnie nie ma ochoty starać się o książki w obcych językach – na przykład w językach krajów, w których iBookstore wystartował.

Jak znaleźć polskie książki

Większość tytułów polskich wydana została przez wydawnictwo O-press. Są to książki dla dzieci i poradniki.

Wyszukiwania według języka niestety nie ma – to wielki minus. Wpisanie w oknie wyszukiwania słowa Polish nic nie daje. Pojawiają się tytuły angielskie, w których tytuł lub opis zawiera to słowo. Oczywiście można wyszukiwać według tytułu lub autora, ale bestsellerów nie ma co szukać, przynajmniej nie teraz.

Żeby sprawdzić listę polskich książek znajdź – zarówno w iTunes jak i w iBooks – baner Bestsellers by Language (jak na obrazku poniżej) i kliknij w niego.

O nie, nie spodziewaj się, że od razu zobaczysz polskie tytuły. Najpierw będzie lista książek po angielsku, potem jeszcze portugalski, grecki, turecki, słowacki i wreszcie jest -język polski. Jest to lista tytułów płatnych. Tytuły darmowe są jeszcze gorzej dostępne. Zacznij od banera Free Books.

Alternatywną metodą jest przeszukanie polskiego iBookstore w Google. W oknie Google web search wklej poniższy tekst:

site:itunes.apple.com/pl/book/ "Language: Polish"

Żadna z tych metod nie jest idealna. Myślę, że Apple zdaje sobie sprawę, że książek w językach obcych nie jest dużo i promuje tytuły anglojęzyczne. Zresztą przeszukiwanie iTunes Store zawsze było związane z przechodzeniem przez niezliczoną liczbę różnego rodzaju list typu New&Noteworthy, a wyszukiwarka kulała.

* * *

Premiera iBooks/iBookstore w czasie, gdy wchodził iPad była dla mnie dużym rozczarowaniem. Użytkownicy z Polski korzystający z aplikacji iBooks mieli dostęp jedynie do darmowych publikacji z iBookstore US. Wśród nich było kilkanaście książek po polsku – klasyka z domeny publicznej wciągnięta do iBookstore z Project Gutenberg. Dla porównania – polskich książek w domenie publicznej, dostępnych w formacie ePub jest około 3 tysięcy.

Czy sytuacja zmieni się na lepsze? Nie sądzę, żeby nastąpiło to szybko. Po pierwsze dlatego, że wydawcy i autorzy z Polski nie mają łatwego życia. Żeby opublikować książkę w iBookstore trzeba mieć Maca i amerykański numer identyfikacji podatkowej. Apple chce sprzedawać urządzenia, a kanały dostępu do treści, takie jak iBookstore, mają uzasadniać wydatek.

Podejrzewam, że Apple, w przeciwieństwie do polskich dystrybutorów e-książek, nie będzie usilnie starał się o nowe publikacje. Raczej inicjatywa będzie należeć do wydawców i autorów, ale nie mają łatwego życia, więc koło się zamyka.

Co więcj, od czasu premiery iPada (i braku polskiego iBookstore) polscy wydawcy publikowali przez App Store. W applowskim sklepie z aplikacjami można znaleźć więcej książek po polsku niż w applowskim sklepie z e-książkami.

A najlepiej będzie pobrać polską aplikację e-książkową – Virtualo, Woblink lub Bezkartek. Tutaj przeczytasz o polskich książkach dostępnych w iOS, jeśli przestaniesz liczyć wyłącznie na iBooks/iBookstore.

Related posts

• 23.03.2011 -- Polskie książki na iPada
• 22.07.2010 -- iBooks 1.1.1 – słownik i treści multimedialne
• 23.06.2010 -- Jak dodać polskie książki do iBooks?
• 29.11.2010 -- iPad jako e-czytnik – lista przydatnych artykułów
• 02.09.2010 -- Jak pisać i mówić o e-książkach

"Polskie książki w iBookstore" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

In a second part of the Sigil tutorial Paul Salvette gives tips on how to style the document. What is especially interesting is how to deal with headings and how to split an ebook into chapters.

