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The ePublishing Enigma
by Charles E. Brown
There was a time when it was possible for a celebrity to have a certain amount of freedom, or at least until they were dead. Most powerful, influential and important people were exposed to public scrutiny as it pertained to certain aspects of their public lives and many of the sorted details of their private life were left out of journalism. Reporters, journalists and other professional writers would allow a little bit of privacy until a celebrities demise and then rip-em apart.
However times have changed and it became more important "more lucrative" to print all of the details no matter how sorted and controversial. Fast forward to the here and now, we live in "The Age of Information" amidst "The Technology Revolution".
We now believe in "up to the minute coverage" of every conceivable thing that could happen to anyone or anything under our media spotlight at any given time. It can be argued backwards and forwards whether or not this is good or bad but the argument itself is not as important as the fact that the marriage between technology and multi-media has made some fantastic opportunities available to the general public and that means you, my aspiring writer.
The Web is used to saturate the conscious mind with everything that you could possibly want (or not want) to know about anything. The great thing about the Web is anyone can publish to it. The bad thing about the Web is that anyone can publish to it. According to the experts the leading two Web topics most searched and referenced online are "sex" and "aliens". However the Web is not all science fiction and lust, in fact the Web can be an unpublished author's best friend.
Do you have your own Web site?
If not, you should…, being able to place your query letters, book proposals, synopsis and other literature and marketing materials online gives you an advantage. It allows you to email brief queries to publishers/agents containing email links to full versions of documents that contain text; artwork, audio, video and other helpful marketing materials that might help get your book published in the world of print media.
Shop your query using a Web site and email!
This technique lowers the expense of targeting publishers or agents with your materials. Because you are only creating the digital copies and uploading them to the Web, you avoid the expense of paying for copying expenses and postage. However it should be duly doted that not all publishers/agents will except email solicitations inviting them to your Web site. However many do, most up to date listings of publisher and agents will contain email links to publisher and agents who will accept queries in that fashion.
Save time when updating your query!
If you change your query, proposal, synopsis or other, your old copies become obsolete. By updating the material on the Web site, you have altered the content that all traffic will view at the site. No need to re-mail the "snail mail" delivered query or other related materials to targets, just email them a message that updates or changes have been made and be sure to include the link to the site and your email address.
How easy is it to build a Web site?
There are free Web design tutorials online. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the starting place for all Web design "newbies". Use your favorite online search engine (Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, Hot Bot, exc.) to search for "free HTML tutorials" and you will find a wealth of free lessons to get you started.
And what if I don't want to learn HTML, thank you very much!!!
There are many free Web design software applications. Some are freeware or
shareware; others are trial versions that will expire after anywhere from
15 to 45 days. Some examples would be:
Microsoft Front Page, Dreamweaver, Home page and others.
You can use any of the Web search engines to find and download the program
that's right for your needs. If you use any program labeled as an "HTML
editor" you will still need to know some HTML in order to get some use
out of it. Nevertheless, there are many WYSIWYG (what you see is what you
get) Web design programs that allow you to point and click, drag and drop;
and select easily understood menu items to put your Web site together with
minimum effort.
OK, but that's still too much work, I'm lazy!!!
Then you should try using one of the many free Web host site-building services. Once you become a member of these free Web services you will be given a certain amount of free Web space to use for your site. They offer and online interface that allows you to key in information about your site and click a few buttons and like presto, your site is put together for you effortlessly. Warning, these sites are "cookie cutter" sites that look like a million other sites on the Web, but it will serve it's purpose until you get design skills and can tackle the project yourself.
Do you have a lot to say? Maybe you feel you don't have enough to say to warrant writing a book? How about publishing an eZine (online magazine). You could publish the eZine as a Web site with daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or even semiannual updated articles and resources or you could mail it out (email) as a newsletter or do both.
There are advantages to an online publication!
An eZine has major advantages over a print publication. The staff can be much smaller, even a sole proprietorship could pull it off, that's right, just you. No boss with B.O., no annoying, whining, gripping and complaining to listen to from employees. Best of all you won't receive a paycheck for sitting on your dead a.., hold up…, that was one of the good things about working for someone else, oh well, as I was saying there are advantages.
There are software utilities and online services that will assist you in doing eCommerse in the event you want to sell the publication using credit card verification. The eZine could be a welcome addition to your Web site. How impressed would a publisher or agent be if you had an eZine with subscribers to boast of.
Subscribers to your online publication equal opportunities!
Getting people to subscribe to your online publication has benefits. Once your book/s are published (print form) you can target the subscribers of your online publication as potential sales leads for the book/s. You could also collect their critique on your articles that you write for your online publication. There good reviews could become part of your next book proposal in the "About the Author" bio section.
eBooks are the most exciting new tool in the writer's arsenal. The ability to self publish already existed, but the expense of self-publishing in print media is far more than in eBook form.
eBooks were limited to only a couple of formats a short time ago, the primary of which was done in PDF for the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
However the technology floodgates have opened and a tsunami of formats has been washed in to liven up the authors attempts at self-publishing.
