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eBook Excerpt
From: Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-Books.
eBook Author: Alyice Edrich
Chapter One: What Is An Electronic Book?
I don’t know when the first electronic book was published or when it was sold. And to be quite honest, I don’t really care. It’s not important how electronic books got their start. What is important is where they’re headed and how we, as business owners and writers, can cash in on this new wave of selling and distributing intellectual property.
It never ceases to amaze me to see the look of bewilderment on someone’s face when I tell him (or her) that I make my living selling electronic books and freelance writing. The freelance writing, they get. It’s the electronic books they have trouble with. It’s as though they’re thinking, “Okay. Nice to know, but I have no clue what you are talking about. In fact, I don’t even know what an e-book is, and I don’t want to sound too dumb by asking. So if you can make money at it, more power to you!”
I guess I always assume that everyone, and I do mean everyone, knows what an electronic book is.
It’s about that time that I ask, “Do you know what an electronic book is?” If they say no, I give a brief definition and wait to see if they’d like to know more. If the definition peeks their curiosity, I can’t help but get excited as I share how this fantastic opportunity just fell into my lap and how it literally took me four years to really grasp how much of an impact it could have on my life financially as well as what it could do for my self-esteem.
So if you have heard about electronic books, maybe even seen a few floating around cyberspace or on a friend’s computer, or simply want a better understanding of what they are and how you can use them to grow your finances, then this is the book for you.
What Is An Electronic Book?
An electronic book, or e-book for short, is a book that is saved as a computer file and distributed via the Internet.
It is a book that is produced using special software (such as Adobe Acrobat) so that it can be transmitted from your computer and delivered electronically by automatic download or email attachment to a purchaser’s computer.
The purchaser can then open the file and view it on his computer monitor or print it out on paper to read. Electronic books can also be read with handheld devices such as a personal digital assistant, known as a PDA.
While electronic books have had their share of ups and downs, Open eBook Forum (http://www.openebook.org/), an international trade and standards organization for the e-book and e-publishing industries, says e-books have grown by more than 40% in the last two years alone. In fact, in many ways they are surpassing traditional book publishing!
What does that mean? It means this is a great time to take your idea of writing a book seriously. It means publishing your book in digital format is a very viable option. It means that electronic downloadable books are gaining huge favor in the eyes of consumers. And it means that if you have ever dreamed of becoming a published author, now is your chance to see your dream become reality. Traditional publishers have been known to snatch up great electronic books and turn them into profitable, top selling print books!
Electronic books differ from print books in the sense that they can be interactive. With a print book, you simply turn the page and read the text. Occasionally, you may encounter a print book filled with questions for you to answer and even an answer guide in the back of the book, but that’s as far as they go.
Electronic books, on the other hand, can be inundated with special features to make the book come to life. They can have animation, a searchable archive, non-linear navigation to take you directly to a certain page, hidden footnotes, active links to take you directly to a certain web page, and so much more.
While there are many high-tech programs one can purchase to make a book do more than just turn a page, electronic book publishers have learned that consumers do not want to pay several hundred dollars simply to read a book online (not at this time anyway). Therefore, many electronic book publishers tend to use programs like Adobe Acrobat which allows readers to read their books using Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader.
Writing an electronic book can be a challenge, especially in the area of discipline, but it can also be a very rewarding experience.
Selling an electronic book has many wonderful advantages, which we’ll discuss later, but for now let me give you just a brief overview of how an electronic book can help both you and the consumer.
Electronic book advantages include the:
- use of the latest technology,
- speed in which a book can be delivered to one’s home,
- ability to receive the most up-to-date information,
- ability to purchase a book written on a very defined topic,
- ability to print off another copy if you lose your hard copy, and
- effects it has on our environment: saving trees and cutting down on waste (a.k.a. filling up landfills).
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This is an excerpt from the copyright protected e-book, Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-Books. © Alyice Edrich. All rights reserved.
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