Panel: Not Your Father's Textbook: EBooks and Self Publishing

1. Not Your Father's Textbook:
Ebooks and Self-Publishing
Mike Qaissaunee
&
Gordon F Snyder Jr
2011 ATE Conference

2. What does the future
look like if we don’t
move forward with
technology?

4. Some2007 - Amazon Releases Kindle for
History - Kindle
•Nov 19,
$399
• Amazon Kindle, Year 1: 523,678 e-readers
sold (probably)
• February 10, 2009, Amazon announced the
Kindle 2
• Amazon announced the Kindle DX on May 6,
2009
• Fire - Android-based tablet with a color touch
screen announced on September 28, 2011. It
costs $199 and has a 7-inch IPS (in-plane
switching) display

5. More History: Apple Launches iPhone
• January 2007 -
Jobs Unveils at
MacWorld
• July 2007 - Sales
start in US
• November 2007 -
1M sold in US and
sales start in
France, Germany
and UK

6. • Launches April 10,
2008
• Download
programs (Apps)
for iPhone and iPod
Touch
• Almost 500,000
Apps are available
today (~1/3 free)

7. New iPhone Versions and Devices

8. Where Are We Going?
• The prices of various eReaders are on a downward curve,
ensuring that a significant number of consumers will be able
to afford these devices in the near future.
• eReaders encourage paperless reading, thereby curbing the
need to cut down trees for making paper. This way, it can be
argued, the devices help in the preservation of forests and our
environment through the non-use of ink etc. The eco-friendly
nature of eReaders will be a key driver in their future growth.
• Government backing of eReaders, particularly in education,
will add significant push to their popularity. Former Governor
Schwarzenegger’s decision to put all Californian text books
online was simply the first move of many in this sector.
[Source: YUDU Media]

9. File Formats
• Minimally, should support:
–PDF
–GIF
–JPEG
–PNG
–BMP
– ePub
–TXT

10. 10

11. 11

12. Blurring Lines…..
• What is a “book” anyways?
• In February, Borders teamed up with a service called
Bookbrewer.
– provide a simple service that allows bloggers or anyone else
with an idea to publish what is effectively an e-book and get it
distributed through all the major e-book platforms.
– Service allows writers to upload their content — which can
be any length — set their own suggested price (within the
boundaries set by such e-book retailers as Amazon, Apple, and
Borders itself), then publish an e-book in the open ePub
format that can be downloaded for the iPad, the Kindle, the
Kobo, or any other e-reader.
– Service has two tiers. One costs $89.99 and gives authors an
ISBN, the universal book-tracking number used in the
publishing industry. The advanced, $199.99 package also gives
authors a master ePub file they can share or upload wherever
they wish.

13. Blurring Lines….. continued
• In a similar move, Amazon last year launched its Kindle
Singles program, which is also designed for publishing less-
than-book-length writing online.
– designed for pieces between 10,000 and 30,000 words—or
between 30 and 90 printed pages (about twice the length of an
article in The New Yorker or several chapters of a book).
– The company Is looking for submissions from outside the
traditional publishing industry, including from —serious writers,
thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians, and
publishers."
– IIf you have an Amazon account, you can publish a book. See
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing page.
[Source: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2010/tc20101015_865569.htm]

14. Big Publishers Shifting (Cengage Learning)
Worlds largest publisher/aggregator
-products: reference, e-books. databases, DVI (digital vault initiative), Portals
(aggregation of content by topic area)
Evolution
Print -> Digital Collections -> Online Databases -> Portal Products
Portal Products are curated/refereed articles (by Cengage staff)
Digital Curriculum
-Custom curriculum solutions that support schools and districts as they
transition to the delivery of more digital content in the classroom.
Most portal content now is text and audio - primarily reference material. Intent
is to enhance this with additional multimedia content.
14

15. Discover Education Digital Textbook (Sample Business & Implementation Tech Model)
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/administrators/curricular-resources/science-techbook/
Features: Student Resources:
•Teacher Resources •Leveled Reading Passages
•Printed Teacher’s Guide •eBooks with Audio Support
•Lesson Plans •Spanish-Language Reading Passages
•5-Minute Preps •Interactive Science Simulations
•Hands-On Activities •Hands-On Labs and Activities
•Best Practices Videos •Video Library
•Assignment Builder - Video Segments
•Assessment Manager - Full-Length Videos
•Virtual Lab Teacher’s Guide •Interactive Glossary
•Companion DVD •Assessments
•Trainer’s Toolkit - Unit Level
•Professional Development - Concept Level
- Brief Constructed Response
•Take-Home Review
•Assignments
Content includes a very wide variety of media types (including mobile)
15

16. Some Readers

17. Amazon Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051QVESA/ref=sv_kinh_0

18. Barnes and Noble Nook
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp

19. Sony Reader - 3 editions
Pocket Edition Daily Edition
• 5" Full Touch Screen • 7" Full Touch Screen
• 12 Dictionaries • Wi-Fi and Free 3G
• Two Week Battery Life • 22 Days Battery Life
• Up to 1,200 Books • Up to 50,000 Books
Touch Edition
• 6" Full Touch Screen
• 12 Dictionaries Cons
• Audio/MP3 Capability – Limited collection of titles available
• Up to 50,000 Books at the Sony bookstore.

