ePublishing Blog Has Moved

We Have Moved:

I need to consolidate my many blogs and portals. This blog has served it's original purpose of my blogging the information I found about DIY ebook publishing as I found it. But I also started BOWIndex.com and that has a blog about ebooks too and I just cannot do both. So I am combining and consolidating efforts over at the BOWIndex.com blog. Please go there for future updates.





Leaving ePublishing Blog Up:

I will leave this site up so that other people can use ti as a reference in their own quest for information about e-book self publishing.

Comments have been turned off or restricted so they don't get spammed.

Thanks!

I hope you will join me over at BOWIndex.com Blog.

Author describes his experience with self publishing his ebook

Bill Quick describes his experiences in self publishing his novel as an ebook.

I purchased no advertising, paid no agent, and have no costs other than my time in writing the thing, and bandwidth, which I'd be paying anyway. Moreover, the entire process is automated, so after the initial several hours spent in formatting, setting up a PayPal page, and writing a download page, I do nothing but watch the money roll in.

Keep in mind that the auther is an esablished blogger with manuy daily readers and many online contacts, but still it is nice to see him break out the economics of it.

Hurricane Katrina Survivors Forum

There is a new hurricane Katrina Survivors Forum, for friends and relatives to post for information about survivors. If you will remember these bulletin boards were very helpful in collecting information about survivors in the days just after 9-11 so this is a worthy effort.

Thanks to Skaffe Directory for the good thinking on setting this up.

VitalSource Bookshelf

They claim this is like iTunes for ebooks. Prices start at 99 cents but go up from there. I let you know more tomorrow. If they can pull this off and make buying, downloading and reading ebooks a no brainer it might boost ebook popularity. No word on formats.

VitalSource Technologies, Inc. - Download VitalSource Bookshelf

Source: Tuaw

TeleRead: FBReader for Nokia 770

This is big. I've been toying with the idea of buying a Nokia 770 around Christmas. But I really want to be able to surf the web AND read ebooks on it. Now I knew the Plucker ebook software reader had been ported over to the Nokia, and I really like Plucker, but there are not enough ebook titles available in Plucker - yet, to make me want to buy the Nokia. I would have to have at least one other ebook reader available. Now it looks like the FBReader has been ported over from the Sharp Zaurus. FBReader will read HTML and TXT formats. Now that may just be enough to make me seriously look at the Nokia 770 when it comes out.

TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home » FBReader for Nokia 770

TeleRead Getting eBook Reviewer

This is great news - Teleread is getting an ebook reviewer. Somebody to review literary type ebooks.

I think this is very needed. One of the offshoots of having so many epublishing sources is the need for somebody to sort through and review the ebooks so readers can find those titles and authors they will be happy with.

TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home » Newest TeleBlog writer: Godine and Atlantic Monthly alum will review e-books for us

Related: Finding Good eBook Reviews: eBook Review Ring

Rewriting the rules of publishing

Great writeup on Lulu.com from the BBC.

BBC NEWS | Business | Rewriting the rules of publishing: "'A cross between Ebay and Amazon,' is how Canadian entrepreneur Bob Young describes his online publishing venture Lulu."

But this is the part that is big:

"Mr Young is unveiling his UK-based site on 2 August."

Source: Tenebris

Kenya pilots Pocket PC education

BBC NEWS | Kenya pilots Pocket PC education: "In the final report of Click Online's Africa season, we visit Kenya where a trial project using handheld Pocket PCs could help reduce the costs of education in poor communities."

Kenya is testing giving students Pocket PC PDA's as ebook readers that use electronic textbooks instead of paper textbooks.

Source: Teleread

Portability Matters in eBook Devices

I have noticed that I have used my Palm Tungsten T5 almost exclusively this summer for reading ebooks and have set my EB-1150 aside for awhile. The biggest reason I'm using the T5 is portability. In the summer months I'm running around away from home much more so I carry the T5 (in a hardcase) in my pocket for spontaneous reading moments. The EB-1150 is just too big to carry around.

Now I can still read faster on the 1150's screen so I will go back to using it in the winter, when I tend to read more in bed. It is a very comfortable reader. I would use a larger device more if I could download newspapers or magazines to it and have them render more closely to a print edition but nothing that will work with a Mac computer is there yet.