Going along with the previous post on the kinds of stories you can expect to see on Indie Aisle, this time I’ll talk about how the tool will allow you to publish your story. While mainly focused on digital stories, Indie Aisle is designed to ultimately let you decide the form you want your story to be in:
eBook – Upload your file and it is converted to a number of standard formats, set your own price for purchase through the website and earn 85% of all digital sales
Physical Book – Use various service providers for print versions of your story
Work in Progress – Post information on a story before you release it with options for fans to follow your updates on when it becomes available
Series – Ability to add multiple eBooks or physical books under the same story
Additionally, stories will also be categorized based on content format:
Primarily Text – Basic text formatting with or without accompanying illustrations
Styled Layout – Mainly text but with specific formatting and illustrations
Illustration-based – Full-page artwork with text being layed out around it
Comics – Artwork with specific areas for text
With each format there will be tips for how to lay out your story for outputting it as an eBook. It will also allow Indie Aisle to figure out how your story can be distributed and promoted in other venues outside the site. I will talk more about how that will be done in a future post!
As we all know being a successful writer means more than just writing. People have to also be made aware of your work. There are many factors typically involved in publishing a successful book, including:
Writing Process – Write and revise, work with an editor for polish and get feedback from people you know
Illustration – Work with a graphic designer for a good cover and/or a more stylized layout, and/or an illustrator for accompanying visuals
Publishing – Work with someone to meet certain technical preparations required for printing and digital output
Sales and Distribution – Work with brick and mortar book shops for print, and online marketplaces for eBooks
Promotion – Work with someone knowledgeable of marketing, get reviewed by professional critics and get interviewed in various publications
Besides the writing part, it’s everything else that can make going with a traditional publisher still a viable choice. However, technology and the internet have given us tools that change the entire process. It’s paved the way for the independent self-published writer. But going the indie route isn’t necessarily about doing it all yourself. Even though you could, collaborating with other people can give you an edge to compete with books still published by big companies. In fact there are services available that offer different approaches to doing this.
But beyond all the tools, the one greatest asset, the internet, allows you to choose how you want to do things every step of the way. As companies try to reinvent the publishing model, ultimately it’ll be the writers that will be in control of the process. Because that’s the best part of being indie, doing things your own way!
While the topic of eBook formats seems complicated and usually leads to getting into confusing tech jargon, I’m going to try and make it as easy to understand as possible. Let’s start by looking at the most widely-used electronic formats and how they are currently supported:
Adobe PDF – Most common for reading on your computer, originally designed for portable electronic documents, has some limitations when it comes to reading on eReaders or mobile devices
MobiPocket – Originally designed specifically for mobile devices, most modern devices have switched away from it, the biggest current supporter is the Amazon Kindle device
RTF (Rich Text Format) and TXT (Plain Text) – Have wide support but very limited formatting options
ePub – Works virtually all eReading devices, except Amazon’s Kindle
The ePub format is the one to keep an eye on since it could well be the universal format used across all platforms. The reason it works so well is because it is essentially developed the same way as the webpage you’re reading right now. And since most mobile devices and even eReaders come with internet browsers, it makes it a no-brainer to support it.
Another big advantage is that ePub allows for multiple types of books. From primarily text-based to more stylized layouts, to even comic books. You can start with practically any word processing software, or with something like Adobe InDesign for more specific styling and layout, or Photoshop for your comics and either export it out directly to ePub or use one of the many tools available for doing so.
One caveat with ePub is that it does not use any DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. But if we’ve learned anything from the music industry and MP3s, no DRM is a good thing as it’s ultimately unnecessary.
Update: Thanks to Liza Daly who pointed out that there is in fact ability to add DRM to ePub files. I still feel that it is unnecessary, but the option is there.
People are reading comics now more than ever and as people get used to reading eBooks on different devices, comic books will certainly become a part of their reading. Comics have actually already gone digital even before eBooks gained ground through online comic strips. I’ve been reading them for years and the idea of a device like the iPad brings new potential to how comics can be enjoyed. It also means that there is now a new platform for indie comic creators to expand their audience.
A great article I came across recently at Digital Book World talks about how the iPad and eBooks medium can be used for comics even when having to compete with a big publisher like Marvel or DC. I’ve highlighted a few good points that the author makes about how comics will be read digitally:
“A lot of people read comics digitally, but not enough on any single device to make digital distribution viable unless you’re able to make your content available on multiple platforms.”
“Breaking barriers and reinventing comics as a primarily digital art form is the only way to get beyond Marvel and DC’s stranglehold on the market.”
“Instead of multiple pages of panels read left-to-right, a comic can be a single page PDF one panel wide and hundreds of panels long scrolled down on your phone. It can be a slide show watched on a TV screen. Stories can be told from three different character points of view that you can toggle back and forth from. None of this is easily or cost-effectively possible with novels or video. Only comics seem to have this level of flexibility.”
“Text can be converted to tagged XML metadata files, which in turn can then easily be converted to any number of eBook formats, from Mobi to ePub. Metadata can be tagged to maximize web search capabilities; digital files for typical books can built in such a way as to facilitate easy and efficient ‘chunking’ and repurposing.”
