The ebook has well and truly arrived with sales elipsing those of physical books on the Amazon Kindle digital download platform.
Mobile devices including iphones, ipads, android smart phones, PC tablets, Barnes and Noble’s Nook readers are also opening up a huge market in this area.
Amazon triggered a snowball effect in terms of ebook popularity with the launch of the Kindle in 2007 which allows people to buy and download ebooks on demand from the Kindle marketplace, read them in any location and share this content on other devices.
The launch of the Apple iPad in 2009 brought the iBook app enabling ebook sales via the Apple family of products. Amazon released the Kindle app with effectively put all the Amazon book titles from the Kindle platform within reach of iPhone, iPad and iPod users who can download any book for the Amazon Kindle without needing the device itself.
Other ebook readers such as the Nook range of readers opened up the Barns and Noble marketplace with Sony and others joining the fray.
Why Publish?
- You establish yourself as an expert (Yes I know you’ve heard that before)
- You can use your book(s) as a lead generator for backend services and products
- It doesn’t have to be War and Peace – Guides, Reports, Whitepapers even a collection of blog posts can be published
- There may well be SEO benefits – think about how Amazon rank on Google 😉
So how do you get a piece of this truly exciting development that is causing such a stir in the publishing and media world?
There are various platforms online that help you publish and deliver your content. You could go via publish on demand services which also offer physical book publishing and distribution.
Lulu is probably the most well know of POD (publish on demand) services with a range of add on support services such as marketing, proofreading, design and editing. Fastpencil offers a similiar route but with a unique book writing wizard that templates the process to produce professional standard book creation. Smashwords give authors a route to a wide range of platforms including the ipad, Nook, Kobo and soon the Kindle.
A more direct approach can be taken using the Kindle Direct Publishing Platform for Amazon’s digital marketplace or Nook’s PubIt!
Ebooks don’t always have to be lower priced items as information publishers already know and businesses sell high value information for as much as $249 such as this 12 page whitepaper from Ad age. The information is highly targeted involving a lot of data and that represents high value to buyers.
There are different approaches to digital publishing but in my next few blog posts I will focus on the mentioned devices and platforms such as the Kindle and Nook and how you can get your content out there ASAP!
Pick up my guide on Ebook Publishing here
