Even the funny papers have mentioned Kindle! You don’t suppose that means that the Kindle identity may one day be lost in the same way that Kleenex did with tissue?
I’m just about ready to jump onto the e-reader bandwagon (for reading), though I did make sure that there was a Kindle Edition of Fearful To Fearless available as more and more readers opt for e-books. I chose Kindle to publish the first e-version based on consumer acceptance and the sheer number of titles currently available, plus I’ve seen it in action.
With so many options for e-readers available I can’t imagine publishers or authors spending resources to customize e-book source files for each and every reader out there. Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers had a great post a few months ago where he compared several popular e-readers. As Michael mentioned in his post, it’s only a matter of time before the field is narrowed down to a manageable number.
I think price is probably the biggest factor that will draw consumers to the Kindle, that along with the sheer number of titles that are available make it a huge draw. Plus, I especially like the fact that there are compatible applications available for multiple platforms so you can reach a much broader audience. Amazon has made the Kindle format available to reach a larger audience by providing reading apps for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, Mac and PC.
Formatting the book for Kindle was a bit more involved than simply running your Microsoft Word version through a conversion program and submitting to Amazon’s digital text platform. I’ll try to outline the steps involved with creating the Kindle version along with some of the roadblocks I bumped into along the way in a future post.
Here is a link if you are interested in learning more about the Kindle Publishing Program and Amazon’s digital text platform as well as links to guidelines and how to get started.
The Amazon createspace is a program that allows authors and other artists to self publish and sell on Amazon. As an author as well as publisher you can also sign up for Search Inside that allows a percentage of your book to be viewed on Amazon.
An earlier post provided a few details on publishing through CreateSpace and Lightning Source.
