Category Archives: Writing

eBook

Vellum Simplifies Ebook Conversion So Authors Can Focus On Their Craft

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Digital Book World has added a release about Vellum’s ebook creation software for OSX.  From the article:

Authors who want to create their own digital books are often frustrated when converting their manuscripts into ebooks. A Seattle software company called 180g has created a tool, Vellum, that handles the technical ins-and-outs of building EPUB, MOBI, and iBook files—simplifying ebook conversion and giving authors more time to focus on their craft.

Vellum ebook creation software, introduced today, runs on Mac OS X and allows authors and small publishers to easily create beautiful ebooks for iBooks, Kindle, and Nook without any prior experience or training.

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eBook, Writer Reference

Why self-publish an ebook?

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

This seems to be the season of really awkward reports on self-publishing. In yet another “remarkable study into self-publishing,” that distracts with colors and pictures, self-publishing gets another black eye from someone who doesn’t really know the topic.

Well, as someone who helps writers become self-published authors, I have a slightly different viewpoint.

When I first saw the three parts of the “debate” I quickly came to the conclusion that the author didn’t know her subject very well. It certainly didn’t help that the very first two sentences included “road to nowhere” and “in my research.”

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Writer Reference

Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 in Pilot with Simon & Schuster to Make eBook Titles Available to School Customers Read more about Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 in Pilot with Simon & Schuster to Make eBook Titles Available to School Customers

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Baker & Taylor has put up a press release:

Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books and entertainment products, announced today that through a pilot program it will now be able to make available more than 450 popular ebook titles from Simon & Schuster imprints to classrooms and school libraries using the Axis 360 digital media circulation platform.

The pilot allows Baker & Taylor’s K-12 customers to purchase access to many popular, classic and award-winning Simon & Schuster ebooks for school-aged readers. Simon & Schuster titles are now available from Baker & Taylor via Title Source 360, the company’s new, comprehensive collection development and ordering tool for library and educational customers.

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Dead Tree Books, eBook

Ricoh, a company specializing in print commissions a study that finds people like print books

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

SHOCKER! Ricoh Americas Corporation – a company that specializes in production print equipment – commissioned a ‘study’ that discovered that people like print books.  It would have been news, probably, if the study discovered that consumers preferred anything else.

The study was interesting in it’s scope.  It says that 60% of ebooks downloaded are never read (no mention of how many dead-tree books purchased are never read), that consumers “have an emotional and visceral/sensory attachment to printed books, potentially elevating them to a luxury item,” and that “college students prefer printed textbooks to eBooks as they help students to concentrate on the subject matter at hand” because, y’know, you can’t study using a tablet that has an internet connection that could allow them instant access to more – and focused – information about what they’re studying.

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