Hi all
Thanks very much for some really useful thoughts & ideas. A quick summary, below:
Sheila Price pointed out that as a publisher it's very hard to get a publication priced as free on the Kindle store, but there are a couple of things you can do to try to game that (publish free elsewhere & wait for amazon to price match, offer it free for limited periods). Sheila also pointed to Smashwords, which allows you to reach multiple ebook retailing systems
https://www.smashwords.com/
Zak Mensah has an excellent checklist of things to think about when creating an epub here:
http://www.zakmensah.co.uk/category/100-things/
On alternative platforms...
Sheila also mentioned Scribd which offers a subscription model
http://www.scribd.com/
Paul Vetch pointed to the Public Knowledge Project's Open Journal Systems, a workflow tool for regularly or occasionally published content.
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
Philip Carlisle mentioned Leanpub, which also supports workflow, and allows you to publish work in progress
https://leanpub.com/
Sabastian Dyer and Tijana Tasich both suggested Issu, which takes PDFs and presents them in a browser-friendly reading format.
http://issuu.com/
... and Josh Rice suggested that maybe we ought to look beyond traditional publication to services like Medium
https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48
Thanks again!
Danny
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sheila Perry
Sent: 02 May 2014 12:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Free publications and platforms for ebooks
Hi Danny,
I have a few years' experience with publishing novels on Kindle and on other digital marketplaces, although not as part of my day job, I hasten to add! (I mostly use a pen-name so this is not an advertisement) In my experience it is impossible actually to set a price as 'free' for Kindle directly as the minimum price is 99 cents, but *if* Amazon find it is available elsewhere for free then they might price-match it to free if they feel like it. I have one novel which is 'perma-free' and it is almost always free on Amazon although occasionally they will randomly revert it to having a price for a few days - this happens about once a month on amazon.com and less often on amazon.co.uk. The best place to publish to achieve price-match is Apple but Kobo can also work.
Discoverability seems to depend on various factors, although a new freebie should attract at least some attention.
Hope this helps! Things may work differently for non-fiction, obviously, and if the museum had its own publishing company then probably some sort of deal could be struck.
Best wishes,
Sheila
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Birchall, Danny
Sent: 02 May 2014 12:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MCG] Free publications and platforms for ebooks
Hi all
Does anyone have any experience working with free (museum) publications and ebook distribution platforms?
We're producing a free publication and I'm keen to get past the 'a downloadable PDF is available' stage both for device-based reading experience and also for reaching potentially larger audiences. The publication will be for a (fairly) specialised audience, but we'd also like it to be widely available.
Is it easy to get a free book into the Kindle store or onto iBooks (and is discovery a huge problem)? What other platforms are there?
All experience & advice very gratefully received & happily summarised for the list.
Thanks in advance for your help & enjoy your long weekends!
Danny
Danny Birchall
Digital Manager, Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Trust
Gibbs Building
215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK
Tele: +44 (0) 207 611 8894
email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
www.wellcomecollection.org<http://www.wellcomecollection.org> / @ExploreWellcome
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