How to Buy an Ebook

 Two weeks ago off I went to the sophisticated Digital Book World conference, in which I learned the glittering state of the ebook market. A wonderful future for all of us! Fantastic success stories! A good time had by all!

And then I came back to what I laughingly call my market. The one in which customers are still struggling to figure out which version of an ebook to buy, and how to open it.  That is, those who are buying directly from publishers like us instead of Amazon or another etailer.  Those buyers (the ones at the big boxes) have already selected ereaders and are buying books specifically for them. But there are lots of  other people who want to read ebooks on their computers or phones and don’t know how. Also, there are lovely people who do have ereaders, yet are kind enough to want to buy directly from  the publisher.

So I thought it might help if I outlined a few basics. We (meaning booksBnimble) sell three kinds of files, which I expect is what most publishers offer—one for Kindle, one for iPad, and one for everything else. This is because iPad is the only platform that supports video and Kindle does not support the format everyone else uses. To further complicate things, a) that format  (the all-purpose one) is called ePub, which sounds so generic I get the impression plenty of people think it just means “ebook” and b) there are several names for  Kindle-friendly files. These are  mobi, prc, and azw .

Sufficiently confused?  Really there’s nothing to it—Kindle, iPad, or Everything Else, aka ePub. But there’s another wrinkle. If you buy a book from a publisher, you’ll have to “sideload” it to your ereader, since it’s not synced to it like books from the etailers. Probably the best deal there is to get in touch with the publisher you bought it from (for us, info@booksBnimble.com ) , or  just Google it. You’d be amazed how much info’s online about this. A quick example of sideloading: You can get a mobi file on your Kindle the same way you do a Word document or pdf --by emailing it to your Kindle address.

If you have no ereader,  no problem! There’s an app for that. (A free one.) You download the Kindle app first, then save your file anywhere on your computer, click on it twice, and magic occurs. Or if the file’s ePub, Firefox has an add-on called ePubreader that works the same say. Really and truly, this can be done and done easily—by the most tech-tarded person in America, with no more than a click or three. (But happy to hold your hand  if you run into problems.)

The New Jewish Walker Percy?

To me, there are two kinds of New Orleans writers,  those who remind us of Walker Percy and those who evoke John Kennedy Toole. The Percy breed is cool, literary, philosophical,  professorial; the Toole types are like an Italian family at dinner—noisy, street smart,  practically smelling of  red gravy and sweat. I’m exaggerating, of course, and now I’m about to get reductive: Percy=cool, Toole= warm.

Like this maybe:

Team Percy--Valerie Martin, say; or John Biguenet. Team Toole--Andrei Codrescu, perhaps;  James Nolan, Amanda Boyden. I don’t know, I’m probably blowing it. What I mean is, a certain reserve, a sly subtlety, as opposed to an unbridled exuberance, a great ear for street speech. Weirdly, I could think of more Percy descendents than Tooles, though in my heart I feel sure we  have more Tooles. But we’re always looking for the  successor to Walker Percy. It’s kind of a primal yearning around here. (Could  have been Martin, I think,  but she doesn’t write much about New Orleans these days. And Biguenet’s off doing plays.)  I was astounded to see the late great one himself was on the lookout for us before he croaked. Someone just sent me this quote from the man himself:

"I make no claim to prophetic powers, yet I make bold to predict that the next Southern literary revival will be led by a Jewish mother, which is to say, a shrewd self-possessed woman with a sharp eye and a cunning retentive mind who sees the small triumphs and tragedies around her and has her own secret method of rendering it, with an art all her own and yet not unrelated to Welty, O'Connor, and Porter."

 Signposts in a Strange Land--Walker Percy

Wow, I thought. Patty Friedmann! But—full disclosure here—booksBnimble just published her ebook, TOO JEWISH. So of course I’d think of her. But I would have anyway (really I would) because she’s the real deal. Sharp eye? Check. Cunning? Watch out! Secret method? Damn her-- I’m always trying to figure out how she does it. And boy does she have an ear. Wonder if Mr. Percy was onto something. But let’s discuss. Got any more candidates?

Short Story Contest: A Vampire for Valentine's

 
Is that love in the air, or just more precipitation?  I’m going with love. We can always use that. In honor of Valentine’s Day, booksBnimble’s February/March contest theme will be “Romeo or Juliet as a vampire.” Just this once, in honor of the sweetness of the season,  you have a choice.  Either lover can be undead. Or you can make them both vampires–that could be raucous. But sexy’s good too. The deadline’s March 15, and the winner will be announced at the beginning in April. This is part of  our 2011 series of vampire contests, the winners of which we’ll publish as an anthology at the end of the year. Don’t forget  the best part:  Along with publication, there’s a $50 prize.  Rules at 
http://www.booksbnimble.com/contests/
 

While we’re at it, congratulations to Karla Henderson of Palmdale, Ca., winner of  our December/January contest. Her hilarious story, “Overbite,” which chronicles the life of Elvis as a vampire, can be enjoyed along with a short interview with  the writer herself at:

http://www.booksbnimble.com/contests/previous-winners/

For the really intrepid among you, we have a second contest, but so far nobody’s ever had the nerve to enter it.  It requires an imagination, at least one pet, a video camera, and a ton of patience. If you think you qualify, click here http://www.booksbnimble.com/contests/vidlet-instructions/

DIGITAL BOOK WORLD vs My World Part III

DBW would be a delicious place to live—all glittery like the gorgeous snowfall that happened simultaneously.  If I lived there, I’d know all about as-yet-undreamt-of geekery, my authors’ books would be runaway bestsellers, and we’d have enough money to make fancier, slicker videos for our VeeBooks.

Of course all isn’t perfect there—one app maker admitted the download time for apps can be horrific and they often crash. So in some ways it’s like my world, in which, quite simply, a whole lot of people want to join the party, but haven’t yet caught up with the technology.  And that’s not only ordinary people. The industry’s abuzz this week with talk of  a major glitch at a rhino of a retailer that just can’t seem to get it together right now.  Not gossip that there is a glitch—complaints about how it’s affecting its customers.

Other vendors seem to be running way behind schedule, one gathers because they can’t expand fast enough to keep up with the demand. And we’re no different—about that schedule thing, I mean. It isn’t demand that has us whipped, it’s problems with technology. Last month, we ditched our entire website because it couldn’t handle video, The hosts said it could, but the software couldn’t have been more poorly equipped for it. Did they lie? Maybe not. Maybe they just never figured anyone would want to post as much video as we do.

Still, the industry forges ahead and often, as we learned at DBW, in fascinating, creative ways that might make things easier eventually. One app maker is now not only making apps, but marketing---well, an app maker! And Vook, the mother of  all VeeBook  sites, is introducing the formidably named Mother Vook, a content management system that presumably makes it easier to produce VeeBooks. (On a large scale, one assumes.) Content management really isn’t our problem—it’s more of  a moment-to-moment crisis kind of thing. Like when the fake blood for the video turns out to be pink. I ask you—would a thing like that happen at DBW?

DIGITAL BOOK WORLD vs My World (Part II)

“Anecdata” was a  very large word at DPW. Not sure if it was meant to be derisive, but I loved it. I’m going to define it here, not as trying to prove something with anecdotes, but as learning from stories. Boy, did I pick up  some great anecdata.

My favorite story’s probably the one told by agent Steven Axelrod about his client, Amanda Hocking,  a 26-year-old from Minnesota who recently self-published her first ebook, promptly sold 45 copies in two weeks, then sent out some ARCS and sold 42,800 the next month. In six months she’s sold 250,000 ebooks.

You’ve gotta love Amanda. Smart cookie!

Then there’s Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty, who started her five-minute podcasts about run-on sentences and dangling modifiers as a hobby, and went from there to bestsellerdom. She even has her own app.

This one was kind of between-the-lines, but I remember looking at Jane Friedman’s plucky start-up website when the publishing giant formed her company, Open Road Integrated Media. I looked again yesterday and wow! Tons of books; TV and film deals; hot professional team. Very impressive.

So that’s the exciting world of digital books! Here’s my world:

Author:  I'm upset.  My book didn’t get any local coverage.

Me: Well, it’s far from over. It’s not like we’re competing for shelf space

here. Besides, the main book reviewer in town doesn’t read ebooks. Pretty hard sell there. But here’s the main thing—local coverage isn’t that important for you. Most of our marketing will be online.

Author:  Online?

Me: Well, it IS an ebook.

Author:  Really? ONLINE?

And it’s not like it’s only other people who haven't yet connected the dots. I’m wondering what, exactly, Amanda sent.  eARCS?  Sounds right, but that word “ARCs” just seems so…bricks-and- mortar. Maybe she had some printed up? Naaah. Couldn’t be. It WAS an ebook.

DIGITAL BOOK WORLD: Vs. My World (Part I)

For those who dwell  in the land of  P rather than E (that’s “P” as in print),  Digital Book World, held last week in New York,  is the summit of  electronic publishing and produced the latest word on it. Bet you didn’t know:

10.5 million people  in this country now have ereaders

10 million  have tablets

1/3 of people who have iPads  also own Kindles

$1 billion  was spent on ebooks last year

$1.3 billion  is the  2011 prediction

 There was lots of stuff like that, guaranteed to make some people think the world’s coming to an end long before 2012, as promised, but, according to a survey referenced at the conference, guess how Big Pub feels about it? Good!  More fun facts:

89% of publishing execs are  optimistic about the future

66 % think people will read more

74% say readers will be better off

46% think tablets will win over readers

85 %  now release ebooks simultaneously with print books

ebook sales will increase 139 times this year

by 2014 half of all sold will be ebooks—some say this yr or next yr

As was announced a few days ago, at Amazon, that's already happened there.

All this is what a CEO I know calls the view from 70,000 feet. Very heady indeed. But when I got home these questions awaited:

1. How do I sideload the ebook I just bought on the Kindle app on my iPad?

2. I'm trying to download my book but the message keeps popping up that

    the page can't be found.

3. From an etailer: Where are your TOCs?  (Umm—right there in the books?)

Is there a disconnect here?  Both our customers and vendors seem a bit fermished, and frankly,  on the rare occasions we're ahead of them, it's only by about half a step. Mike Shatzkin, one of the DPW organizers, did say the point of the conference is to talk about the problems technology causes businesses. But somehow, I don’t think this is the level of technology he meant. Do these kinds of things ever happen to Jane Friedman? More tomorrow.

HORRIBLE HARD-BOILED

 So there I was, reading one of my favorite thoroughly unrealistic fantasy “human” superhero tough guys, when what should befall me but a sentence that read roughly like this:

            “I got up that Monday and I put my wallet in my pocket, my butt in my pants, my feet in my shoes, and I strode out to the OK Corral and I blew six or eight miscreants from here to Mars and I sat down to a nice ham sandwich, and I washed it down with a Bud.”

            Okay, hard-boiled writers, I’m serving notice—enough already! I know it’s gotta be fun to strap your Glock to your laptop and pretend you’re some sort of cross between Hemingway and Chandler, but somebody’s actually paying you to churn out some halfway decent prose here. Could you just give the cheap theatrics a rest? Here’s the top reasons who no one should ever write a sentence like the one above:

 5. Nobody cares about the minute details of your detective’s toilet—everyone puts their wallet in their pocket and their butt in their pants.

4.     Strunk & White said, “More than one conjunction per sentence shall be punishable by the enforced reading of no more than eleven nor less than three 1930s cozies.”  Or they should have.

3.     Third-graders get flunked for failing to construct complex sentences.

2.     Boredom is no excuse for monkeying around on the keys. (That is, when you have a contract.) If you’re Joe Schmoe, do what you like, but if  you’re somebody like Robert Crais (and it wasn’t Robert Crais I was reading, okay?—that's just an example), you better flex a little writing muscle. I’m paying good money here.

1.     Sure it’s fun to watch those kind of silly sentences burble rhythmically over hill and dale, but that’s only if you’re the writer. If you’re the reader, here’s the problem: You’ve seen it before and you’ve seen it before and you’ve seen it before and you’ve seen it before.

         And you had to avert your eyes the first time.