Read a first post here and get free updates of the blog, if you don’t want to miss the next part, where Paul will explain how to add images, metadata and table of contents as well as share tips on finalizing a file and converting it to Kindle format. Check also Paul’s book How to Format Your eBook for Kindle, NOOK, Smashwords, and Everything Else.

Styling text

Content with all the same font and characteristics is probably not how you want your finalized eBook to look. For instance, you probably want to add some italics, bold, or underlined text. To do that you simply select the text and then click on the appropriate button in the top menu:

Some self-publishers might prefer the paragraphs to be justified, which is when the text aligns vertically on both the left and right side. Also, for your title and chapter headings, you probably want them centered. You can click the cursor in any paragraph and then click one of the justification buttons in the top menu to align your paragraph left, center, right, or justified:

The next step is to declare your title and chapter headings as “Heading X”. Headings have a larger font size than the regular content and are bold. When you generate the meta Table of Contents, it will find any text that you have defined as “Heading X” and include that in the Table of Content. Click your cursor inside the paragraph of any text and make it a heading with this button:

Here is an example of how your eBook might look in the WYSIWYG pane after adding some styles:

Splitting up into chapters

When eReaders first came around, they were very primitive devices that had trouble reading large files. That is why splitting your single HTML file into many smaller ones, or “parsing”, is continued as a best practice today. Additionally, everywhere you split your HTML file, the eReading device will recognize it as a page break. It is advisable to split your HTML file before each chapter. So if you have 13 chapters in your novel, you probably want to have 1 HTML file for the title page, and 13 more for each chapter (14 total). To split the HTML file, you simply press Ctrl+Enter or press the Chapter Break button in the top menu:

Paul Salvette is an author who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife, Lisa, and newborn daughter, Monica. He grew up in the United States and served in the Navy from 2002 to 2009, with some time in Iraq. His day job involves working at a Thai foundation that focuses on poverty eradication, philanthropy, and education. He hopes to stay in Thailand until he is deported or dies of natural causes, whichever comes first.

Learn more about Paul at http://paulsalvette.com or follow him on Twitter @PaulSalvette.

Related posts

• 04.11.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #3 – Images, Metadata, TOC, Finalization
• 07.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #1 – Getting Started
• 02.12.2011 -- What’s New With EPUB 3?
• 28.05.2011 -- Polskie książki na Androida
• 23.03.2011 -- Polskie książki na iPada

"Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #2 – Styling and Chapters" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Nie wiem, jakby się to wszystko potoczyło, może dalej pracowałbym w reklamie, gdyby nie moja pierwsza e-książka.

W październiku 2008 roku opublikowałem w Feedbooks Hasło niepoprawne, kolekcję 25 opowiadań dla geeków. Przygotowanie materiału do publikacji cyfrowej zajęło mi 40 minut. Do tego zaprojektowałem okładkę, napisałem notkę prasową o pierwszej polskiej książce na iPhona i zrobiłem ładnego jpega (patrz obok).

Liczyłem na to, że wieść się rozniesie, bo w tym czasie iPhone wchodził do Polski, ale nie spodziewałem się aż takiego efektu. W kilka dni książka została pobrana ponad tysiąc razy. Jednak dużo większy wpływa na moje podejście i zaangażowanie miała wydana w tym samym dniu i w ten sam sposób anglojęzyczna wersja książki – Password Incorrect.

Hasło niepoprawne, gdy już informacja o nim zniknęła ze stron Gazety.pl, Wirtualnej Polski i Newsweeka, przestało cieszyć się powodzeniem. Za to wersja angielska zaczęła żyć własnym życiem i to bez żadnej promocji. Książka trafiła na pierwszą stronę Feedbooks, Will Wheaton dodał ją do ulubionych i niespodziewanie szybko dorobiła się zagranicznych recenzji.

Było w tym coś, co idealnie odpowiada mojemu podejściu: jeśli masz naprawdę ciekawą propozycję, to prędzej czy później chwyci, bez żadnego wspomagania w postaci znajomości, dojść lub też zwykłego narzucania się. Pierwsza polska książka na iPhona chwyciła, Hasło niepoprawne nie. Mogę to z perspektywy czasu bez żadnego wstydu powiedzieć. Nie zależy mi na budowaniu atmosfery sukcesu, ale na uczciwym przedstawieniu sytuacji.

