Want to publish a book? You can either kill a bunch of trees, or get with the 2010s and publish it as an ebook.
If you haven't noticed already, ebooks are no longer a niche market. As of June 2011, ebook reader adoption had reportedly hit 25 percent in the United States, with the market growing at a phenomenal 169 percent year over year. Today, most new releases are being published in ebook format.
An ebook can provide your small business a real competitive advantage by giving you instant credibility and visibility in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, the ebook sales market is fragmented. Publishing an ebook means working directly with numerous companies, each with its own formats, rules, and quirky systems. While Amazon is the clear leader, both Apple and Barnes & Noble have solid user bases for their respective devices. Industry watchers generally believe that Amazon holds about a 60 percent share of ebook sales, while Barnes & Noble has 30 percent and Apple claims the remaining 10 percent, with a smattering of other services filling in the cracks.
As a budding publisher, you will need to prepare your book for at least those three platforms. I'll walk you through the process here.