Your computer can house a program such as (Open eBook, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat) and other eBook reader utilities. Each of these programs has it's own "platform" technology and supports works created in formats designed for it's platform and not the formats of other products. In other words you will need to use the appropriate reader with each eBook (with some exceptions).
For example, if you download an eBook created in the PDF format, you will need Adobe Acrobat to read it. If you download an eBook in the LIT format, you will need Microsoft Reader to read it and so on. The good news is that most of these readers will run on multiple operating systems making their supported formats very portable.
eBook Vs Text Document
Someone may ask the question what is the difference between using an eBook format and merely typing a book in a word processing application that creates rich text or plain text documents? The answer would be that eBooks help provide authentication, copyright/digital-rights management, and compatibility.
eBook / 15-Love
For starters, an MS Word, Corell Word, Note Pad, Word Pad, or other word processing software generated text file can be opened in many different applications and altered. This will create problems with the integrity of the work, which must be maintained to insure copyrights/digital rights are not compromised.
eBook / 30-Love
Secondly, someone must have a software application (sometimes very expensive) capable of opening the file. Yes, this can be accomplished with "viewers" (usually provided for free) created by the software company, however this is dependent on the company making the viewer available.
Championship-point / eBook / 40-Love
Third, most "viewers" are pretty naked when it comes to features, of course the manufacturer doesn't want to give you a great deal of free features which will hurt sales of the full software application. Forth, a software application must be able to run on the OS (operating system) platform that a particular computer uses. If a person running Linux, or Macintosh wants to read a document created using a word processing application that runs on a Windows OS, they will need a special utility to open that document. Whether or not the utility is available will depend on many factors that are constantly changing.
Game / Set / Match / eBook
Last and most important, software applications designed to generate eBooks usually allow you to convert many different document formats "text, HTML, doc" and others, into eBooks. This creates reusability and flexibility. An author/publisher can take their documents created in all different types of formats and covert them into one format that is cross-platform capable. Most eBook formats can be run on multiple OS platforms and are designed to provide the user with a myriad of features that facilitate the eBook experience.
Desktop computers, laptop computers, wireless phones, PDA's and other gadgets are all hard or soft wired to the Net these days. Everybody and everything is connected, I even see kids 10-12 years old with wireless phones and pagers. We as writers can take advantage of the red-hot popularity of digital communication.
Let's daydream form a minute!
Imagine this scenario, you put up your Web site with all material concerning your writing ventures. You start a chat group on one of the hot Web communities like Yahoo or MSN. Your chat group patronage grows. You meet and collaborate with fellow writers within the community confines. Eventually you network with them and form a group. The group links all of your Web sites together and also begins an eZine publication.
The subscriber base to your online publication grows and begins to receive recognition and notoriety. An agent drops by the Web sites of your group members and likes the queries, proposals and other materials and wants to represent each member.
Your online publication gets enough notoriety to attract attention from a national news show that wants to spotlight your group. The groups success attracts the attention of venture capitalists who front funding to expand the operation. The group decides to invest some of the capital in the self publishing of each others manuscripts in eBook form using your own servers and allowing consumers to download the eBooks directly from your Web site using eCommerse.
The sale of the eBooks is nothing short of remarkable and your agent informs the group that he/she have found a publisher who is desirous of publishing the manuscripts in print form.
Ok, wake up, you're drooling!
Realistically, this probably won't happen, but the point is it could and it's not as far fetched as it sounds. When you factor in how inexpensive ePublishing is compared to print, the only question is "What are you waiting for?"
Charles E. Brown
http://www.productsservicesideas.com/
HTML tutorials:
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/html_basics/index.html
HTML tags:
http://www.willcam.com/cmat/html/crossref.html
Color your site:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colorsfull.asp
Make banners for your site:
http://www.web-animator.com/
HTML editors pro:
http://cws.internet.com/32advhtml.html
HTML editors free:
http://www.netmaking.com/freebies/htmleditors.shtml
WYSIWYG Web editors:
http://www.builder.com/Authoring/WysiComparo/
Define Web/PC jargon:
http://www.productsservicesideas.com/define.html
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/
Get a host for your site:
Free hosts:
http://www.thefreecountry.com/ecentricity/hostswithsitebuilders.shtml
Pay for service hosts:
http://web-source.net/web/Web_Page_Hosts/Professional/
Start an eZine:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/eZine/good.htm
http://www.inkspot.com/craft/newsletterinfo.html
http://www.e-zinez.com/
Convert your manuscript to an eBook and publish it:
http://www.time4me.com/theme/write/ebook/main.htm
http://www.iboost.com/profit/other_revenue_streams/ebooks/tutorial/30020.htm