"The Rise of Ebooks" at Tools of Change 2009 Conference

Registration is now open for the third annual O'Reilly Tools of Change conference to be held in early February 2009 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

I'm moderating a panel discussion entitled, "The Rise of Ebooks," featuring Joe Wikert of O'Reilly Media, indie author advocate (and author) April Hamilton, David Rothman of ebook industry bible Teleread, and Russell Wilcox, co-founder of E-Ink, developer of the digital ink technology driving many next generation e-reading devices.

We'll explore a wide range of ebook industry trends and issues, including DRM, reading devices, consumer awareness of ebooks, ebook self-publishing, how Amazon’s digital publishing strategy might upset the balance of power in traditional print publishing, digital ink technologies, and more.

If you're in the publishing industry and responsible for shaping your organization's digital publishing initiatives, this is a must attend conference. If you have specific suggestions for additional topics you'd like to see us address in the session, drop me at note at first initial second initial at smashwords.com.

Ebook Authors: Liberate the Words from the Formatting

I remember when I was a kid my dad lifted the hood of his car to reveal the handle of a pair of pliers plugging some open orifice in the engine. I asked him what he was thinking, and he said, "The car works, doesn't it?"

Massaging Microsoft Word files into usable ebook formats is kind of like that. To be successful, we have abandon perfection and focus on making the dang thing work.

One of my first projects after launching the public beta of Smashwords was to write the Smashwords Style Guide, which provides authors tips on how to format their Microsoft Word manuscripts in preparation for feeding them into Meatgrinder, our ebook conversion engine.

As I work with authors to improve the quality of their conversions, one of the biggest problems I run into is that so many manuscripts contain unnecessarily complex formatting. This usually isn't the author's fault. Word, in its attempt to provide easy WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) on-screen editing, has a tendency to sneak a ton of junk into the document, often hidden from the writer.

This stealth formatting usually goes unnoticed when we print to paper, but with ebooks, the formatting often mutates into an ugly unreadable beast. You never know if the reader is consuming your book on a Kindle, a Sony Reader, an Iliad, their iPhone, their laptop, a big screen TV, or any of the myriad other e-reading devices and approaches now available. Each device interprets formatting differently. The ereading software or page display can add another unpredictable dimension to the problem.

The secret to good ebook formatting is to liberate the words from the formatting so that the formatting becomes truly invisible. Eliminate the superfluous formatting and focus on the important bare bones necessities, like indents and paragraph returns. See the Smashwords Style Guide for more.

New Smashwords Enhancements Improve Ebook Publishing and Discovery

At Smashwords, our mission is to create the single best ebook self-publishing platform for independent authors and their readers.

We’re continually developing new features that make it easier than ever to publish and discover indie ebooks.

Here’s a summary of some our recent enhancements.

Search Engine-Friendly Book Marketing

Smashwords now automatically optimizes author pages and book pages so they’re more easily discovered and indexed by search engines. Authors can monitor their presence on popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN Live by clicking on the SEO link in their Dashboard.

Book Discovery

In the last week, we implemented a tagging feature so authors can add more granular keywords to help readers discover their books. Smashwords is also doing more to help readers find additional ebooks they’ll enjoy. Book overview pages now link to other books by the same author, as well as other books purchased or viewed by each author’s readers. Similar recommendations also appear when a book is added to the shopping cart.

Dashboard Enhancements

At Smashwords, we give authors complete control over how their books are marketed, sampled and sold. We’ve made many improvements to the Dashboard page so authors can more easily track the number of times their books have been sampled or purchased, and how many users' Libraries their books are currently added to. Many of the management options are available right from a book's overview page.

We streamlined the Dashboard feature to make it less cluttered by allowing authors to archive unpublished books.

Integration with Social Networking and Social Bookmarking Sites

For authors and their readers, we’ve made it easier than ever for members to share their favorite books on social networking and bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Facebook, Reddit and StumbleUpon. And of course, members can also share book samples the old fashioned way – via email.

Profile Pages Enhanced

As a registered Smashwords member, you've always had a personal profile page where you can add a bio, upload your picture, or publish books. We’ve added several enhancements to the profile page to make it easier for authors and readers to connect with one another.

One such feature is author favoriting. When a reader “favorites” an author, a link to the reader’s profile page appears on the author’s profile page, and a link to the author's page appears on the reader's profile page.

Profile pages also now support outbound hyperlinks to a member’s blog or web site. If you blog, your blog postings can automatically appear within your profile page. For blogging authors, this is a great way to connect with new readers.

Share your feedback!

Most of the new features mentioned above came as a result of member feedback. Are there additional features you’d like to see? Simply click on the comment link at the top of any Smashwords page to share your wish list.

Buy my Stupid Ebook

The other day I was browsing the Open Directory Project and stumbled across this hilarious ebook advertisement by Biff McProfit entitled "Buy My Stupid eBook."

It's an absolutely brilliant parody of the sneaky tactics some ebook authors use to sell their books. You know those ebook ads I'm referring to - they usually promise to unlock the secret to some system that will change your life forever. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people making money off these books are the ebook authors themselves.

If anyone out there knows the real name of the writer behind this parody site, leave a note here so I can give them the credit they deserve.

HARO - Great Publicity Tool for Independent Authors

The greatest challenge facing most authors, whether they're traditionally published by one of the big New York houses or self-published on Smashwords, is how to market their books. Most authors are credible experts on something, yet that something is rarely marketing and public relations. But without marketing, most books will die on the vine because prospective readers will never know they exist.

Now comes a great marketing tool for authors called HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter. HARO is a free service operated by PR pro Peter Shankman that sends subscribers dozens of queries a day from reporters at newspapers, magazines, blogs and broadcast television who are seeking subject matter experts they can interview for their stories. Each query describes what the reporter is looking for and provides contact information (usually an email address) where you can direct your pitch. This morning's email included 22 queries, including some from The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and Fox Television.

The rules for using HARO are quite simple: No off-topic pitches, otherwise Shankman will boot you from the list.

All authors, especially non-fiction authors, would be simply FOOLISH to not subscribe to this free service.

Subscribe at http://www.helpareporter.com.

IDPF: eBook Sales Surge in Q2 2008

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) today published its latest trade ebook sales figures for the quarter ending June 2008. Wholesale trade ebook revenues for the month of June surged 43% to $11.6 million compared to $8.1 million in the same period a year ago, while sales for the first six months of 2008 grew 43% compared to the same period a year ago.

Trade eBook sales were $4,900,000 for June 2008 alone, an 87.4% increase over June 2007.

Bottom line, folks, ebook sales are accelerating in the marketplace, yet they still represent a small piece of the overall book publishing industry pie.

Some notes about the data above: 1. The data is US-only. 2. The data reflects wholesale sales as reported by 12-15 leading publishers, so actual sales figures to customers were probably approximately twice those reported here.

For self-published indie authors, the data above sends a clear message that if your book isn't available in ebook form, you could be missing out on an important sales channel. If you haven't yet published your book on Smashwords, go ahead and do it. It takes 5 minutes or less and you control all aspects of marketing, pricing and sampling.

The Buzz about Flat World Knowledge: Free Open Source Textbooks

Wired News had a story yesterday about Flat World Knowledge, a new startup that promises to turn the traditional model of textbook publishing upside down on its head by offering free, expert-written open source textbooks. This follows recent Flat World coverage in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, US News & World Report, Time Magazine, and USA Today.

The company earns revenue through the sale of POD versions of the texts, as well as digital study aids.

Before I go on about Flat World, I should first disclose that my views about Flat World are not impartial. I'm on their advisory board and I'm an investor. The PR agency I own, Dovetail Public Relations, does PR for Flat World. So enough said about that.

Ask anyone who has been to college recently, or has paid for their kid to go to college and they'll tell you textbook prices are insane. Textbook prices have been spiraling out of control, growing faster than inflation and burdening most college students with annual costs approaching $1,000 per school year. The textbook pricing problem has reached a crisis, because it threatens to make higher education unaffordable to many students.

Some politicians have called for greater regulation of text book prices. This is tough though, because publishers' own production and marketing costs are increasing, and it's not fair to regulate an industry to zero profits.

A better solution is to recognize that the textbook publishing model as we know it is broken, and no longer serves the needs of students, educators, authors or publishers. A new approach is needed that leverages the economic efficiencies of digital production and consumption (Those of you who are fans of Smashwords know we're trying to leverage the same economic efficiencies to democratize trade book publishing, thus you'll understand why I'm so excited about Flat World's potential to change the world).

Under the Flat World model, students get free and low-cost textbooks and study aids; teachers have greater control over their curriculum by mixing and mashing the texts to suit their unique class requirements; authors get paid through the sale of POD copies and study aids; and the publisher is allowed to earn a fair profit.

Flat World Knowledge has 17 textbooks under contract and in development by top scholars and authors, and recently began limited in-class trials in a nationwide beta test at 20 colleges across the United States.

Learn more about Flat World Knowledge by visiting their site at http://www.flatworldknowledge.com.

A Recent History of Writing & Drawing

Whenever I travel, I enjoy exploring down random streets, much in the same way I walk a library or book store.

Yesterday, as my wife and inlaws toured Buckingham Palace here in London, I wandered down The Mall, a main thoroughfare that leads toward Trafalgar Square and The Strand (famous for its many used bookstores).

Along the way I stumbled across an exhibit at the Institute of Contempory Arts entitled, "A Recent History of Writing & Drawing." How could I resist? I paid my two Pounds ($4.00) and entered a small single room filled with various odd writing contraptions.

The exhibition, produced by programmer-artists Jurg Lehni and Alex Rich, utilizes complex technology and mechanics to produce unexpectedly simple forms of writing and art.

One interactive exhibit that caught my eye was a computer terminal that allows you to type in a limited number of letters and words, and then when you pressed print it printed your creation on a large format printer, but instead of ink on paper the words were formed by a predetermined number of hole punches.

