The publishing process, on the other hand, is complicated.

I’ve recently published my book, Hylsbrith Falls, using the Simply Written service. During this process I documented the experience and am writing a “how-to” for authors that want to self-publish through Amazon and the iBookstore. You can look forward to reading about the experience on this blog soon.

In the meantime I wanted talk a bit about the other options for a self-publishing author. There are a number of sites out there that will do some of the legwork for you, allowing you to submit a file to them for distribution to these two main sellers and a host of minor ones.

Smashwords

Smashwords is an ebook distributor founded in 2008 that focuses on making publishing relatively easy. They have a store online for their readers, as well as distribution lines to Apple, Nook, Kobo, OverDrive, Flipkart, Oyster, Scribd, Baker & Taylor’s, Blio, and Axis360, among others.

Authors can submit a word document to the service, and they convert the files for you. They also have started accepting epub files. When your book sells through a site that Smashwords sent it to, they take a small commission from the sale before you get your royalty payment. You get a much higher cut when it sells directly from the Smashwords site itself.

BookBaby

BookBaby is a site by the makers of CDBaby. They are a good fit for an author that wants a little more help through the process, but the author does pay a fee for that help. Their distribution is pretty solid, including Apple, Nook, Kobo, Amazon, Scribd, Gardners Books, Baker & Taylor’s, and more.

There are different levels of fees, and different services that are available. File conversion, cover creation, editing, and more can be purchased there. Their commission varies depending on the package you go with, and they have a yearly fee for the books held in their system, but overall it’s a worthwhile service to look into. They also have some options for print-on-demand runs.

Barnes & Noble PubIt

Barnes & Noble PubIt is very similar to Amazon’s Direct Publishing. The product is only offered on the Nook from this distributor, so you don’t get the breadth of coverage you would with the others. They do offer a free file conversion, or you can upload your own epub file. Their royalties are a tad less than Amazon offers, but still pretty competitive.

Lulu

Lulu is primarily a print-on-demand publisher, but you have the option of publishing an ebook there. They only distribute to the three big ebook sellers (Apple, Amazon, and Nook) so your retailer coverage is not as great, and they do take a commission on your earnings from these. They offer services for a fee, such as cover creation, editing, and marketing.

And more…

There are many smaller distributors out there as well. Booktango, Scribd, and CreateSpace to name a few. Many print-on-demand companies will offer an ebook creation service of some sort, though their reach may be limited. Be wary of any site that wants you to pay them to distribute your book.

The pitfalls with some of these avenues of distribution is that the files they create can be poor quality and full of formatting errors. If you decide to go with one of these distributors, it’s a good idea to upload your own epub files so they’re exactly how you’d like them to look. Simply Written makes ebook files to printed book standards. If there’s ever any complaint about our files, please pass them along and we can look into the problem.

Remember, whether you decide to publish and distribute your work on your own to retailers, or go with a distribution service, there are plenty of options out there. Do your research and make sure you’re getting what you want out of a service.

Let’s look at what DRM actually does.

There are both passive and active types of DRM. These can do things such as limit the number of downloads for a purchased book, requiring a password to open content, requiring a “key” to unlock a download, applying watermarks, etc. All things that at first glance would seem reasonable when applying to a purchased book.

But it gets more complicated than that. There have been instances of retailers removing content from devices without the owner’s permission, whether due to a legitimate copyright claim or because of a blanket act of account suppression. There have been stories of people traveling internationally and finding all their books blocked, because the country they are currently in doesn’t acknowledge the retailer.

There are also instances where download limits, over time, mean that you lose the right to add your book to a new device. The download limits also prevent people from “borrowing” books from a friend unless they use the complicated system provided by some retailers. Then there is always the chance that a retailer will go out of business and your books are lost, or changing device brands makes your purchases invalid.

Supporters of DRM insist that it’s the only way to prevent piracy, but the reality is that every type of DRM is nearly immediately and easily defeatable. Sites even offer “cracked” versions of books, taking away from legitimate sales.

How Simply Written does it.

With all of this in mind, Simply Written has chosen to create your ebook files without any DRM. A good many writers don’t want it included, and we understand that. For those that do want it, Amazon and the iBookstore can add it in when you submit your book for sale.

Whatever your stance on DRM, it’s your business, not ours. We give you a clean file, and you can do with it what you wish. If you want to use these methods to restrict your content, there is plenty of information about doing it on the retailers websites.

