Choosing the Best eBook Service

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“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” William Wordsworth. You have an idea for an eBook. You are certain that other people will be very excited to read it. Now you have to have it written and published.

There are thousands upon thousands of other eBooks that are on the market right now. Along with the expansive number of eBooks out there, there are also a huge number of eBook services that will provide assistance in getting your eBook to market. Of course, the first order of business is that your eBook is well written and interesting to the reader. If that is not the case, you will be wasting both time and money.

There are several issues to be considered when it comes to writing and subsequently publishing your eBook.

What is the purpose of your eBook?

The determined purpose of your eBook will help you when it comes to choosing which eBook service is the most appropriate one for you. You need to understand which market your eBook should target as well as which demographic you should choose. As you go through the process of considering the various eBook services, an important thing to find out is if the eBook services that you are considering have experience with eBooks in that particular niche market. If they do have that experience, they will be able to help you to market your eBook more effectively.

What to look for in an eBook service

  • Digital rights management: Techniques that don’t allow the user circumvention can potentially block the user from doing certain things with his or her eBook. For example, it may be impossible to pass ownership from one person to another person, although it is done all of the time with hardcopy books. There are available devices that are able to use the readers’ home phone to track what and how much they are reading, limit printing, and even alter the reading material. This actually limits the rights of the general public when it comes to distribution, sales and use of public domain material.

  • Production: Sometimes, eBooks are printed at the same time as the hard copy book. Many eBooks are produced from hardcopy books that are already in print. It is common to produce an eBook by scanning the original hardcopy book; sometimes the eBook is created by using a robotic book scanner, which is a device that quickly scans books without damaging the original print edition. Once a book is scanned, a set of image files is produced. Those files may also be converted into text format. On rare occasions, a book may be produced by manually keying in the text. It is not unusual nowadays for only the eBook to exist. In that case, if there is a desire for a print version of the book, it can be produced. However, those hardcopy books will usually be printed on demand.

  • Options for selling eBooks: In order to sell your eBook properly, you need to understand all of your options. You need to understand the different payment methods, delivery systems, and seller platforms that are available. You also need to offer your customers as many options as possible.

  • Delivery systems for selling eBooks: You also need to think about the possible delivery methods available once you have sold your eBook. The more automated the delivery process, the better for everyone involved. There are are many delivery method options available: via email as an attached file, although the drawback to this is that it is a method that requires a lot of human intervention.As the seller, you need to keep very careful track of payments and assurance that the eBook is sent to the correct buyer. If you don’t keep track of that, you run the risk of not receiving payments or the book not reaching the right person. The outcome is not good in either case: lost revenue or an unsatisfied customer. Another delivery option is to have your eBooks hosted on an online platform that will automatically deliver your eBook to the buyer after the payment is received.

  • Getting paid: To ensure a successful transaction (and one that allows you to get paid in a timely manner), you should choose the payment options that are the simplest, most convenient, and the quickest. At the same time, enough security should be provided to both the buyers and the sellers.You should offer as many options to the buyer as possible. Remember that the easier you make it for your customers to pay, the more books you will be likely to sell. You should offer an electronic payment method in addition to others. An easy way to accomplish that is to have a merchant account, an online credit card, and a bank payment facility.Please understand, however, that this option can be costly and time consuming for you, as the seller to operate and maintain. Additionally, the buyers may not find it secure enough. Another option is an online payment processing companies such as PayPal and Google Checkout. Both are low-cost services that allow buyers to make electronic payments directly from bank accounts and credit cards in a secure fashion.

First impressions of the eBook service

Your first impression of the eBook service is the one that you should generally go with. It is important to judge the service on its level of professionalism as well as its integrity. Depending on the size of the eBook that you want to have written, you will most likely be having a great deal of back and forth interaction with the service. After all, the ideas are yours and you will have hired the service to turn your ideas into reality. A good way to determine if a particular service is right for you and your eBook is in their response to your inquiry about their services. If the response is either grammatically incorrect or rude, that should be the end of that. If that is the case, it is a wonder that they are in business at all.

There are several good eBook writing services that you should consider when you are at the point of reaching out. eBook services provide a variety of offerings, including writing, editing, formatting, eBook conversion, etc.

  • AH Professional Writing Service: This is a writing service that has a great deal of experience writing in a variety of different industries. The company does extensive research before any of the writing begins.

  • Payloadz.com: This company sells downloadable electronic items, such as eBooks, digital art, articles, manuals, forms, and much more. They have an automated service that delivers the products to your customers as soon as payment has been received. They use PayPal and Google Checkout as payment methods.

  • Lulu.com: This company helps you to distribute your eBook. They offer an eBook wizard, which enables you to create an eBook with three simple steps. First, you upload your file. Next, you choose among several eBook options. Finally, you publish and sell your eBook.

  • Itglobalsolution.com: This is an eBook conversion service provider company. The company will convert your eBook from pdf, word document, hardcopy paperback, or any text format to eBook formats, such as Mobipocket and Microsoft Reader.

  • Blue Bird writing services: This company offers a large number of services, including eBooks, blog writing, article writing, web content writing, press releases, legal documents, journals, research papers, SEO copywriting, promotional marketing collateral, dissertations, and more.

