The revolution of ePub3

Technology is changing at such a fast pace that sometimes it is very difficult to follow the technology. Generation first eBooks were very simple and were limited to text only. It was good for fiction books or the books that only contain text in it. This is equivalent to the websites that only contain text and a few images at the beginning.

These days’ publishers are looking to add more features into their eBooks like adding media types adding sound, images, videos for better explanations, animation for attracting kids, mathematical formulas in their eBooks. The IDPF that created the EPUB standard has now published the EPUB3 standard too. Although there are many similarities with the two and this ePub3 is also compatible with ePub2 but it has its own standards too.

Special features of ePub3:

• It uses HTML5 for multimedia files for providing better support.
• CSS3 is used for advanced graphic layout and designing.
• It supports SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) for creating graphics that can be adapted easily to the screen of different sizes.
• It supports JavaScript.
• It supports animation.
• MathML is used for mathematical formulas.
• Supports Media Overlay to enable talking books and assistive technology.
• Better supports for right to left languages such as Hebrew Arabic and Japanese.

 These points are just to highlight the features but the inner structure of standard ePub3 is much more advanced as compared to the previous one. The new standards for ePub3 were approved by IDPF in October, 2011. However it has been a year but the readers still are not able to support the standards completely.

Is it important to get ePub3 when everything is present on the web or convert to ePub3?

People are also right when they say that why we need to buy ePub3 when everything is available on the internet. But personally I feel that there are a number of reasons why there is a need for ePub3.

Let us have a look at the 3 main reasons why you need ePub3 or ePub3 conversion:

1. Sometimes the web connections are not available or they are too expensive that you can afford. For example if you want to read when you are travelling and there always remain a network problem when you are travelling by air or by train.
2. Limitations with the bandwidth. If a class of more than 20 students is trying to access the same website it would be very difficult to access the same website and you won’t be able to open the book you want to read.
3. When information is present on the web server it is up to the owner of the server to make it accessible for the readers and if the owner takes the server down, you won’t be able to access the information anymore.

When you download a ePub3 eBook, you owe that book and can do whatever you like with the book. This is something that you cannot do with the books online.

Which are best Printed books or eBooks?

People are fond of reading. They love reading books. Technology now has changed the trend of reading. Earlier the books used to be in a printed format written on paper. But the modern world has turning to ebooks and conversion to eBook i.e. the digital books that you can read on your smart phone, laptop, iPad or other smart devices. Everybody has their own interest and reading preferences. With the traditional publishing, authors complaint for slow response. It can take months, or years, before being rejection or acceptance.

Writers want their work to be shared with others. That is what it is all about. Obviously it is good when that sharing involves fat checks. eBooks offer you great amount of checks than traditional books. Like every coin has two faces, same is the case with eBooks and the traditional books. Let’s have a look on the positive points and negative points of both the book formats.

Positive side of eBook publishing:

• Your book is published in electronic format
• Higher royalty rates
• No reserves, No returns to speak of
• More control over your edition and presentation of the book
• Get paid timely and fairly
• Longer availability
• The ground floor of technological advances
• Wider exposure to the English-speaking world with the help of Internet exposure
• Non-exclusive rights available
• Short term contract
• A more close interaction with the publisher
• Opportunity to publish books that do not fall into "traditional" genres
• Book available twenty-four hours a day in most cases
• You can even get your eBooks printed if you want to get them readable on hard copies

Negative side of eBook publishing:

• They offer usually no advance
• Exposure to only those topics that are related to computers and Internet access
• Unless you ask for print outs, no print copy is available
• Copyright infringement concerns
• Lack of acceptance by traditional public
• This is a bit expensive and marketing and publicity are likely to be out of pocket
• Technology and prices of available eBook readers

Now we will talk about the Positive side of Traditional publishing:

• You can get the payment in advances
• It is easy to advertise your book
• Promotion and marketing becomes very easy
• Full Copyright protection
• Professional editing can be done

The negative side of traditional publishing

• Needs to struggle for getting the royalties
• It gives high reserves and returns
• Short shelf life
• Loss of additional rights
• Less control over your book. You cannot edit it your way
• No Exclusive rights
• Long term contracts

Generally, electronic publishers have a much faster response time although with the amount of submitted manuscripts increasing in last few years so the turnaround may be longer.