Be sure to read the two-part article titled “Digital Comics: Level the Playing Field” for more: Part I | Part II
Of course these past couple of weeks people have been talking about the iPad. If you haven’t seen it for yourself I’m sure you’ve read or heard your share of reviews. In relation to the publishing world, a good thorough review was done over at BookSquare.
The overall response seems to be very positive. Most reviewers have basically pointed out that a device that allows you to read what we’ve been reading on computer screens for years in a more comfortable way is something people want. It’s true that to a certain extent the Kindle did this first, but it seems easier to make that transition to something else with a screen the way a lot of people have been doing with their mobile devices. Plus the iPad has the cool factor people are looking for in technology now.
All this talk around the iPad seems to have changed people’s perspective on reading as they now have a way of reading digitally as another form of leisure. Apple has indeed created a new line of technology products. Your computer is now for Email and maybe researching something, your phone is for communicating (Email, Twitter, etc), and your iPad or tablet device, is for reading news, articles and books. And more people grasping this concept is what will expand the audience for ebooks. Because now there is a device designed specifically for reading them.
I attended this year’s South by Southwest Interactive and was surprised to find quite a few panels about publishing content online from people who have done it successfully. To me this shows that one, there are more and more people that are figuring out how to be successful and make a living from publishing and promoting themselves and two, the online market for publishing is gaining ground and getting more attention from traditional publishers.
Below are my notes from three panels that offered some good insights on publishing and promoting independently.
Publishing online
A new approach to publishing should combine collaborative social media tools
The web is about talking to people and giving them what they’re looking for, it should be a discussion with readers
Independent content creation
There’s a low barrior to entry for expressing yourself through blogs or writing a book or even making music or videogames
It’s still expensive to market content, even though there are sometimes exceptions to the rule with the viral aspect of certain content
Content now requires thinking about building a community around it
Make great content, gather a community, curate great content for community, repeat
Promoting yourself
Fans help spread your work, live events help them gather and talk about it
Go where your audience is by partnering with related organizations, guest blog/write to similar audiences
Make sure to get links to your website on related websites
Ask for reviews
Make it easy to share content
Start promoting early, even during development of project
In a recent New York Times article, the author tries to make sense of the math for the cost of a traditional book versus an ebook after the recent $13-15 price tag set for ebooks. Based on their numbers, I’ve attempted to compare how the old retail model compares to the new ebook model in a couple of simplified graphs:
Retail Bookseller
Average cost: $26 (Hardcover)
Digital Bookseller
Average cost: $13
Author Publisher Bookseller Printer
In the Retail model, on a $26 hardcover book an author would get $3.90 (15%), the publisher would get $6.80 (30%), the bookseller would get $13 (50%) and the printing and shipping would cost around $1.30 (5%). In the Digital model, the retail bookstore is essentially eleminated along with the printing and physical shipping costs and in their place are online shops like Amazon.com. In this model, the author gets $3.25 (25%), their publisher $5.85 (50%) and the online shops $3.90 (30%). These are rough numbers, but they give us a good idea of how costs breakdown.
Ultimately, the biggest difference in cost is for the customer which will greatly incentivise digital sales in the years to come as the technology for reading ebooks becomes more accessible. And while the amount made by authors appears to be about the same, a lower cost to the customer means more sales longterm and more going to the author. The biggest thing to take out of this is that the author’s piece of the pie has increased and as the market continues to evolve there’s opportunity for it to increase even more!
The recent announcement of the iPad has once again sparked talk about digital publishing. Although it’s been somewhat misguided by focusing on print media going away (which people have been saying since the early years of the Internet and it’s still not really true), the common point made is that devices like the Kindle and the iPad make ereading more accessible for people in a similar way that the iPod made downloadable music more accessible to a wider audience. The Kindle has already proven this based on its sales success during this past holiday season.
What does this mean for independent artists and writers? Well, consider what the music industry is like now since the iPod came out and how independent musicians have been able to get their music sold better than ever before through the use of online tools for distribution and promotion. Additionally, the advent of podcasting which came directly from the iPod’s online marketplace, iTunes. It’s allowed anyone to share their ideas in a new way and immediately gather a niche audience.
In a lot of ways, digital publishing is at a point where music downloading was just a few years ago. Which means that now is the perfect time for independent storytellers to self-publish their work and seek out their audience via the upcoming distribution mediums that put them on the same playing field as large publishing companies. Amazon already offers a way for writers to self-publish their work on their online store. Soon Apple will as well through its iPad. Even Microsoft has plans for releasing its own software that will tie in with its upcoming device.
It’s an exciting time for people who love to read to enjoy media like never before, and for storytellers out there, it couldn’t be a better time to reach an audience!
Indie Aisle is a project being developed as a tool for storytellers to publish, promote and sell their stories online. This blog was launched to offer tips on publishing and promoting stories in the digital age of storytelling and to update you on the progress of the upcoming Indie Aisle tool.
I attended this year’s 
