Comment by mikecane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikecane | Hacker News Reader

eBooks are my area.

1) Piracy is going to happen no matter what, so stop losing sleep over it. Count on the fact people will pay for books and concentrate on selling them.

2) Every eBook DRM has been cracked. But most who do that do so in order to be able to format shift. Get an eBook at $9.99 from Kindle Store vs $$ more from Sony or Kobo, then strip DRM and use Calibre to reformat to ePub for a Sony Reader or Nook.

3) As others have already pointed out, there's B&N's nascent PubIt! service. What that has going against it is that B&N uses a mutant form of the DRM that was common for ePub until B&N stuck its nose in. B&N books are stuck on Nooks for the average person (similar to Kindle) who doesn't want to learn how to DRM strip. You limit your market.

4) Kindle is THE monster. It's where the majority of eBook sales take place. If you know HTML, you can create your own eBook. If you need help, get Tallent's book: http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/self-publishing-read/

5) I'd stay away from Smashwords & Scribd. The first has a format meatgrinder that will drive you insane for trying to make things look good. The second has had that whole Archiving "error" marring its rep.

6) Make sure you have an ISBN so you control your metadata.

Any other questions?

6) Make sure you have an ISBN so you control your metadata.

Could you go into more detail? I understand what an ISBN is, but why is it important for self publishing ebooks?

Answering several questions in one reply:

There are no shelves people can browse to stumble on your eBook, so owning your metadata for discovery and SEO is vital. Don't let someone assign one. They then own the metadata and can bork you, intentionally or accidentally.

I think outside the US, ISBNs are free or low cost. Here, RR Bowker has a monopoly and prices them unreasonably high (to be fair to them, they are used to dealing with businesses, not writers). http://www.bowker.com/index.php/supportfaq-isbn

No one will want to read your book, so don't push it on them with emails asking them to review it. Everyone already has a huge backlog.

I don't know what your subject matter is, so what Tucker Max just wrote about might not apply, but some might: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/28/tucker-max/

Don't join social reading sites and befriend people only to pimp your book. People hate that.

There are really only two formats for eBooks: Kindle format and ePub. Both are based on HTML, more or less. PDFs are another matter and are suited best for desktop, notebook, and possibly tablet (iPad) reading, but aren't considered eBooks per se. For PDFs, it's also good to customize them for eInk devices so people don't have to do reflow. See Sony's guide here, but there are now eInk devices with 5" screens, so keep that in mind too.

Direct PDF link: http://www.sonystyle.com/wcsstore/SonyStyleStorefrontAssetSt...

Check out also Self Pub Review and Publetariat.

http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/ http://www.publetariat.com/

Stay away from all the "services" that charge. I think HN readers have the skills to do all that themselves -- and better.

This all I can think of at the moment. I'm battling a cold and am groggy. Hope it helps.

"PDFs are another matter and are suited best for desktop, notebook, and possibly tablet (iPad) reading, but aren't considered eBooks per se."

If you publish poetry, you wouldn't want the text to reflow. You want it to stay exactly where it is. Just give it a 3:4 format (1:1,35) at eg. A4 paper size or larger, have it on screen in eg. an iPad size, and you will have a book that looks spectacular - and in 5 years too. And you can even have a cover on your book...

Oh, poetry is a whole other issue with controversies of its own due to reflow. I'm not going there. Not my area.

I don't believe in DRM; I would just have liked a way to attach personal information to the person's e-book to discourage them. I neither will nor can't prevent them from spreading them, but I can try to ask them nicely and make them think twice.

I think most of my general concerns have been answered, so in the spirit of proper interview etiquette: Is there something important I haven't asked you?

Is there anything to consider with e-books that no one thinks of?

I'm a total novice but I've been meaning to publish an ebook. How do we get a ISBN? Moreover, what are good websites to market your ebook? Any other good advice on selling ebooks? Apprecaite your help in advance.

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