All About eBooks and Their Conversion

The specialty of an eBook is that its pages are easy to read and can be downloaded on a number of devices that have different screen resolutions. All over the world, the authors and publishers keep themselves busy in writing and publishing a number of books, which actually makes them proficient with eBooks.

With the availability of so many formats and devices, it often becomes too difficult to make a choice for the book to eBook conversion. There are many publishers who use Quark, some use InDesign, etc., while there are many authors who use word processing programs like Apple Pages, Microsoft Word, and so on. There are some very

popular eBook conversion formats that are used by the authors and publishers worldwide:

• ePub Format: This is widely accepted as a reliable eBook format, and is supported by a number of readers like Nook, Kobo, Sony, iPad, smart phones, and all. Authors are enjoying a variety of styles and fonts through this format, and are creating the best of eBooks.
• Kindle Format: Mobipocket eBook file is a file with the MOBI file extension. eBooks in MOBI format are required by the Amazon Kindle readers, and you can see the preview of the final eBook on Kindle eReader or Kindle app before you submit them for sale on Amazon. People prefer Kindle as it supports graphics, images, and colors, and can put certain limitations when it comes to layout and font styles.
• Fixed Layout eBooks: This is suitable for books that have tables, graphics, and other such formatting. You will see this one like your printed book. Some examples of this format are the text books, business books, picture books for children, etc. and is supported by Apple, Kindle Fire, Kobo, and B&N.
• PDF Conversion: This stands for Encapsulated Portable Document Format and works with a majority of eReaders. It delivers a smooth reading experience as compared to the PDFs.

The conversion to eBook is strongly affected by the complexity of the books. Non-fiction books are said to take more time than converting fiction books. Also, there are many that take a lot of time for getting converted because of their images and graphics. eBooks comprise of a professional ePub design, an easy table of content, and an embedded copy of your book cover.

Know what is making the Authors Successful

Standard eBooks have been designed to help the authors and publishers make sales through electronic books. They make the books easy accessible and easy to read on a variety of devices. Readers are downloading eBooks on their devices with different size variations and screen resolutions.

All eBooks are not created in the same way. Publishing books is a problem for the authors and publishers, specifically those who publish their books themselves. Fiction and non-fiction books and other such variations in the type and theme of the books, may be a problem for publication. There are many authors and publishers who rely on the software that convert their books from word to Kindle automatically from Adobe InDesign, Quark, Word files, and others.

You may often face many problems while publishing the books. These may be badly formatted text, missing page breaks, typographical errors, table of content, etc. that contribute to publication errors. Also, such issues spoil the fun of the books and drive readers away.

How is This Conversion Fruitful?

Your readers are more and more demanding the electronic version of your books. Since they own iPad and iPhones, they want to read your books in new formats like eBook for Kindle, for iPhone, and more. To meet with the rising demands, Amazon announced the launch of Kindle that would speed up the launch of new Kindle eBook format.

The recent Kindle format 8 is the good news for authors who publish books with many images and graphics. These pictures, layout, and the front cover of the books hold a lot of significance. Kindle conversion should ensure that the images are converted properly to maintain the charm of the books. However, it is always best to optimize the pictures and reduce their size. This is important for the Kindle format conversion, because here the authors are required to pay according to the size of their books. So it is always beneficial to have smaller files.

Once you have completed writing your books, the next step is to convert it in special formats that are used by Kindle and other eBook readers. In the present era, when people are seeing the growth of the internet, this is the best time to get your printed books converted into electronic format.

The markets are seeing increasing sales in the eBook readers and so the competition is getting fiercer. All such formats are HTML based, which is the same format that is used for preparing web pages. There would be people, who would advise you to convert your books into Word, through which you will get a book that will work effectively on Kindle and other such devices. However, you won’t find it professional enough.

Digital media has taken over the print media, and this has led the authors convert their books. Through this they are grabbing more readers and are increasing the sales of their books.

eBook conversion have become the most widely used medium of distributing books to the readers. Through the internet, the publishers are reaching a wide range of audiences by converting their printed books in the digital format.