  • ContentCustoms.com: This is a writing service that takes your ideas and turns them into a reality in the form of a book. They write everything from technical books, such as medical information, to novels. The writers do extensive research in order to do a perfect writing job.

  • Submitinme: This is an eBook distribution service. The company will distribute your eBook manually to the 25 top eBook websites where the most Web visitors go.

Conclusion

eBooks are a wonderful way to increase your online visibility and reputation. Of course, if you write an eBook but don’t promote it and/or distribute it, you have wasted a great deal of time and money. You need to think of your eBook as a tool that will help you to achieve greater success for your business. eBook services are valuable and you should take advantage of the one that is best for what you are offering so that the result is increased traffic and more interest in buying what you are selling.

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Author

  • Michael Cohn

    Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has decades of experience in IT and web technologies. Michael founded CompuKol Communications to help small businesses and entrepreneurs increase their visibility and reputation. CompuKol consults, creates, and implements communication strategies for small businesses to monopolize their markets with a unique business voice, vision, and visibility. Mr. Cohn earned a Master’s degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master’s degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

6 Responses

  1. Kevin McLaughlin says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Creative Designers and Writers
    Discussion: Choosing the Best eBook Service

    Hrm… With respect, I am not sure that the writer of this article knew what the heck he was talking about.

    The purpose of your ebook? OK, that matters for where you market it, but not for what stores you place it in. Amazon has 70% of the ebook market. B&N has the second largest, and is the ONLY other site on the internet with a double-digit percentage. Then Smashwords and iBook. And then…bunches of little sites that are almost irrelevant in how small their sales are.

    Put your stuff up on all of them that you can, sure. But…couple of hints:

    – 70% is the new standard for author royalties from an ebook publisher. If you are not being offered 70% (PubIt does 65%) or close to that, then ask what they are giving you in return for the extra they are taking. If they're taking 50%, and not offering a LOT of extra ads (paid by them) or doing your cover for you, or offering free editing with their package, or something else like that, don't sell there. They're a scam. I expect to see a lot of those.

    – Conversion is not expensive. Conversion takes about 15 minutes to an hour, on your home computer, using free software. DO NOT let someone charge you hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars for conversion. It costs whatever an hour of your time is worth.

    – Watch your rights reversion. When selling ebooks direct, you should always retain all rights. If a contract ever has you signing over any actual rights, question it. You may be simply seeing a good contract from a reputable publisher, but you may be about to get taken to the cleaners. Some folks are actively trying to buy up all digital rights for books, for a small advance. Once they have those rights, they owe you nothing ever again, and you can never sell your book again – while they can continue to sell it.

    I don't know why this author focused on second string sites. If you're just starting out, I would stick with the well known sites. Broaden your horizons as you go. But for starters, Amazon is the "must", just because they have so much of the market. And B&N, Smashwords, and iBook are important too. The rest are gravy you can add on top later.
    Posted by Kevin McLaughlin

  2. Walter Daniels says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: On Startups – The Community For Entrepreneurs
    Discussion: Choosing the Best eBook Service

    This is very helpful to anyone considering publishing an e-book. I would add that Amazon can also help. Barnes and Noble has also just started an e-book publishing service. Amazon and B&N all charge a commission, based on price, while handling all sales work.
    Posted by Walter Daniels

  3. Lakshman Bulusu says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Informed Ideas For Writers
    Discussion: Choosing the Best eBook Service

    A Great Article for a Great Audience! Great Indeed! Thanks. I would like to know how good is Barnes & Noble's PubIt! service, which I suppose is for e-book sale too? By the way, I am a self-published author of two poetry collections in English(print editions) as well as an author 6 technical professional books (one of which is an e-book) on database programming. Please let me know your thoughts as I have two more poetry collections that I would like to get them published and am considering PubIt for the same.

    Regards,
     
    Lakshman Bulusu
    Posted by Bulusu Lakshman

  4. Joanne Quinn-Smith says:

    This is a great blog post with wonderful information. Thanks so much for posting.   I might just add for do it yourselfers that you there is also a purchasable program just for writing and producting.  It's an E-Book publisher  called DeskTop Author, has anyone used it yet, any comments?
    Joanne Quinn-Smith

  5. Mara Colecchia says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Writers
    Discussion: Choosing the Best eBook Service

    I find it very difficult to find a serious company that publishes E.books. Most of them are not able to provide high quality or to advertise the product in the right way.
    I've found only a couple of companies that work very well, but for that reason they are full of submissions and have no time for developing all the projects they receive.
    I've developed three E-books but I have many other projects that I'd like to see coming alive.
    The self publishing is not taht interesting in term of revenues, since marketing the book is tremendously important.
    How do advertise self published E-books?
    Posted by mara colecchia

  6. Jessica says:

    This is a pretty good article! The best eBook writing service comes from a company that gives all rights to the customers, talks to them throughout the process and also incorporates feedback regularly. You missed one company in the list – Godot Media, that has years of experience creating variety of fictional and non-fictional eBook for the clients.