E-Book publishing and getting an ISBN

[Getting an ISBN number]

In answer to a question on the shoutbox I thought I would do a quicker primer on E-book publishing, if we are talking about a 5 page ebook being distributed for free then look away now...

Getting an ISBN number
ISBN is an international standard for identifying Books the number are now 13 digits long and the number needs to be applied for, each country has its own method for issuing the numbers and each version of a book requires an ISBN so fix that typo it needs a new number. Here in the UK and I believe its the same in the US a publishing company needs to buy in blocks with a minimum block of 10.  For more information please see http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp Therefore if you are publishing just 1 book then it does not make sense to set up as a publisher as it is expensive.

Why would you need an ISBN well with it you can start distributing via more traditional channels such as bookstores (physical product) or on-line stores like Amazon.

Paper Publishing & Distribution services
My favourite publishers are Lulu a fantastic company that in fact will do all the above but they are one of a new breed of POD publish on demand, so as you or anyone else orders a book its printed and shipped directly from the printers.
Their are other companies out their but I have had some experience with Lulu as I used them to print my University material for a couple of years, the nice thing is they also offer packages to get ISBN number and Promotional bits and piece at reasonable prices finally they offer Amazon distribution service taking the hassle out of it.
An alternative is Book Surge Amazons own POD finally you could submit your book to Amazon separately this is a complicated (note this is me saying complicated! hint hint)  involves several forms and sending them several copies of your book in various forms generally this process takes several months in my experience so unless you have a major reason not to go with a distribution system from lulu or similar.
Making Money
So once you got your book its time to promote it, now amazon takes a large percentage of your profit so you have a choice promote Amazon and hope for greater volume or promote direct publishing which will obviously be a better return but expect lower number of buyers. I always promote the Amazon route with clients and friends even though the return is smaller you tend to shift many units to reduce this lower return grab yourself an affiliate account with Amazon and promote your book using the appropriate codes or even look to open an astore both will offer a small return on top of your normal payments.


I hope this has helped those perhaps thinking about publishing, a word of warning if you use your own ISBNs with lulu you can't use their distribution packages

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great read Tim (maybe I should write a book too)

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Thanks for sharing this Tim

Good work. Thanks! Wish I had the cash for ISBNs, but I don't. Another thing forced to wait...

Thanks for sharing.But have a ISBNs and publish in paper will take many money, if one have not good content, he will take a risk that  wiil lose the  investment.

Thanks for sharing.But have a ISBNs and publish in paper will take many money, if one have not good content, he will take a risk that  wiil lose the  investment.

If you don't have good content then why would you be publishing?

Thanks for sharing.But have a ISBNs and publish in paper will take many money, if one have not good content, he will take a risk that  wiil lose the  investment.

In some countries (like Sweden) you can apply for ISBN for free, so you only have to pay for the printing

/Andreas

I've used Lulu before an recommend it. I've noticed a similar service at www.createspace.com


Andrew

Cool - good luck on writing books everyone.

I'm taking a tech editing job for Apress right now.  (I believe its apress...) but it looks like they might want me to write some stuff too - but this is through an agent, so I don't have to worry about the numbers - but less money too - hah!

I know this thread is a bit old but I have been thinking about giving this whole e-book thing a go.

You mention that publishers of 5 page ebooks should not bother with this...is there a number of pages have you found to make the efforts worth it?

Have you and your clients seen any tangible results from publishing e-books? And have you run into many problems with them being re-purposed by someone who then claims it as their own?

http://createspace.com/ is another site for 'print on demand' books.


Andrew

You mention that publishers of 5 page ebooks should not bother with this...is there a number of pages have you found to make the efforts worth it?

Have you and your clients seen any tangible results from publishing e-books? And have you run into many problems with them being re-purposed by someone who then claims it as their own?

The biggest problem with Ebooks is their reputation and the fact that any one can and do write one. This means there are good books and bad ones. I found between 30 and 300 pages works best, in normal print, one of the usual tricks you see is size 14 or 16 points to increase the number of pages. But it's not the number of pages that is important but the quality.

a 5 page "white paper" if well written could be worth thousands a badly written 50 page ebook on the same topic worth nothing.

Yeah I agree it might be a good idea to avoid using the term 'ebook' and instead go with 'report', 'whitepaper' or 'guide' etc.

Andrew

Helllllooooooo Tim! Long time no see.

I couldn't agree with you more on the quality aspect of things.

No comment on the effectiveness or uhm, borrowing?

Borrowing is life, if someone is going to pinch it they will regardless, any security measures you put in place will no doubt be circumvented. The best bet is to provide some basic security to deter people who might casually share and swap files, I find simple things like associating the file with a user works well.
Out and out copying and reselling if you find out then the only recourse is a lawyer, one option you might look into is allowing people to license the content on a reseller license.

I have been a bit busy but haven't forgotten the place

A client of mine had wanted me to take a look at an ebook he purchased. When I tried to open it in Acrobat it kept asking me for some sort of password code thing. Apparently the author sent him an email with a link that has that password embedded somehow. My client could only open the e-book from that email. He forwarded the message to himself and he could no longer get the book to open.

Have you seen that before? Sounds like a great idea.

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YMC, I don't think this security measurement is really working. I mean it will work, but yet someone will be able to rewrite your content and sell it again

[his]

For me the best way to prevent systematic copying in the past was to allow reselling via a license sure it didn't stop the causal swappers, but to be fair you are not really bothered about them its the widespread distribution and techniques such as hiding the password is normal not the way to go about it.

For example take your friend as an example.

he is sent a url example.com/pdfs/mypdf.pdf?auth=dbfbdhgfygdfidhbfidhfiud
now ever time he wants to visit his pdf he is using the suppliers server lets say the ebook is 5mb that's 5mb per visit as PDFs nearly always open fully before use. Now he sends it to you and you can't open it, so what do you do ask for the url, and you visit it on the site. Now of course if he had been sent the password with an explanation and not had it hidden in a url he would have no doubt passed it to you, but given you would have almost certainly not purchased it the harm is limited.

A distributor who wants to help himself will have no problem getting round the password, the various methods and programs are well documented. So ultimately all the ebook seller did was make it harder for his customer and harder for himself.

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