Publisher Corner
eBookHands realizes that the digital books industry is in transition and most publishers are trying to catchup with changes in industry. eBookHands has collected some information on how to evaluate quality in eBook conversion, the various types of formats that are available in the market, some common e-books sales statistics and questions being asked frequently by publishers on the process of e-book conversion.
Quality in eBooks eBook Formats eBook Statistics
Quality in eBooks
eBookHands team realizes that as an author or publisher you are handing over your most important property to us and the reading experience and brand of your publication rests on making sure that the e-book quality is of the same standard that your print book has been. eBookHands team has spent thousands of person hours maturing a lean digital conversion system that carefully verifies each possible mistake that can happen. It is important that you consider the ebook conversion standards being followed by your conversion partners. Following is an outline of our General and Device specific standards.
General ebook conversion standards followed by eBookHands team are in the category of:
- Spacing Standards
- Line Spacing
- Paragraph Spacing
- Number Spacing
- Image clarity standards
- Table of Contents
- Footnotes
- Chapter Title
- Drop cap
Device Specific Standards followed by eBookHands team (example)
| Sony Reader | Amazon Kindle |
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Formats Sony Reader reads .epub formats |
Formats Kindle reads .mobi formats |
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Table of Contents Sony Reader renders the TOC as a separate entity |
Table of Contents Kindle rends the TOC as a part of the book |
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Images Sony requires PNG, JPEG, GIF, and SVG are supported for image types. |
Images Kindle accepts the images which are in JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG format. |
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Footnotes The footnotes link to the page where the note is placed. |
Footnotes Footnotes link exactly to the note where it is located. |
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Numbering Numbering and bulleting to be given manually |
Numbering Numbering and bulleting to be given manually |
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Special Characters ( other languages ) Unicode is required, and content producers must use either UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding to support international and multilingual books. |
Special Characters ( other languages ) Kindle does not render non-Latin characters. Letters in other languages have to be embedded |
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Spacing Forced line break has to be given after every paragraph. |
Spacing Line break is not required after every paragraph |
eBook Formats |
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The history of e-books maybe short but like any other disruptive technology, it has gained a lot of momentum where many organizations have developed or patronized one format or the other. Following table gives a snapshot of all the major formats that can be read on various digital book readers.
| Format | File Extension | DRM Support | Image Support | Sound Support | Interactivity Support |
Word Wrap Support |
Open Standard | Book Marking |
| Plain text | .txt |  |
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| HTML | .html | |
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| EPUB (IDPF) | .epub | |
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| Mobipocket | .prc, .mobi | |
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| Kindle | .azw | |
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| eReader | .pdb | |
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| Broadband eBook | .lrf, .lrx | |
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| Microsoft Reader | .lit | |
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| Multimedia EBook | .exe | |
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This table lists the major formats and the ebook devices that they can be read on.
| Format | Devices | DRM |
| Mobi | Mobipocket Blackberry, Symbian, Amazon Kindle | From retailer channel onto device |
| ePub (open source) | Adobe digital, Sony, Nook | |
| Fast adoption | Bookworm, Linux devices | Multi device through Adobe Content Server |
| eBook PDF | Adobe digital, PC reader, pocket devices | Multi device through Adobe Content Server |
| eReader/PDB | iPhone, iPhone touch, Macs, pocket PC, PalmOS, PC reader | Native DRM |
| Microsoft.LIT | Windows OS based devices | Native but easily cracked |
| BbeB | Old Sony devices | Dropped by Sony |
eBook Statistics |
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If you still want to read up more information on the eBook industry. Following information may assist you with your decision making.
- In the UK Publisher Association estimated eBook downloads at £85m in 2008
- In the US the Association of American Publishers reported net eBook sales of $113m in 2008. In 2009, the sales total an astounding $165million reported from just 15 publisher for wholesale statistics. Latest information is available at the IDPF site - http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm
- Citigroup™ estimated 550k Kindles sold in 2008: latest estimates suggest 1m Kindles sold by summer 2009
- Japanese press reported 300k Sony readers sold by end of 2008
- Stanza free eBook reader for iPhone had 1.3m installs and 3m eBooks downloaded prior to purchase by Amazon™
- Amazon™ says that Kindle sales are 48% of total for books where a Kindle version is available
- Forester™ research predicts eReader sales in the US to total 3m in 2009 with Amazon™ taking a 60% share and Sony™ 35%