My masterpiece is shown at left (hanging chads and all), kindly displayed by my unwitting co-collaborator, the friendly docent manning the room.

Another interesting exhibit consisted of a large chalkboard, with small motorized pullies mounted in each of its four corners. Through the pullies ran cabling, which met in the the middle of the chalkboard attached to a contraption with a large piece of chalk. The purpose here was for the four independent pullies to work in unison to move the chalk in such a way that it drew a picture. The system's output is shown at below.

What's the purpose of all this?

According to the handout, "The themes of the installation are the untapped potential of everyday technologies, their capacity to execute functions not foreseen by their designers, and the unintended poetic qualities of certain means of communication. "

Like most modern art, I suppose it also intends to touch you in some way, or maybe make you think about something in a completely new light.

The exhibit runs through the 31st of August. Click here for more information.

I'm in London for a few more days, so if any Smashwords members out there want to meet for cool drink in the Covent Garden area, drop me a line at first initial second initial at you know where dot com.

A Visit to Montserrat, One of World's Oldest Publishers

I'm in Europe for the next five weeks (thus my posting here will be sparse), and today I visited Montserrat, the breathtakingly beautiful monastery perched high atop a mountain range in the Catalonia region of Spain.

I learned today Montserrat was the world's first monastery to acquire a printing press. Wikipedia puts the actual date of that acquisition around 1499.

Keep in mind, this was a revolutionary move at the time. Many monks resisted the printing press for fear it would put them out of work.

Back in the pre-Gutenberg press days, the work of bookmaking was performed primarily by monks, who would transcribe, illustrate and reproduce texts by hand, letter by intricate letter. As one might imagine, the printing press had an enormous impact on the monastery's output. Within a short period of time, Montserrat had published thousands of books. Nevermind that when Napolean came through he set them all on fire. I assume thanks to the printing press, enough redudant copies were archived elsewhere to preserve many of them.

In modern times, many people credit pornography with fostering the development of the VCR, DVDs and the Internet. What many of us forget is that we owe a great debt of gratitude to religious publishing of the 15th and 16th centuries for pioneering the development of books as a force for literacy and as an enduring form of education, enlightenment, propaganda and entertainment.

I wonder what societal phenomena will be the driving force behind ebooks?

IDPF Reports April ebook Sales for April up 19.9%

The IDPF, in conjunction with the AAP, has announced trade ebook sales for the month of April were $3.4 million, up 19.9% over the same month a year ago.

As always, they note, "Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts." The data is collected from 12-15 publishers and covers the US market only.

While ebook sales remain paltry compared to the overall book market, we continue to view such growth as further validation that ebooks are are on the rise and will continue to account for an ever-increasing percentage of the book market.

I believe the sales figures *do not* include sales of Amazon Kindle titles. Can anyone confirm this?

The Brave New World of Amazon.com

Much has been written over the last couple months about the controversy surrounding Amazon's decision to remove its "Buy now" button from POD book listings that don't print from its own BookSurge subsidiary. Long story made short, if you're a POD author, your books can receive preferential treatment if you use Amazon's POD printing subsidiary as opposed to using a competitor such as Lightning Source or any of the dozens of alternatives. POD printer BookLocker even filed suit in May to block prevent Amazon from, we suspect, wielding unfair and anti-competitive powers against its POD printing competitors.

The New York Times in Monday's issue provides an update to the ongoing saga, this time with news about how Amazon is cracking down on publishers in the U.K.

Our take: Amazon is the biggest single threat facing book publishers and book stores today. First, they're going to try to own the indie author POD and digital publishing segment of book publishing, and next I suspect they'll try to recruit mainstream published authors to bypass traditional publishers for future works and do their original publishing through Amazon. With Amazon's Digital Text Platform service, it's already as easy for an indie author to publish on the Amazon Kindle as it is to publish on Smashwords.

Some in the industry have suggested that Amazon should acquire Borders. I don't see that happening. Instead, I think it's only a matter of time before Amazon starts acquiring ailing mainstream print publishers and their catalogs. Amazon would acquire authors and backlists and could then disintermediate multiple members of the book industry supply chain in one fell swoop. To authors, this might at first appear a favorable outcome, considering the current system is broken from the perspective of most authors, and Amazon pays better royalties than its traditional print cousins. However, longer term, reduced choice and monolithic near-monopolistic industry control are seldom good for anyone but the monopoly.

Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader to Sell 1 Million Units Combined in 2008?

Evan Schnittman over at the Oxford University Press blog has an interesting post from earlier today that estimates Amazon and Sony are on track to sell a combined one million ebook readers in 2008. If correct, or if even half-correct, Schnittman's calculations offer clear evidence that the ebook market has entered a hyperbolic growth phase.

Schnittman's estimates are based on quotes from executives from Prime View International, the Taiwanese manufacturer behind the 9 inch displays used by Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader.

What does the news mean for indie authors? Simply put, if you're not working today to build your digital publishing presence, you could be missing out on an important future sales channel for your works.

(Hat tip to Tim O'Reilly who wrote about this for O'Reilly Radar here)