Why eBooks Matter: Opening Up New Opportunities For Authors and Groups

eBooks are a big focus and there are a ton of positives going on.  eBooks not only provide great advantages for individual readers and authors, they are opening up a variety of new avenues for new business models and new revenue opportunities for groups like non-profit organizations.  Let's take a look at some of the differences in print publishing and ebook publishing and how you can capitalize on the ebook opportunity.

Distribution Made Easy


In the print publishing world there is often several "hands" involved.  The publisher, the distributor, and the bookseller all have a role and each get a percentage of the sale.  Since costs of warehousing, shipping, and returnability agreements can be significant; getting a book on shelves in a store can be difficult for new or one-time authors/groups. This process can be lengthy as well sometimes taking months.

In the ebook world, costs are minimal.  Therefore companies selling ebooks can provide services which allow you to upload your ebook and make it available for readers to download.  The time from upload to being available for purchase is reduced to hours.  The quoted average turn around times is about 72 hours which can be less.  When I recently uploaded my ebook, "The Connected Church: A Tech Guide For Church Leaders and Parishioners", to Barnes and Noble's Pubit the ebook was available within 24 hours.  It was less than 48 hours with Amazon's Kindle Direct.

Reaching More Readers In One Shot

As most authors will tell you, there is always the tough job of bustling around to get their book on shelves within stores and trying to get books sold.  This is often contained to local booksellers.  In the ebook world, readers have access to the book where ever they are.  Once the ebook is uploaded readers using ereaders or ereader apps can easily find and download your ebook to their device of choice (i.e. PC/Mac, iPad/Tablet, iPhone, Android phone, Blackberry, etc.).  Rather than spending large amounts of time getting the book on shelves, you can focus more time on telling people your ebook is available.

With ereaders and ereader apps on mobiles devices, readers are carrying entire book distribution systems and book stores right in their hand.  Readers can easily find books, make a decision to buy, and download direct to the device.  Within minutes they are reading the book.

Self Publishing Without the Costs


Even with more self-publishing print options available today such as print-on-demand through companies like iUniverse or Xlibris, there are still upfront costs and no guarantees that the book will actually hit the shelves in stores.  Due to distribution costs there are often low percentage payouts which requires a large number of sales just to break even.

In the ebook world there is no upfront costs.  Pubit!, Kindle Direct, Smashwords, etc. are free services.  In addition the author sets the price and can provide the book at the price they feel is appropriate.  Payouts percentages within this model average 65% to 70% to the author/publisher which are unheard of rates in the publishing and bookselling worlds.  Let's look at an example as a possibility and do the math:

$2.99 ebook x 65% = $1.94 per sale.  1,000 ebooks sold x $1.94 = $1,940

Opening Up New Opportunities


This is where it takes a little thinking "out of box" to see some amazing new opportunities for not only individuals, but also groups.  Let's take the most common example, the group cookbook.  Churches and other groups such as Flagler County's Friends of the Library have produced cookbooks in print.   They could take that same book and publish it as an ebook offering great new opportunities to reach more buyers without cost and higher payout possibilities.  This same concept can be applied to Churches creating a collection of faith stories from members of their community.  Schools and educators could use this new avenue as an educational and fundraising opportunity by creating a book as a class/school project.  Students can write and publish their own books as a project for class.  The possibilities are real and seemingless endless right now.

Book publishing then . . .



Book publishing now . . .

Barnes and Noble 's Pubit

Barnes & Noble Changes The eReader/eBook Game Again With Nookcolor!

Yesterday Barnes & Noble announced it's latest eReader option with Nookcolor.  This new device is a full 7" color touch screen focused on reading ebooks, newspapers, and magazines.  Since it is a color touch screen, it adds in the ability for full web browsing capabilities.  This new option now fills the gap for those who want easy access to a vast selection of ebooks, a good reading experience, and more functionality at an affordable price ($249.00). It's available for pre-order and plans to ship on 11/19/10.


The device is WiFi only and comes loaded with 8GB of memory that can be expanded to 32GB.  That kind of storage can hold thousands of ebooks plus photos and music.  The WiFi only was a great decision to keep the cost down and since so many wifi locations are available these days, 3G isn't always necessary. The only downfall is battery life decreases to 8 hours and is not accessible like in Nook 3G and Nook Wifi.  Then again, the battery is also not accessible in the Kindle or iPad.

So why is this a game changer in the world of eBooks?  First of all, you have to look at the availability of ebooks themselves for a device.  Barnes and Noble provides the largest and most powerful ebook store in the industry.  By using a standard format for the ebooks (epub) and a strong relationship with publishers, they are able to offer a huge selection (over 2 million and counting) plus other sources such as Google Books (which is fed right into the B&N ebook store).  All of which can be delivered to the device without the need to hook up to a computer using the wifi signal (or the 3G signal in the Nook 3G).

Second, the Nookcolor option fills the gap for readers that has existed between eink displays and emerging tablets while still keeping the price affordable.  Currently, consumers wanting the ability to read ebooks and also want multi-function ability are looking at devices like the iPad which starts at $499.  Nookcolor provides similar functionality at a much lower price.

Third, the tablet format of Nookcolor also provides new options for certain books that do not work well in the eink display such as children's picture books and newsstand magazines and newspapers.  Barnes and Noble is unleashing Nookbooks (B&N's new name for ebooks) for kids which will offer thousands of interactive children's titles.  They are also releasing Nooknewsstand which will provide readers with digital versions of newspapers and magazines in full color with a rich reading experience.

If no one has noticed (which it seems many haven't); Amazon has been playing follow-the-leader with B&N over the past year with price drops, a new wifi version of the Kindle, and now a lending feature.  Amazon's biggest barrier is its insistence on using their own unique file format for ebooks (Kindle Books) and the blocking of the epub format which keeps their selection at a fraction of what B&N offers.  So the release of Nookcolor will definitely be interesting to see what Amazon does.  Likewise, B&N also announced that Nooks will now be the exclusive ereader devices sold in Books-a-Million's 229 stores as well as Best Buy and Wal-Mart.