Introduction to e-books for Family History Writers

In the September 2012 edition of 'Ancestor', the magazine of the Genealogical Society of Victoria, my article on e-books introduces the various issues which a family history writer needs to consider before embarking on this form of publishing. The article was based on a talk given in May 2012 by Sylvie Blair of BookPOD to the GSV's Family History Writers Discussion Circle.

As genealogists, some of us are already familiar with the concept of an e-book, an electronic version of a printed book, perhaps without knowing it. When we search on Google for any available snippet about a forebear, we sometimes find mention of that person in a link to a Google book. These references usually come from old books which are out of copyright. The pages have been photographed as digital images and uploaded to the internet. It’s wonderful to sit before your computer screen, in the comfort of your own home, and read books which might have been written several hundred years ago.
Many of us much prefer to hold an actual book in our hands, turn the pages and smell the paper. But, whether we like it or not, e-books are here to stay. In the last quarter of 2010, the large online bookseller Amazon announced that e-book downloads had outsold paperbacks.
There is no longer any need to sit at your desk to read an e-book. Special portable devices make it possible to read e-books away from your computer screen. The devices try to create the virtual experience of reading a book and even simulate the action of turning the page.

Formats

The electronic data required to produce an e-book is compiled using one of the three formats currently dominating the market place. Mobi (PRC) and ePub are both ‘text flow’ formats, allowing the reader to resize the print size and font type to suit personal reading preferences. We take these features for granted when creating Microsoft Word documents, which use .doc as a file extension name. Mobi files are created with the file extension .mobi or .prc, and ePub documents use the file extension .epub. The PDF (Portable Document Format or .pdf file) is fixed (such as the old books found on Google books). These formats influence the reader’s experience of an e-book via the device chosen as an e-reader.

E-book Readers

Perhaps the best-known device, the Kindle, is promoted by Amazon. Using Mobi format, it has the advantages of being lightweight and affordable and is great for reading novels. Any book you purchase can be synchronised across five devices – Kindle tablet, other e-reading tablets, your mobile phone, your PC or Mac. However the Kindle screen is small and is not so great for non-fiction with images. Complex tables, and text formatted as two or more columns, are not supported. Colour, video and sound are not yet available. Fixed formatting (as when you create a PDF file) is not supported and file size is limited to 50Mb.
Increasingly the devices sold by Apple Computers are gaining popularity as e-book readers. Owners of Apple computers purchase what Apple describes as iBooks through iTunes, but they can only be read on iPads and iPhones. In other words, Apple forces the owners of an Apple computer to buy one of its devices as well. You cannot read e-books on your own Apple iMac computer. Owners of non-Apple computers can purchase an e-book through an account with iTunes but it will only download onto your iPad or iPhone, not your PC.
The Apple company uses the ePub format for its electronic books. This has the advantage of full colour reproduction and is great for all types of books. For example, you can view two pages of a cookbook at once, with the picture facing the recipe on the opposite page. It is interactive and provides weblinks. The iPad screen is larger than the Kindle screen. The ePub format is evolving to include video and sound. BUT Apple’s iPad has the disadvantage of being expensive and also has the problem of screen reflection.
The technology is evolving fast, along with the marketing gimmicks. Other e-readers include Kobo, Sony Nook and Pandigital (all using ePub) and Tablets include Motorola Xoom, Toshiba AT100 and Samsung Galaxy Tab.
It’s possible to print pages from e-book readers, usually via your computer to your printer, but the specific instructions for printing from each device vary and some book titles prevent printing and copying altogether.

Writers Beware

If you are contemplating publication of your book as an e-book it is advisable to consider your layout from the start. Don’t use columns and complicated layouts, just prepare your book in Microsoft Word or PDF, putting everything inline. For example, don’t put pictures with wrap-around text, simply insert a picture after pressing the enter key at a paragraph break point. Insert the rows for the title and source of the picture in the normal way.
The page size doesn’t matter, whether it be A4 or A5 or 6 by 9, as when converted to the various formats, each tablet will have its own configuration and text flow when viewing the text. Complicated graphics and fonts, as with the following introduction to a new chapter, may need to be converted into a single jpg file (as shown) to allow for text flow.

If you choose a complex layout for your book and save it as a PDF file, part of the document may be lost or ignored when it is converted to an e-book. However ePub3 now accepts fixed format layout.
Covers are much cheaper to set up than for a printed book, but the title must be easy to read, as the covers appear as thumbnail images in the ‘virtual’ online bookshops. The illustration demonstrates the need for the right cover, with the title and author printed in large format using colours, which stand out from the cover’s background detail.

Conversion

It takes one to two weeks to convert a physical book into an e-book. Fiction titles with no graphics take an average of five working days, but non-fiction with many graphics will take longer. Separate ISBNs must be obtained for a printed book and its electronic version.
A fee is charged to convert any document into e-book format, but savings are made on the cover and there is no need to invest up-front in a print run.
Increasingly, no printed version of a book is produced at all – only an e-book.
On average, once an e-book has been created and submitted for sale, it takes about two weeks to be made available through the various online bookstores. To retain your copyright and avoid digital piracy, e-books should only be sold through online booksellers who offer DRM (Digital Rights Management). For this reason, Google Books is not an option.

Royalties

All earnings are reported via a quarterly statement of sales.
Apple keep 30% of the RRP of your book, whether that RRP be USD0.99 or USD99.00, less any commission charged by an aggregator. An aggregator compiles all the necessary information required by retail giants such as Apple and Amazon in order to list your title. This means that you just have one account with one aggregator and that aggregator takes care of your listing and royalties, which are then reported back to you less any commission.
Amazon keep 30% of the RRP if priced under USD9.99. If priced over USD9.99 they keep 65% (less any commission charged by an aggregator). This incentive to authors to lower their book price is part of Amazon’s marketing strategy of offering the cheapest books.
Kobo keep 45% of the RRP regardless of the price of the book.
Other e-book retailers such as The Book Depository or Fishpond, which are linked with the distributor Lightning Source, also keep 30% regardless of price.*
Successful e-book publishing requires the same marketing effort as any other book, including the use of blogs, websites and Facebook to let the world know that your e-book is available.

Family Histories

Family history books may be less suitable as e-books than many other genres. They often feature complicated layouts, tables, charts, small print runs and the need to hand books down through the generations in a family.
If you are happy to give away your research for nothing, websites might be preferable as a means of distributing family histories electronically. Some family history information is already available via genealogical charts and biographical details uploaded to the internet – information which is almost too easy to upload, but much harder to correct when necessary, so the quality of such information is sometimes suspect.
With e-books we can expect the same access problems as with music and films. The devices currently available in the market place no longer allow us to play vinyl records and cassettes or watch videos. Likewise, rapid changes in technology will mean that an e-book will go out of print, just like a real book. To gain access in the future you might need to visit places like the National Library of Australia and the National Film Library to view the books on the technological devices they will need to keep.

* BookPOD [www.bookpod.com.au] acts as an aggregator for Amazon, Apple, Lightning Source and Kobo.