Oprócz kilku wyjątków, Hasło niepoprawne, podobnie jak wszystkie książki drukowne oraz nowa seria, E-opowiadania, spotkały się z mocno średnim przyjęciem. Bardzo możliwe, że oprócz swojego charakteru (opowiadania i w dodatku absurdalne) traktowane są przez swoją formę (cyfrowa), autora (nieznany) i cenę (za darmo lub po 2,99zł) za niewarte uwagi. Niejeden powiedziałby “nie poddawaj się”, ale nie o poddawanie tu chodzi, tylko o realną ocenę sytuacji, uczciwość i pokorę.

Zupełnie inaczej jest z Password Incorrect. To dzięki tej książce i wydatkowi na tłumaczenie (który dawno się już zwrócił) robię to, co robię – zajmuję się e-książkami i self-publishingiem. Co najważniejsze – nie wyobrażam sobie, żebym w swoim życiu mógł robić cokolwiek innego.

Angielska wersja, żeby było to jasne, wcale nie jest wielkim bestsellerem. Zarabiam na niej dzięki skali. Niszowa lektura w Polsce to zupełnie innym poziom popularności niż ta sama niszowa lektura dostępna po angielsku na całym świecie. Więcej pobrań i więcej opinii. Opinie są i dobre i złe, ale to dzięki nim dowiedziałem się, że piszę jak Lem lub “Vonnegut z ADHD”. Żeby było ciekawiej, kiedyś wysyłałem książki do polskich wydawnictw (bez skutku), a wydawnictwa z Anglii czy USA znajdują mnie same.

Każdy woli wracać do miejsca gdzie go chcą i potrzebują. A self-publishera z Polski widocznie potrzebują. Dzięki temu publikuję artykuły w TeleRead, Digital Book World, BookBuzzr czy FutureBook i jestem polskim partnerem Read an Ebook Week.

Najważniejsze jest jednak co innego. Internet powoduje, że w jednej chwili możesz uczestniczyć w działaniach, które cię inspirują, fascynują i powodują, że się rozwijasz. Tak jest z fenomemem self-publishingu i literaturą cyfrową. Część swojej wiedzy starałem się przekazać na blogu, czy to w postaci artykułów dla self-publisherów, czy też dzieląc się swoimi projektami literackimi, jak chociażby historie tworzone na komórce.

Z perspektywy trzech lat, wiele rzeczy nie wyszło, wiele straciłem dlatego, że nie jestem przebojowy, ale też wiele zyskałem tylko dlatego, że to co myślę trafiało na serwery Google a nie do szuflady. Świat pędzi, zapętla się w multitaskingu i ryczy wpisami na ścianie na Facebooku. Nie ma co czekać, aż ktoś przyjdze i powie “fajne”.

Jeśli masz pasję, pozwól jej zaistnieć. Ja już mam – takie samoloty w skali 1:72. Z tym że nie z papieru.

Related posts

• 22.04.2011 -- Czytelniku, czy masz zespół Downa?
• 22.03.2011 -- 19 artykułów dla self-publisherów
• 10.03.2011 -- Uwaga! Konkurs literacki, nagroda – profesjonalne wydanie książki w serwisie Wydaje.pl
• 16.02.2011 -- Self-Publishing przebojem wchodzi na rynek (oraz co zrobić, żeby był to rynek polski)
• 25.09.2010 -- Jak opublikować książkę w iBookstore

"E-książki i self-publishing: to już trzy lata" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Photo: © vectorine | Fotolia.com

Browsing for non-English books at Kindle Store is not easy. You can follow these tips to get most of it. However if you don’t find books in the categories of your interest, you can try to get them from other legal sources.

Remember, for your Kindle ereader or application, third-party books have to be:
- in prc/mobi format (also described as mobipocket or kindle),
- without DRM (unprotected).

Before you’ll buy a Kindle, check whether in your country there are any legal sources of DRM-free prc/mobi books. Some local ebook distributors may be selling books in this format, knowing that Kindle is the most popular ereader in the world – it ships to over 170 countries and is probably cheaper than ereaders officially sold by local ebookstores.

