Multimedia made huge inroads into the
normally closed and conservative publishing industry in resent
years. Very soon the number of electronic books that get published
will exceed the conventional printed books and keep on accelerating
away from it. In fact if we include the electronic genres of “flash
fiction” and other short articles and stories that are published
over a wide range of “blogs” and other media, it already exceeds
the conventional printed media.
The advantages of ePublishing are
numerous and stretch over a wide spectrum from cost to delivery and
in most cases it adds up to a win-win situation for both authors and
readers. If we look at who the losers are in this new environment, it
is mainly the old conventional publishers and the brick and mortar book stores. Some people argue that quality can be affected because
many authors publish their own work and it doesn't get proofread
properly. We welcome the luxury of choice and leave the decision to
publish or to read any content to the actual people involved. How
arrogant of a publisher to decide how an author should write his work
or who do I think I am to decide what the readers should read.
In all fairness even I have to admit
that there are a few disadvantages to only having electronic books
and no printed material. It doesn't feel or smell like a real book
and you probably won't be able to swat an intruding insect with it.
If you are struggling to get the fire going or there is a pressing
bodily emergency, the blank pages can't be used to stroke the fire
or any other personal needs. Provided you have some fire lighters
and do a bit of planning, you might never need a conventional printed
book again.
Just being able to pack a library with
thousands of your favourite books in your carry-on luggage is a huge
advantage. With a bit of planning you can have hundreds of books in
each of your favourite categories to choose from. At last the luxury
of a whole mobile library for the "financially challenged".
Whatever your mood, you are sure to have a book to tickle your fancy.
If you are close enough to civilisation to have some internet access,
you can search for even more titles or authors to choose from. Just
over a hundred years ago our great-grandparents in South Africa, had only three books
to choose from: The Bible, Psalm-book and a school-book called "Trap
der Jeugt", all written in Dutch because our language (Afrikaans)
was still in its infancy.
Read more about Jaco's love affair with
electronic books at: “ Why
I love eBooks”.
Now that you are (like us) sold on the
concept of eBooks, how about publishing your own book. It is really
very cheap, quick and easy to do. If you still have some questions
about it, take a look at our list of FAQ's (frequently asked
questions) on the next page. For those of you that have a manuscript
thrown back in a drawer because someone (even yourself) told you it
is not good enough to publish, I have good news. You don't have to
give up on that little book of stories or poems that you wanted to
pass on to your grand-children. We realise that
technology could be intimidating for some of us but that is why we
can help you overcome that tiny hurdle.
With electronic publishing things are
just sooo much easier. In less than a week we can have your book,
manual, poems even memoirs, registered with a worldwide ISBN number
and available on Amazon.com for anybody around the world to read or
buy. You set the price in US Dollars and across the globe people can
look at the cover, read the summary, download a sample and if they
like what they see a few minutes later they could be reading your
book on their Kindle or E-book reader. How cool is that? Even young
Johnny working on a oil-rig in the North Sea can use his satellite
link to download the book and have something to read during his next
break. Is that going to cost you an arm and a leg?
No it can cost you as little as R500 if you supply the final
manuscript and title page in the correct formats to us. Your kids or
friends could probably do all of that for you and it saves us from
spending valuable time on doing stuff like proof-reading or designing
a title page (front cover) for you. Don't worry we will supply you
with the full list of requirements, sizes and formats that will make
your book a winner in the electronic medium. Yes we will check if the
kids did a good enough job an let you know if we want some changes
done or not.
Remember people can only read your book if they know about it and
have a link to take them directly to it. Take a look at examples on
our other pages by clicking on the picture of a book, see how the link takes you directly to where the book is sold. Don't be
fooled, people that just publish to the web with no marketing is
often disappointed. Remember you are competing with millions of books
out there, including e-books that nobody even knows about. Take a look at Penny's list of 50 ways to market your book on a
shoe-string budget. If you still need help, read the answer under
marketing in our FAQ's on the next page and avoid disappointment.
Family, friends and word of mouth can be a very powerful marketing
tool, ask them to spread the word or put your link up on their social
media pages like Google+ or Facebook.
Please feel free to email us for more information or your
questions, at:
