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In this article, I’ll introduce you to the exciting world of eBooks, specifically the ePub format in regards to Apple’s new iBookstore, but much of the same information applies to other devices and online stores.

With all this hype surrounding the iPad, Kindle and other eReaders the world of electronic publishing is now more accessible than ever. With the new iOS 4.0, the iBooks application is available for the iPhone and iPod touch, further increasing the reach of your eBooks.

Digitimes is estimating sales of eReaders in 2010 to be greater than 11 million units. To put that in some sort of perspective, there was an estimated 36 million netbooks sold in 2009. While these eReaders won’t be overtaking desktops or laptops any time soon, it does represent a very niche opening in the market. The types of people who are buying eReaders are the types of people who like to read and more importantly, buy books. With 11 million+ customers it makes sense to directly target these potential customers with your content.

Creating Your own eBook

If you don’t know anything about how to create an eBook, that’s OK, there are several applications for both Windows and the Mac which can help you to quickly get through the process and generation of ePub files from your existing content. You have no excuse not to be exploring the eBooks possibilities.

Under the hood, an ePub file is basically a zipped-up set of XHTML files and a few XML files to describe the table of contents and where to find the XHTML. Joe Clarke wrote an excellent article on the topic of “HTML isn’t just for the internet”. So your years of HTML knowledge is transferable to creating ePub files.

If you’re not that comfortable with HTML, that’s OK, there are apps which can help. These are just a few examples of WYSIWYG editors. You can type or paste in existing text, do some quick formatting such as bold, underline, italics, headings, etc. Then save it all into the ePub format suitable for publishing.

• Sigil – http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
• Calibre – http://calibre-ebook.com/
• eCub – http://www.juliansmart.com/ecub

These programs are quick and easy ways for you to get started dabbling in eBook creation. Once you dig into the process you’ll find that there are some obvious limitations with the format. Different eReaders implement different aspects of the ePub format.

eReaders are Different

All eReaders work slightly different, some have screens that are only black and white, their screen resolutions vary and physical sizes are all over the map.

This means that you don’t have absolute control you do in print, infact, you probably have even less control than in HTML. With HTML, an absolutely positioned element left: 0 and top: 0 is definitely in the corner of the browser window. This isn’t always the case with eReaders because of the application chrome.

Platforms

We can look at the same book, Alice in Wonderland, available on several different eBook readers and dedicated applications.

The Classics App is a dedicated application with a fixed list of books available. You cannot add more eBooks into it, but as a stand-alone application has a very minimal user interface.

Free Books is another dedicated application which has a list of free books that you can download. The UI is pretty sparse and can only be read in portrait mode. There is a large list of books to choose from, but you can’t add any of your own.

Stanza app allows you to import your own eBooks and purchase them from many popular online stores. This is a screen shot of the iPhone version, but there is also an iPad version. As you can see, there is no UI chrome during the reading experience, you just tap on different thirds of the screen to turn the pages or activate the menu.

Apple’s iBooks application allows for both portrait and landscape reading. You can add your own eBooks via iTunes, but it has the faux book chrome which cannot be removed.

Amazon’s kindle application can import some formats, but not the standard ePub format. For this screenshot, the chrome is exposed. During reading, most of the UI buttons disappear for easier reading. It is also possible to read both landscape and portrait mode.

As you can see, the variety of styles, colours, fonts and designs used just to display a book is pretty varied. This opens the door to whether you should be creating a dedicated application for your content or sell it as an ePub file.

Your Content as an App versus an eBook

There have been several successful printed books that have been turned into eBook applications. The Alice application in Apple’s app store takes the classic tale of Alice in Wonderland and adds a layer of interactivity.

It has been called “a sort of pop-up book for the 21st century”, which describes it perfectly because, how many pop-up books do you own? Several of the Dr. Seuss books have also been converted into eBook apps. They are simply replicating the fully illustrated book, page for page in the app. No interactivity, but no eReader app chrome, just the original, classic drawings.

Pros & Cons

Developing your eBook as an application has pros and cons. The first major downside is that you are limited to the number of platforms it can run on. If you spend many, many man-hours developing an application like Alice which takes full advantage of all the different sensors, then porting the same book to different devices loses some of its functionality. Not to mention your app can only be sold in the countries that have App stores. And on top of all that are the restrictions and issues with Apple review process.

The obvious up-side of an application is that you have much more control of the experience and can avoid the native eReader chrome. The ePub format is a subset of XHTML and CSS, so the possibilities, while large, are not capable of the same full experience of a native application.

The major advantage of an ePub format eBook is that you don’t need to learn a new programming language like Cocoa or commit to a single platform. The ePub format works on most of the major eReaders (with the exception of the Kindle). So the same .epub file can be sold across different devices via different sales channels.

Reflowing Text

You can also reflow ePub data. Text can easily be increased or decreased and the font changed and the eReader handles the changing layout. This is not possible with an Application by default, nor with other formats such as PDF files. The dynamic rotating and reflowing of text in portrait or landscape mode is native to eReaders.

Ultimately, your goal is to making money from your hard work and content, so you need to balance all the issues and select the option that will best help you achieve your goals.

How to Sell It – Two Different Roads

When it comes to trying to sell your creation, the app route or the book route are two very different roads. With the app route, you need to join the Apple developer program at a set yearly fee or $99USD, choose your price and collect 70% on each sale. This is the only way to get your application sold to Apple customers’ devices. There is no legitimate way to sell your app independent of the Apple App Store.

With the eBook option, there are many more possibilities. Apple has an equivalent store for eBooks. If you are with a major publisher this is handled for you. If you aren’t, then it’s more difficult, but not impossible to get into the Apple iBookstore. Publishers such as Lulu can put your eBooks there, but they take a cut.

Depending on your needs and how much effort you want to put towards the project, this might be just fine. It also appears that Apple itself is starting to open-up and allow individuals with a US Tax ID to submit their books directly to the iBookstore. This might make it easier for self-publishing efforts to avoid losing a percentage to publishing houses and keep more of their hard earned cash.

Unlike apps which are compiled for a specific platform, you can sell your eBooks via any existing channel and your customers can upload them to their eReaders.

iBooks & iTunes

The iBooks application syncs with iTunes. Therefore, you can drop any .epub file in iTunes and it will be imported for reading into iBooks. This means that you can sell the ePub file on USB flash drive, on a CD or even as a digital download.

By connecting with other services such as PayPal, your customers could be buying your eBooks online directly from your own site and you can keep a larger chunk of the sale. You do lose the promotion of being in the Apple iBookstore, but the margins are higher, so it becomes a trade-off.

For a small, community focused book or industry report, selling it online as an .ePub file via your own website might be the best way to make the most money.

Get Writing

When the blogging phenomenon exploded, it allowed people to express themselves online in a way that was previously impossible. At no point in history had it been so easy for anyone to speak their mind and to publish to the masses freely without requiring permission, lots of money or a contract from a third party.

We are currently deep in the next extension to this, microblogging. Sites like Twitter allow quick short bursts of content to be deployed to those same masses which consumed blogs and other online content. We are now just beginning to see the next wave.

As the trend is moving from long blog-length content, to shorter SMS-length content, the eBook has an uphill battle for your attention, but at the same time, it has never been easier for an individual to publish quality, book-length content and get paid for it.

All the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place: a quality screen for viewing text, smart devices that allow downloading of additional content, online digital book stores and easy payment systems. Put all of these aspects together and the opportunities to sell eBooks has never been better.

At this point, you know about all the tools that are needed to create your own eBooks and sell them online. You just need a good idea and to start writing. So what are you waiting for?