There are a couple of great services which can be a valuable source of non-English books for your Kindle.

Smashwords

The catalog contains over 60,000 books from contemporary authors. It’s one of the most popular self-publishing services in the world. Not only English-speaking authors use it to publish their books.

Description of every book includes also a language. But don’t get disappointed – if you click on a language it returns no results. Apparently, there is apparently a bug which prevents language search at Smashwords.

A good way is to type in a search box your language pronounced in English (f.e. Finnish or Portuguese). You can also browse Smashwords via Google. Go to Google web search page and paste into the search box (replacing Spanish with your language):

site:smashwords.com "Language: Spanish"

You can also go directly to Smashwords satellite sites for language-specific ebook collections:
Spanish – approx. 750 titles
French – approx. 550 titles

Feedbooks

Feedbooks is a great source of free ebooks from self-published authors (apart from public domain classics). Search by language is available for 5 languages: English, German, French, Russian, Spanish. To reveal it, find in the left panel a section called Language and click on More options (see picture below).

Direct links to supported languages:
German
French
Spanish
Russian

If your language is not supported, you can replace two last letters in the address bar – they are the language tag:

http://www.feedbooks.com/userbooks?lang=es

Tag es stand for Spanish. If you want to find, for instance, Polish books, replace es with pl. A full list of two-letter language tags is available here.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a mother of all public domain books in digital format. Books from PG can be found at Feedbooks, Manybooks or Internet Archive. The great thing about this service is that you can search by language easily and comfortably – just go to this page.

You can search for language, sort languages by popularity or alphabetically. What’s important, next to each language there is a number of books available.

Most popular languages are French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese.

Internet Archive

The site lists public domain books, but it’s also open for the contribution of free Creative Commons texts.

Currently, Internet Archive collects almost 3,000,000 titles. You can search for books in your language using advanced search. From a Custom field drop-down menu select language, then in a field next to contains type a two-letter tag of your language (see picture below).

Open Library

Open Library is a community-driven ebook resource. Over 1,000,000 titles are available. Search doesn’t give an option to select language. You have to paste into the address bar the text below:

http://openlibrary.org/search?language=spa

The site is using three-letter language codes (different from Feedbooks and Internet Archive). You can find them here.

Scribd

Scribd is a YouTube for texts. 10 million files are shared here, majority for free. Available file formats are “only” pdf and plain text (txt), but if you’re really looking for a wider choice of books, you should try browsing this site.

Language search is easy. You can first select a category you’re interested in. On a list of result look for a bar with options (see picture) and choose your language from a drop-down menu.

* * *

Note, that you can’t use third-party books in your account the same way as books bought at Kindle Store. For instance you can’t sync them between devices associated with your account.

Originally published at Ebook Friendly

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• 14.09.2011 -- Get Updates of Kindle Daily Deal via RSS or E-mail
• 26.08.2011 -- “Look Inside” for Kindle Books – 3 Tips for Authors
• 19.08.2011 -- Now “Look Inside” Feature Is Available for Kindle Ebooks!
• 18.08.2011 -- Easy Tip to Reduce Clutter While Browsing Amazon
• 25.07.2011 -- 6 Tips and Tricks to Use Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch

"6 Sites Where You Can Find Non-English Kindle Books" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

I’m delighted to present a first part of a tutorial on how to create epub ebooks, written by Paul Salvette. Formatting files for digital distribution might look difficult, but it’s good to give it a try – and Sigil seems to be the best tool available. What’s most important – Paul did a great job to explain it as simple as possible.

Today you’ll learn how to get started with Sigil. In the two next parts Paul will share tips on styling a document, adding images, metadata, table of contents, and finalizing the work. Don’t hesitate to check Paul’s exceptionally helpful book on how to format documents before you upload them to major self-publishing platforms. If you don’t want to miss next parts of the tutorial, get free updates of the blog.

Formatting an eBook can be a daunting task for the self-publisher who is not familiar with HTML. Many people try to upload a file (such as a .doc and .rtf) from their word processing program directly to the big eBook distributors only to find that the formatting is a complete mess and an embarrassment to the author. This is because eReading devices display eBooks similar to the way a web browser views a website, not how a word processor reads files.

