Ebooks and EPUB

"To ebook or not" continues to plague many self publishers. Most everyone agrees that ebooks are having a great impact on the book publishing industry. Aptara, an industry-oriented research company, conducted an extensive survey related to ebooks and book publishers in general. The following points, drawn from the survey, are of interest to the self publisher.

• Most ebooks are distributed through the book owner's website.
• Using an owner site results in the publisher missing major ebook distribution channels such as Amazon, Apple iTunes, etc.
• Ebook reader-compatibility is the biggest challenge.

Related to the challenge is an industry-wide move toward using an ebook format known as EPUB. Placing one's ebook in that format means the book can be read by all/most ebook readers currently on the market.

If you are grappling with the issue of format for your ebook, check out EPUB. A free Microsoft Word-to-EPUB converter can be found here.