Publishing ebooks in HTML

I am still wading through thee hodge-podge of ebook formats. But I started thinking about HTML last night.

There is a lot to be said for offering a simple HTML version of your ebook. (HTML is what web pages are built from.) Costs are low, plenty of HTML editors are available for free. (Like Composer which is a part of the free Mozilla browser.) It is easy to convert most .TXT documents into HTML. You can include hyperlinks to different parts of your ebook.

And you have your choice of distribution channels: you can display it on the web for online reading while also offering it in a Zipped up folder for download. Any computer can read it with any web browser. The tools to read HTML format are completely ubiquitous. And HTML is also easy to convert to Plucker format for PalmOS handhelds.

The downsides are you still have to convert HTML into some other format before it is readable on handhelds. There are converters available but it is another step. The other factor is you cannot DRM HTML. I'm not sure this is a drawback at all.

There is a lot to be said for letting people read both online like when they are behind a corporate firewall and cannot download and if you are going to offer a book online then it also makes sense to offer a download.

I also see a lot of ebook publishers offering HTML format and I think it remains a viable option for selling books too.