20. Kobo eReader Touch Edition
• Kobo is Borders partner
• Wi-Fi
• $129.99, ships in July
• 1000 books, expandable up to
10,000 with 32M SD Card
• Books: EPUB and PDF
• Documents: PDF
• Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and
TIFF
• Text: TXT, HTML and RTF
• Comic Books: CBZ and CBR

21. iRiver Story HD
• first e-reader integrated with the open
Google eBooks platform, through which
you can buy and read Google eBooks
over Wi-Fi.
• retails for $139.99, is slim and
lightweight with a high-resolution E Ink
screen and a QWERTY keyboard for
easy searching. It includes over-the-air
access to hundreds of thousands of
Google eBooks for sale and more than
3 million for free.

22. Apple iPad
• 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit
glossy widescreen Multi-Touch
display with IPS technology
• 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132
pixels per inch (ppi)
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic
coating
• Support for display of multiple
languages and characters
simultaneously
• Wi-Fi + Wi-Fi/3G models
• 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive
• Accelerometer
• H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames
per second
• Location based services

23. Apple iPad
• Pros • Cons
– Portable - smaller than a laptop, – Cost and ongoing data
with connectivity options that are plans for ebook reading - up
similar.
to $830 + monthly 3G.
– Can use any existing iPhone
app. (although this is simply – Usability (on screen
scaled up and can look odd) keyboard versus real
– Uses a 1Ghz new Apple chip. keyboard) - there’s a dock
– 10 hours of battery life. (very with a built in keyboard sold
good versus a laptop, very bad separately to negate this.
versus a Kindle) H.264 video – Heavier than a Kindle.
up to 720p, 30 frames per
second
–Apps!!!!!!

24. The App Economy

25. Apples Are Not The Only Fruit

26. A Few Other App Stores
According to Gartner, about 90% of app downloads in 2010
came from Apple's App Store. App Store's main competitors
are Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, Research in Motion's
App World, Microsoft Marketplace and Samsung Apps.

27. The “App” Economy
Can an app be a book or..... maybe part of a book..... or maybe
a book can be an app??

28. App Stores
Total Apple Apps Approved: 629,767
Total Available iPhone Apps: 434,252
Total Available iPad Apps: 147,758
Total Available Mac Apps: 7,610
Source: http://148apps.biz (1/31/11)

29. Who Buys?
• Median age is 33 for mobile media users
• 40% are female
• For mobile games the median age is 31
• 50:50 male:female split
• Average person downloads 21 apps over
life of iPhone (free and paid)
• 11 are games
Soure: Comscore

30. Most Important Category - Top 25
• Paid apps profit between $12K and
$22K per day
• Top 25 free apps will average >20K
downloads per day
• 54% of free apps have fewer than
1000 users so they cannot sell
ads and don’t make money.
• The average app is used ~30 days

31. • Puzzle game launched in
December 2009 by Rovio Mobile
(Finland based)
• Over 12 million copies sold @ 99
cents
• (12 million)*(99 cents) = $11.8
million
• 70:30 split
• Affordable • Developers: $8.316 million
• Entertaining • Apple: $4.776 million
• Easy To Use
• Developers have kept game
“fresh” with free upgrades.

32. Opportunities

33. XNA Development

34. iOS Development

35. Android Development

37. Back to “Books”.....
Interactivity

38. Synch’ing

39. Why e-books?

41. EPub Files
• The ePub format is an open standard used in
many different devices to display books,
newspapers and magazines. This format, unlike
PDFs, is designed to flow; that is, content is not
laid out on set pages with a set layout. Instead,
pages are created by the device dynamically.
This is what allows e-readers to change things
like font size on the go.

42. EPub Files
Devices that use ePub files include:
• The iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, via iBooks.
• Android devices, via FBreader
• The Nook
• Sony Readers
• The Kobo Reader
• Any Windows, Mac or Linux machines, via a
number of programs.

43. Creating EPub Files
Export from word processor:
• Pages
• InDesign
• OpenOffice (download ePub generator plugin)

44. Creating EPub Files
Creating from scratch:
• Sigil (can also repair existing ePub files)
• tutorial
• eCub
• more at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-
multiplatform-tools-create-ibooks/
• http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/
how_to_create_epub

45. Creating EPub Files
Converting from another format:
• Calibre
• e.g. Word to ePub
• supports conversion to many formats
• more at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/calibre-
ebook-management-synchronization-software-
multi-os/

46. Creating an iPad e-book
• the iBooks app supports electronic documents in
the PDF and EPUB formats
• To get these documents on to your iPad, just drag
them to your iTunes library and they’ll be filed
under Books in iTunes’ Source list.
• Once they are you can select them for syncing in
the Books tab that appears when you connect
your iPad to your Mac.

