Electronic Publishing Explained
By Bob Power
An eBook is basically a document in the form of web pages that are put
together, using special software, which is released in the form of a file
that can be downloaded onto your computer's hard drive. Many people may
think it is no different than a web site, but there are important differences.
You may happen upon a site that is offering a free eBook download you
are interested in. When you actually download the eBook you are downloading
an ".exe" file, which is the most common format. Some eBooks are also offered
in PDF format as well. When you double click on this file it then opens
the main page, which is in HTML, web page format. There may be many pages
included in the eBook but you cannot access them unless you open the eBook
itself. When you download the ".exe" file that is all you see until you
activate it by clicking on it. From the main page the author gives you
access to what they want you to have access to.
One important feature of an eBook is that you can choose to not allow
printing or copying. This may be very important to you if you have material
that you want to protect. You may have written a book on "How To make A
Waterfall Mirror" and give the reader snippets of the book in your eBook,
but you don't want them to be able to print or copy any of the material.
Not that the material is completely safe, after all there are people out
there that are going to copy or steal your work if they get a chance, no
matter what steps you take, but it gives the reader the idea that the information
is valuable to you.
On a web site, to get the some of the same protection, you would have
to include directory or page protection on your site and have the visitor
register for a password, which many will not. Then even if they do register,
they may loose their password or not come back at all. If you don't know
much about CGI scripts or how to set password protection through your server's
control panel then this becomes difficult, unless you can afford to hire
someone to do it for you. Even with that once the visitor is into your
site, using a password, they can still copy as much of the material they
want. With the eBook, once you set the "No Copying" and "No Printing" option,
the reader would have to actually copy the material by typing it out him
or herself. This offers more protection for your material. One of the challenges
of a web site is keeping the visitor on it as long as possible so that
they find something that they are actually interested in. Even if you have
material that the visitor is genuinely interested in, many things can happen
that may cause you to loose that visitor forever. The power may go out
while they are on your site, they forget to bookmark your site, they may
get distracted and shut the computer off, etc. With the eBook, once downloaded,
the information is on the reader's computer until they decide to delete
it. I've come across eBooks and files that I have downloaded months before
and forgotten about but have stumbled across on my hard drive while searching
for something else.
You can even set the eBook to include an icon on the reader's desktop
to remind them to read your eBook. If the reader sees your icon each time
their desktop loads you may get a few more visits, maybe even a sale or
two.
You can include links back to your site, or any other site in the eBook
to direct the reader to more information or to a sales page. Keeping with
the same idea above you may want to have a page on other woodworking or
fountain books for example that goes to Amazon.com or to other sites. You
may have affiliate programs that you are associated with that you can earn
commissions from any sales resulting from people clicking through from
your eBook.
You can have your readers personalize it themselves. People get excited
when they see their name on something. Most eBook software allows you to
setup the eBook so that people can actually put their own personal information
in the eBook, and give it away themselves on their web site. This is called
"Regrinding". If you see a free eBook download and it states that you can
"Rebrand" it, that is what it means, you can personalize it. You can even
run your own affiliate program and have others personalize the eBook and
have the opportunity to earn some money. That's a great incentive for people
to advertise your products or services.
We will have more information on how you can develop your own eBook,
distribute it, run your own affiliate program and have others selling your
products and services in later articles.
In conclusion eBooks maybe seen by some as just glorified web sites
but in fact with the option of protecting your material, the ability to
allow others to personalize it, and the chance that viewers will add it
to their desktop and view it at a later date, eBooks give you much more
flexibility in your online business marketing efforts.
Read more articles by this author, about this and other subjects, here.
About The Author
Bob Power has been an Internet entrepreneur for longer than he would
like to remember. He is currently on a voyage of learning, thanks to his
readers, who have asked him to answer questions about topics they want
more information on. You can see some of the surprising, and at times exciting
results, and variety of topics and paths this has taken him on, or to contact
Bob Power please click here.
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