For those interested in all the nitty-gritty details of proper eBook formatting, you can check out my guide How to Format Your eBook for Kindle, NOOK, Smashwords, and Everything Else for just $2.99 or my tutorial series for free. Understandably, many self-publishers do not have the patience or time to learn the HTML skills required to turn a manuscript in their word processor into a quality eBook. That’s where the free program Sigil comes in, which allows indie authors to craft an EPUB eBook with minimal technical knowledge.

What is EPUB?

The EPUB format is used by Barnes & Noble NOOK, the iBookstore, and numerous other eBook distributors and aggregators. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty much used by everyone except Amazon. It is an open standard format that compresses all of the images, content, and meta information into one .epub file that can be opened by a variety of eReaders and PC-based software like Adobe Digital Editions. Unfortunately, the construction of an EPUB file is complicated, difficult to validate, and uses web design standards that were phased out years ago. There is an EPUB tutorial on my website that isn’t much of fun read, and the official EPUB standard is available at the International Digital Publishing Forum, which can be a bit challenging for authors who are not technically inclined. Fortunately, Sigil helps take out a lot of the heavy lifting required to make a valid EPUB.

Getting started with a TXT file

Using Sigil allows you to avoid most of the technical stuff to get your eBook created in the EPUB format in a short amount of time. The program is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac users, and it doesn’t cost a dime. Once you download and install it, you’ll be ready to get started. Sigil can only open TXT, HTML, and EPUB files. Unless you enjoy torturing yourself, you probably did not write your novel in a text editor. One useful trick to convert your manuscript into a TXT file is to use the “Save As” feature in Microsoft Word, Open Office, or another word processor. The example below is from Microsoft Word 2007.

When asked about what type of encoding to use, make sure to select “UTF-8″. You will now have a TXT file that can be opened with programs like Notepad, Notepad++, and Sigil.

Starting up Sigil

Once you launch Sigil and open your TXT file, it will look similar to your manuscript, but all the text will be the same font, there will be no italics/bold/underlined text, and all your images will be gone. Here is an example of how it might look:

The main pane is the “What You See is What You Get” or WYSIWYG portion of Sigil, and this is how the text will actually look on an eReader. The far left pane is the Book Browser. This is the actual directory structure of your EPUB package that Sigil has generated for you. The “content.opf” file is the package that tells the eReading device exactly how the eBook is compiled and contains the metadata. The “toc.ncx” file is the meta Table of Contents. Unless you want to be advanced, it is advisable to not alter the content.opf or toc.ncx files directly. The meta Table of Contents should not be confused with a linked Table of Contents (sometimes referred to as a “traditional Table of Contents”) that you see in the content of some eBooks. Unfortunately, Sigil does not have a good way to generate internal hyperlinks required for a traditional Table of Contents.

If you click on the Split View function in the top menu, it will pull up the actual HTML of your eBook below the WYSIWYG pane.

You’ll notice that every paragraph of your eBook is wrapped in <p> and </p> tags, which is how a web browser or an eReader determines where a paragraph starts and where it ends. For individual lines of text, such as “Chapter X” headings and section breaks, they will should also be wrapped in <p> and </p> tags.

Paul Salvette is an author who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife, Lisa, and newborn daughter, Monica. He grew up in the United States and served in the Navy from 2002 to 2009, with some time in Iraq. His day job involves working at a Thai foundation that focuses on poverty eradication, philanthropy, and education. He hopes to stay in Thailand until he is deported or dies of natural causes, whichever comes first.

Learn more about Paul at http://paulsalvette.com or follow him on Twitter @PaulSalvette.

Related posts

• 04.11.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #3 – Images, Metadata, TOC, Finalization
• 21.10.2011 -- Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #2 – Styling and Chapters
• 02.12.2011 -- What’s New With EPUB 3?
• 28.05.2011 -- Polskie książki na Androida
• 23.03.2011 -- Polskie książki na iPada

"Creating Epub Ebooks with Sigil: #1 – Getting Started" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

This is the most exciting part of the series, as it opens infinity of possibilities.

