Going Mobile
A reader contacted me today and asked about converting The Magic of Eyri to a better eBook format than the one offered on Lulu.com.
Lulu only offers book downloads as a .PDF. Now, when I was doing all of this publishing stuff, eBooks/downloadable versions were only an afterthought since I have never used them myself. Apparently they are becoming rather popular.
He told me that the problem with the PDF is that it doesn't show up that well on his eReader. He said a Rich Text Format file is the best way to go. I really have no idea as to how to go about to change this since I think Lulu only offers PDFs. I did look at Amazon's Kindle program today and am considering going that route. I just submitted The Magic of Eyri to Amazon's Search Inside program too. He said he has been discussing my book with people in eBook forums and that people are liking it - they just don't like the PDF format.
I want to do what I can to make my book more available for readers, so I'll look at this Kindle thing a bit more when I'm home (they wanted some info I wasn't happy giving out over a public wireless network). The other option is converting to something else myself - but then I'd have to have a way to sell it and offer it for download. The other advantage of the eBook is that it'll be way cheaper - it is less than $4 to download from Lulu - which I heard is actually pretty low. Again, this was an afterthought. The funny thing is I make more in royalties from someone downloading it on Lulu than someone buying the real book on Amazon.
But that' s the beauty of e-publishing: there are no material costs. This keeps the cost down and the profits high. I'm more concerned with keeping costs down than having higher profits.
This is something I defiantly want to get in on as we move further and further away from print. But what I don't know is that if I put Eyri up for sale on Amazon's Kindle if people without a Kindle can read it.
Maybe someone at ConFusion this weekend will have some insight on all of this.
Lulu only offers book downloads as a .PDF. Now, when I was doing all of this publishing stuff, eBooks/downloadable versions were only an afterthought since I have never used them myself. Apparently they are becoming rather popular.
He told me that the problem with the PDF is that it doesn't show up that well on his eReader. He said a Rich Text Format file is the best way to go. I really have no idea as to how to go about to change this since I think Lulu only offers PDFs. I did look at Amazon's Kindle program today and am considering going that route. I just submitted The Magic of Eyri to Amazon's Search Inside program too. He said he has been discussing my book with people in eBook forums and that people are liking it - they just don't like the PDF format.
I want to do what I can to make my book more available for readers, so I'll look at this Kindle thing a bit more when I'm home (they wanted some info I wasn't happy giving out over a public wireless network). The other option is converting to something else myself - but then I'd have to have a way to sell it and offer it for download. The other advantage of the eBook is that it'll be way cheaper - it is less than $4 to download from Lulu - which I heard is actually pretty low. Again, this was an afterthought. The funny thing is I make more in royalties from someone downloading it on Lulu than someone buying the real book on Amazon.
But that' s the beauty of e-publishing: there are no material costs. This keeps the cost down and the profits high. I'm more concerned with keeping costs down than having higher profits.
This is something I defiantly want to get in on as we move further and further away from print. But what I don't know is that if I put Eyri up for sale on Amazon's Kindle if people without a Kindle can read it.
Maybe someone at ConFusion this weekend will have some insight on all of this.
