Why does Adobe Digital Editions matter? Does anyone actually use it?
Thanks Fishbreath! Is there any way to test how my ePubs will look on those apps, if I donāt have an android device? I love the little Kindle previewer thing that Amazon distributes for MOBI files because I can just run it on Windows.
I am using Flare to create the ePubs and for the most part it does a good job, but I get the sense that ePub production is feature they tacked on, but itās doesnāt seem to be as high priority as, say, HTML5 output. I have to do a lot of testing and seeing opening up of books on different devices to see how it will render. When will someone create a fabulous tool!
Thatās a good question. Nook might have a desktop application you can try, or an iOS version.
Thatās exactly what I thought! Smashwords recommends looking at your ePub in ADE. I was just going to ignore the suggestion, but the more I look into it, the less it looks like there is a popular Windows ePub reader. So now Iām wondering if some people on Windows arenāt using ADE. Yikes!
I have used NOOK and Calibre on Windows.
ADE crashed my computer two or three times, just looking at an ePub files. I think itās because I leave my covers unsized in full high res glory. Every other reader can scale the cover down, so you can see the full image in whatever size monitor/resolution you have. In ADE I have to scroll and scroll to get past the cover. Or sometimes it just totally dies. Itās sad.
Readium is a Chrome plugin that Iāve heard good things about.
What kind of market share is left over after you subtract Kindle, Nook, and Kobo? For that matter, doesnāt Kindle have like 85% share just by itself?
Good point. Does Kobo have its own reader? I thought Kobo was a marketplace.
I guess the point is wanting to have a bulletproof ePub thatās not going to be an embarrassment. But, yeah, if it looks good on Apple and the MOBI looks good, then 80 or the market is covered. Nevertheless, people still occasionally write to ask for PDF.
Yeah Kobo sells readers too. They sometimes have actual units on display at independent book dealers. I doubt they have much share, but Iāve at least heard of people using them.
This blog was shared in the P&R forum, but this particular post is very good and lacking in politics.
It is very much a āIf You Want to Writeā kind of pep talk. Just thought Iād share it with you. The good part is the last big paragraph down at the bottom of the post.
Quick heads-up/plug: today is official release day for my novella (which means previews are now up at your retailer of choice). Iām doing a choose your own adventure story through the day as part of the release day festivities, if that interests you.
Thanks for the reminder. Something to read for the weekend. Good luck.
(Well, a little bit of your weekend, anyway. :P) Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.
Congrats! Its funny, I woke up and saw an email from Amazon that the book had arrived! Iād forgotten Iād pre-ordered. Looking forward to reading it and more, Jay.
Meanwhile my book, which debuted three weeks ago, is going nowhere. After about $150 in Facebook ads using my trailer, I sold 9 eBooks, 7 print editions, and one person read through KU. Nothing sold since June 3. Most of these sales can probably be attributed to family and friends, although I see someone in Canada did buy a copy.
I know this will sell more once I have other books to sell. Jay, I want to emulate you by writing novellas, to crank out product! So Iām taking a break from running ads. Need to get back to writing.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it too.
Meanwhile my book, which debuted three weeks ago, is going nowhere. After about $150 in Facebook ads using my trailer, I sold 9 eBooks, 7 print editions, and one person read through KU. Nothing sold since June 3. Most of these sales can probably be attributed to family and friends, although I see someone in Canada did buy a copy.
Iāve been meaning to get a copy, but Iāve been a little busy this last week or two. <.< Iāll have some downtime next week, as opposed to this week, which has been all prewriting choose your own adventure stuff, and I have an airplane trip coming in two weeks, so sometime before then Iāll buy, read, and review. Promise!
I know this will sell more once I have other books to sell. Jay, I want to emulate you by writing novellas, to crank out product! So Iām taking a break from running ads. Need to get back to writing.
Amusingly, I have a few ideas for novels in mind, and I may push hard on one of those for my next major writing project. Novellas are cool, but I end up working in that length mostly because I write slowly, and my patience for a given project is based on months more than words. :P
And now, I must awayāI have 1,500 or 2,000 words to finish for the next choose-your-own-adventure decision point, and thatās by 2:30. (Again, this may not have been my best plan ever. <.<)
I wrote up my thoughts about my little release day bash and the end results. I moved about 25 in the week+ since release day, 20 through Amazon. Sales followed the traditional peak-to-long-tail graph, except the long tail is zero per day. :P Some good feedback from friends and family, one solid Amazon review. All told, Iām happy with it, although Iāll be doing some things differently next time.
Next on my to-do list is a Createspace editionāat first, I thought that a hard copy of a novella was kind of a silly idea, but since itās so short, itās cheap. I can do a $5.50 price point and still make some money on it. (Plus itās good practice with desktop-publishing tool Scribus.)
Following that, itās preparation for the next release, in the January-February timeframe, most likely.
Looks like I sold a story to a pro-scale literary magazine. Should really not name it until I get a contract. Still, very pleased :)
Fishbreath and Tylertoo, you both probably know more about this than I do now, but as I understand it you really have to slog to build up momentum in self-pub, having to publish a whole bunch of books while at the same time doing a lot of independent marketing to get attention. From what Iāve heard eventually it builds up and the sales start accumulating, but early on it can be tough and discouraging.
Which is really why for now Iām sticking with attempts to get an agent and sell to a traditional publisher. Not that itās easier, but in a way itās less work apart from writing. Basically Iām too lazy to self-publishā¦
First, congrats on the sale. Let us know when it appears.
To me the downside to trad publishing is the waiting. Waiting for agents to reply, or from publishers. Iām old. I donāt feel like waiting.
In other words, I donāt mind āNo.ā I do mind no response.
With self-publishing, I am just going to put it out there myself. No waiting, except for myself. And yes, you need a few books apparently to get any real traction. But even that is no guarantee. The business side of self-publishing is very difficult and time-consuming. No walk in the woods, even with multiple titles.
But at least, very little waiting.
Congratulations for sure, Miramon. Weāre looking forward to seeing it.
Iām with tylertoo on upsides/downsidesāI like the idea of having my things out there with my pace being the only source of delay. The business side is hard, and standing out from the crowd is doubly so, but Iām willing to make those tradeoffs.
In the longer term, Iād really like to turn Many Words Press from the vainest of vanity imprints into an actual small, low-overhead publisher for independents, doing some marketing and all the technical work of turning a manuscript into a book for a smaller cut than traditional publishers, but I donāt have the business plan or the customer base to really work that idea yet.
Ah, just got permission from the editor to announce the sale. My dream-story Dragonfly Tea will be coming out soon in the New Haven Review.