Starting point: book cover doesn’t have to be rectangular any more. In this post I’ll explain why.

I’ve designed a cover for Water’s Edge by Robert Whitlow to show my point of view. The jpeg image placed into the post is square, but you don’t see the edges. This image doesn’t seem to be rectangular.

The cover of a print book is determined – and limited – by the edges of the physical object a print book is. The cover on a screen is determined by the edges of the screen. The thing is that the book cover rarely fills the screen completely. It grabs only a part of a space, it’s usually surrounded by other elements of the web page or ereading application.

When somebody makes an ebook version of a print book cover, there is not that much to invent. But if you design a cover specifically for ebook – don’t put yourself into a rectangular box, if you don’t have to.

There are three values to play with: background, visualization and transparency.

Background

Select for your ebook cover the background color of the destination web page and you’ll get rid of the rectangular border. Let me show you the example. Most of ebookstores use white background. Below there is a mock-up design of the book cover. On the left you see it placed against white background. On the right it’s visualized on a paper book.

As you see, if there are no indications of the border, you see a round image. Circle – this is the shape of your ebook. It’s different in print. What you see is a round design on a rectangular cover of the book.

Circle is just one of billions of two-dimensional shapes you could imagine – if you only borrow a background from a destination web page. It’s as easy as that.

We have to be aware of the additional elements of the ebookstores’ web pages, which can bring the feel of the border. For instance, in Kindle Store they are placed on top (Look Inside arrow) and bottom (Kindle Edition bar).

2D shape is a part of the story, as there are also visualizations.

Visualization

Visualizations are popular already. They are designed to resemble paper book, or more precisely – a physical object the print book is. Many readers are looking for tangible proofs they made a good choice by purchasing the ebook. They need a proof that ebook is a book. It’s hard to imagine a file, backed up at Amazon servers, right?

Unfortunately, most of the visualizations are not good. And sometimes you just don’t need them, especially if they contradict the idea of the cover. I wouldn’t do a print visualization of Water’s Edge. The idea is to show that there are no borders, edges and limits and that water flows freely. Print book visualization would kill this idea.

Visualizations of print books are just one of directions to follow. If we miss the tangible look of the ebook, why don’t we make visualizations on a screen of a device this ebook is designed to be read?

Next idea: playing with context. The context is the screen and its content. You can visualize an object hanging above it, you can show a damaged screen, you can play with other elements of the web page.

There are a lot of beautiful examples of print books covers playing with context. There are absolutely no barriers to do the same with ebook covers.

Transparency

Transparency is different from background, although it can be used the same way.

First a simple tip how to make a transparent file. You can save it as png, instead of jpg or gif. If in your design there is no background, usually the website’s background will fill the space.

One more step forward is using transparency in advanced, iTunes-like interfaces, sliders and carousels. Such interface, a slide animation of book covers from your library was used in Stanza application. The carousel is also one of the most prominent elements of the user interface of Kindle Fire.

It’s worth checking the possibilities transparency creates, because it can bring amazing results. Here is how our circle cover would look in Stanza’s slider (and now imagine how would it look like if the cover was a visualization of a broken dark glass):

Transparent covers in unlimited number of shapes, in view of popularity of Amazon tablets may become a totally new form of art. I wish it happened. What covers need to show is that the same old good books are now refreshed for the challenges of the digital environment.

* * *

It’s a very important issue whether the lack of classic, rectangular shape will move associations away from a book.

I think we do not need frames for everything. I don’t feel neither better nor safer when I see a rectangle, bordered cover of something which should be limitless. If the border doesn’t help the idea of openness come through, we don’t have to limit ourselves and use it.

When you leave the rectangular shape, when you stop thinking of 6″ x 9″ standard cover proportions, you’ll feel like leaving the box. Leave the box – it’s what books teach us.

* * *

There are three more posts in a series: color, animation and finally, some examples (it’s good to visualize what I write about). Stay tuned, get free updates here – and share what you think in the comments.

Images used in this post: Water – by Irochka/Fotolia, Book cover – by Mckee/Fotolia

Related posts

• 09.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions
• 22.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution
• 15.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look

"Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.