Most people know that a book needs an ISBN, but what they may not understand is that each format of the book needs a separate number. A hardback is different from a paperback, which is different from an epub, which is different from a mobi. An ISBN will reveal exactly what you’re getting, as opposed to other versions available.

If you have a publishing company, they will most likely take care of the process of assigning ISBNs to your work, but a self-published author needs to do that themselves. It’s not a difficult process, but it is an important one.

Getting the numbers.

If you’re in the United States, you attain an ISBN by going to www.myidentifiers.com. In the United Kingdom you can go to www.isbn.nielsenbook.co.uk. Each country has it’s own dedicated agency to administer the numbers, and it’s not difficult to find on an internet search. They sell the numbers in bulk, in groups of 10, 100, or 1000. Keep in mind that if you’re publishing as both epub and mobi you’ll need two per book. If you make a hard copy version, that’s a third, etc. Each “edition” of a book is also a different ISBN number. You can use them up fast and they’re cheaper in bulk.

The agency will have a form you need to fill out in order to assign a book to a particular number, including information like title, author, publisher, version, etc. It’s important to fill this information out as completely as possible, so have it ready when you’re going to assign the number.

We won’t go into detail about the process, as the agencies have excellent instructions, but there are a few more things worth mentioning.

They say I don’t need one.

Publishing an ebook on the iBookstore or Amazon allows you to enter an ISBN, but may not require one. The production of ebooks on a large scale is relatively new in the timeline of publishing, and not all the rules have been hashed out yet regarding them. It’s very possible that what isn’t required to publish them now, may be required in the future. Keep that in mind if you choose to go without an ISBN in these “optional” circumstances.

No number, no sale.

Some retailers refuse to offer a book if there isn’t an ISBN assigned to it. They use it for their own tracking purposes. By taking the optional non-registered route, you may be limiting yourself in the area of sales and marketing.

How Simply Written does it.

Simply Written provides an area in the book details to enter an ISBN. There is a place for the epub version and for the mobi version, and Simply Written will automatically insert the correct ISBN into the correct file type, leaving the other one out. Make sure to keep track of your ISBN numbers and what they’re assigned to.

For more information on ISBNs, see the website of your national ISBN agency.

Officially the term “epub” is short for “electronic publication” and is a free and open ebook format used by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It is able to be read by most ereaders, including all Apple products, Android devices, Nook, Kobo, Sony and Windows. The only devices that currently don’t read epub files are Amazon Kindle devices.

The “mobi” format was created by a small company for the Mobipocket reader, but was purchased by Amazon. It is nearly identical to the native azw format that Amazon uses, and is used almost exclusively by the Kindle, although some readers have apps that can be installed to read them.

What does that mean for a writer? Or even a reader (both human and digital)? Well let’s explain a little more about what makes up an epub or mobi file as opposed to, say, a text file.

What’s the point of a digital format?

First, these files were created with flexibility in mind. They have the ability to incorporate code much the same way that a website would, and therefore allow the book to be re-sized, hold embedded images and video, contain sound bits, and even make use of security measures to avoid pirating. A simple text file can only put out exactly what you put into it, but an ebook format can turn reading into a truly interactive experience.

It’s the reader (the digital reader) that forms the book. The reader creates the ideal format for its viewers, using the information provided in the files to provide the perfect reading experience. Text files are static things, performing in their limited scope and sometimes failing miserably and distracting the viewer from the content within.

The two ebook formats, however, are fundamentally different.

The epub format can be thought of like a container, very similar to a zip file. Within the epub are all the resources that are needed to make up an ebook, from the text and images, to the code required. A reader will then access the container much like the internet accesses the code of a website and will put it all together for viewing.

The mobi format is a single file, created by mushing all the ebook’s content together with a few instructions for its reassembly. A reader can take this file and use the included instructions to recreate the ebook for the viewer. (Note: as of this posting, the mobi format doesn’t support audio/video.)

Because of this difference, most readers can only process one or the other of the files, not both. There are file converters available on the internet which will attempt to convert one to the other, but sometimes data or styling is lost in the process.

How does Simply Written do it?

Simply Written treats these files separately, preventing this corruption. We work with the raw data an author enters into the site and custom package the files either as epub or mobi. The files created in this manner are ready for viewing on a reader, or for publishing on another website such as Amazon or the iBookstore.

To find out more about how Simply Written converts files, read About Simply Written.