For my previous books, publishing houses have taken care of the design, production and distribution. For SAP Nation, I have had a chance to be much closer to those steps. I originally planned to only release it in eBook format. But in looking at reader demographics and interest, decided to also offer it in paperback and hardcover editions. This has given me a look at a breathtaking range of technologies that have revolutionized the varied book industry channels and formats. When you consider individual authors are one degree removed from all the resources that make these possible, Gutenberg surely is beaming from above at the democratization of the printing press. Over the course of a few posts, I will describe the technologies that have helped turn my humble Word pages into hyperlinked MOBI files, stunning covers and 1.5 pounds of airplane boredom-killers and strategy guides.
Let’s start with the Amazon Kindle platform. Book readers love how the device (and those like the Nook and others) have transformed the experience. Pack 5-10-50 books into something lightweight, have it read to you when you are tired, fast forward quickly to specific locations, magnify the font as needed, use its app on a PC, Mac, iPad or so many other mobile devices and it is smart enough to tell you where you left off on a previous device. Click on an endnote and you could watch, as an example, the Mad Money Jim Cramer interview of Bill McDermott referenced in Chapter 2. We all have our favorite features in our eReaders. Amazon keeps enriching the experience – you can loan copies to friends, you can buy an unlimited subscription and skim even more books.
The experience from the author side is even more interesting. As readers highlight sections they particularly enjoy, Amazon helpfully tracks them across the customer base (see on left).
The modern author gets that and even more specific feedback, positive and negative, from reader reviews. Think how long it took Hemingway and Kipling to get fan feedback.
The production assistance via its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform is even more impressive. Once you upload your mobi file, Amazon software “proofs” it to suggest where the aesthetics could be improved. It allows you to simulate the book as it looks on the UX of various Kindle versions, on an iPad, etc.
The distribution capabilities are even more streamlined. You get to identify global markets where you have distribution rights (see bottom). You get to price differently for each of its major sites like .co.uk, ,de, .in and so one. To encourage reasonable eBook pricing, Amazon rewards authors with higher royalties for reasonable pricing. So, in emerging markets that means even better pricing. In India, my book is priced at INR 399, a third lower than comparative US pricing. To protect authors from arbitrage, consumer IP address tracking precludes them from going to the .in or .br site unless they are in the region.
Gifting books is an absolute breeze and some thing I have used to share the final version with a number of contributors to the book. Enter an email address and a few minutes later the person half way across the world can start to read it. Other features allow authors to run promotional pricing campaigns, offer eBook buyers cheap versions of the printed versions, lots of reports, book and author pages and so much more.
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