47. Creating an iPad e-book
• three hours to learn the basics of making an ePub
book and put together a basic mockup using
features, essays, image galleries and fiction from the
site, and then copy to my iPad to test
• Calibre can convert from ePub to the mobi format
used on the Kindle
http://shareable.net/blog/i-made-an-ipad-ebook-in-one-
weekend-and-you-can-too

49. How to Publish a Book
on Kindle
1. Create an Amazon account. Go to the Amazon
site Digital Text Platform
https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin?
ie=UTF8&ld=AZEbooksMakeM
2. If you have an Amazon account, you will
already be eligible to publish through
Amazon's Digital Text Platform.
Read more: How to Publish a Book on Kindle | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4912995_publish-book-kindle.html#ixzz1ALo3OHer

50. How to Publish a Book
on Kindle
Thoroughly edit the book you want to publish
through Kindle.
4. Format your book. You can upload books as:
• Adobe PDF (avoid - formatting issues),
• Word file,
• plain text file or
• HTML document.

51. How to Publish a Book
on Kindle
Upload your book to the Digital Text Platform.
using the built-in dashboard (You don't have to
publish right away. You can upload a book and it
will remain on your bookshelf in draft form until
you are ready to publish).
6. Use Amazon's template for writing a blurb for
your book, entering author information and
book pricing.

52. How to Publish a Book
on Kindle
You can publish your book with the click of a
button when you've uploaded your book and
filled out all of the information pertaining to the
publication. Your book will appear on Amazon
within 72 hours.
8. Use the dashboard to keep track of sales and
to add more books.

53. https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

54. More on Calibre
• free open-source utility
• can convert from a wide variety of formats (CBZ,
CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF,
MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB,
TCR, TXT) to a not-quite-as-wide variety of
formats (EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB,
PML, RB, PDF, SNB, TCR, TXT)

55. More on Calibre
• can also
• rescale font sizes,
• detect and create chapters and tables of
content, and
• grab metadata (title, author, description, and
cover image) from the Web.
• Can also use Calibre to sync converted e-books to
your connected iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

57. Publishing on the
iBooks store
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/
iTunesConnect.woa/wa/apply
Application: select books from the dropdown list
Once you click continue, you'll see instructions/
requirements and a link for a list of Apple-approved
aggregators
Here's a support document - Best Practices:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4168

58. Publishing on the
iBooks store
Technical Requirements:
• An Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5 or later
• At least 1 GB RAM
• QuickTime 7.0.3 or later. This is so you can encode
and deliver content using our dedicated software.
• At least 10 GB of available hard drive space (more
for larger catalogs) is recommended.
• A broadband internet connection with an upload
rate of 128 kbps or faster is recommended.

59. Publishing on the
iBooks store
Content Requirements:
• ISBNs for all titles you intend to distribute
• Able to deliver book content in EPUB format, passing
EpubCheck 1.0.5.

60. Publishing on the
iBooks store
Financial Requirements:
• A U.S. Tax ID. Anyone (including non-U.S. residents) can
obtain a U.S. Tax ID by phone, fax, or mail. If you don't
have one, request one from the IRS.
• A valid iTunes Store account, with a credit card on file
• Apple does not pay partners until they meet payment
requirements and earning thresholds in each territory.
You should consider this before applying to work
directly with Apple as you may receive payments faster
by working with an Apple-approved aggregator.

61. Publishing on the
iBooks store
Alternatively, use an Apple-approved aggregator.

62. Loaning a Book

63. Self Publishing
http://issuu.com/mikedepalma/docs/instructionalmaterials/1

64. Self Publishing
http://www.blurb.com/

65. Self Publishing
http://www.lulu.com/index.php

66. Innovation

67. http://dotepub.com/

68. Instapaper Demo
http://www.instapaper.com/

69. http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/24/would-you-like-a-49-
electronic-college-textbook-with-lifetime-updates/

70. http://www.businessinsider.com/amanda-hocking-2011-2?
utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Business+Insider
+Select&utm_campaign=BI_Select_022811

71. http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/03/09/0618234/Crime-
Writer-Makes-a-Killing-With-99-Cent-E-Books?from=fb

74. Issues?

76. Contacts
Contacts:
Michael T. Qaissaunee, Co-PI ICT Cdnter
Brookdale Community College
Lincroft, NJ
Blog: q-ontech.blogspot.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/mqaissaunee
! Email: mqaissaunee@brookdalecc.edu
(732) 224-2879
! Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. Executive Director / PI
! ICT Center@ Springfield Technical Community College
Springfield, MA
Blog: ictcenter.blogspot.com
Twitter: twitter.com/gsnyder
Email: gordonfsnyder@gmail.com
(413) 539-8900ex