We know how important donations are to our book creators. This money is what lets them produce the books that we are distributing for free, so any time we can find a way to help our authors and illustrators get donations we will attempt to help them out. Their success is our success.

So to help maximize donations we are going to be adding, over time, a number of things to the books on our site. The first is going to be a back page to each book that explains how Sharing Books works, with links that take the users to the donation page for an individual book. That means that no matter how many times a book is emailed around, there is always a way for people to click a link and donate to our book creators.

This is the first of many new things coming to help our authors and illustrators find not only success in driving their brand and popularity, but also tap into alternative forms of revenue available to them.

Labels: features, marketing, money

Sharing-Books is an e-publisher so you know how we answered the question. However I think it will be of value to current and future authors pondering whether to e-publish or not, to share some of the reflections that led us to spending quite a bit of time and money building an e-publishing engine for children books.

First let me confess that I am a paper book fanatic. Our home (and our garage) is full of paper books. I love the smell of ink and glue that tickles your nose when you open a new book. It is just like when you smell that your favorite dish is in the oven. So if I love paper books so much, why am I an e-book publisher?

Simply e-books are inevitable. Paper books will remain with us for a long time but their importance will diminish. Fortunately for us we can look to the music industry to see our future. (Along with the cases of books in our garage you will find boxes of vinyl LP's.) Although many have resisted, no musician today would think of not releasing new music as digital files.

So as a writer and an illustrator you have to adapt to this new medium. First you must start by separating the content from the container. Your book, your story is the content and it is the part that matters whether the container is made out of paper or electronic bits and pieces. However this new container offers new and different possibilities even if we lose some of the features we are romantically attached to.

Some of these changes will be challenging, like how to promote your book. The music industry used to have quite a packaging surface with the LP to create eye catching covers. Then the packaging shrank by three fourths to the size of the CD cover, and now in digital format all you see is a thumbnail picture. There are numerous similar unexpected changes that will come as the book industry goes digital.

Let me examine the key changes that we have identified. Hopefully it will help you embrace this new way to publish knowing what to expect from your efforts as an author. As you will notice, many of these changes have to do with what we call removing the friction is the business model - making things happen much faster and at an insignificant cost. These changes will disrupt the publishing industry as we know it the same way that the music industry has been.

• Paper books have limited distribution due to geographical constraints like transportation costs or duties and taxes. E-Books are instantly available world wide at no cost. This means that if your paper book failed in a region it is unlikely that it will be offered elsewhere. On the other hand, your e-book can fail in one region and be immensely popular in another region at the same time.
• Paper books are made from dead trees and chemicals. Now that there is a more eco-efficient alternative, it is just a matter of time before paper books become an issue with environmentalists . While the electronic devices we use to read e-books do have a certain environment cost in their manufacturing processes and recycling, each device can hold thousands of books and therefore they are far more eco-efficient.
• Another environment element is that there is no wastage with e-books. Paper books require long print runs and often the unsold books are either liquidated as remainders with losses to the publisher, and hopefully they eventually get recycled.
• A paper book is passed from reader to reader one person at a time. An e-book can be passed from one person to hundreds or thousands of people at a time. Going from one to one to one to many means that the popularity of an e-book is achieved much more rapidly.
• While a strong person can probably carry 50 paper books, a weak person can carry thousands of e-books. We use to go to the library with our kids and come home with a pile of books. With e-books the entire library comes to you or your child.
• A paper book can be easily damaged and can't be repaired. Electronic devices become more rugged with each generation and if you damage one you can easily replace your e-books in a few minutes.

By now you should see the irresistible efficiencies offered by e-books. Paper books will not disappear but their relevance will decline. Like any transition to a new technology this change has some challenges that must be pondered and planned for.

• Your first challenge as an author publishing an e-book will be the resistance of the industry. You will not be recognized as a "real" writer by older paper published authors or publisher. Many will cling to their status and put down this new technology that threatens the status quo. Accept it. You won't change them. On the other hand with e-books you might have the joy of Andrea Azevedo, our first author, whose two young sons exclaimed "Mom! You are famous! Your books are on the Internet!"
• The most difficult change to adapt to and to understand is how this affects copyrights and piracy. Physical media like vinyl or paper offered much greater protection for your intellectual property. The music industry has tried everything it could to protect digital files with software referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM has failed. There has not been one version that was not been rapidly broken by hackers who took pride in their feat.

At Sharing-Books we decided to offer the books without DRM and to accept that this is now a fact of life. We simply need to create new business models that take advantage of the speed of distribution of e-books. We plan to have the books sponsored and if a book is copied and emailed a thousand times, it simply means more value for the sponsor. Some of you will be scandalized at the idea of sponsoring a children book. However, we are talking about sponsoring not advertising, something that is done for every play you attend. You will also find it interesting if you shop for antique children books to find many that were sponsored in the same fashion a hundred years ago.

• E-books present different challenges for illustrators. They will likely be read on a screen that does not offer the same resolution as paper. Colors will be displayed differently depending on how a reader has set up his/her screen. The screen sizes will vary greatly. From PCs with great screens to black and white e-readers to cells phones and to gaming devices. You will find e-books everywhere. Our job at Sharing-Books is to make our authors e-books available on as many device types as possible. The illustrator's challenge will be to draw in a way that is flexible and adaptative.
• E-books present different opportunities. Paper children books sometimes have pop-up features or pull features that work for some time and then are usually damaged by the children. E-books will offer more flexibility for the creative mind. Click on the cow in the picture and see information about cows or hear the cow moo. We are excited to see what our creators will come up with.
• E-books can become paper books. On demand printing will be the norm and the reader will be able to customize the printed copy. No waste and a great marketing opportunity.
• E-books offer great opportunities for teachers. E-Books are free or at least they save money. The majority of teachers end up spending their own funds to supplement school materials. As we advance Sharing-Books will be able to offer teachers tools to integrate books, questionnaires and lessons in coherent programs that will use the capabilities of the devices the children use to read.
• E-books offer great opportunities for students. E-books are free. Voracious readers will never run out of material to read.
• E-books are much easier to convert into formats friendly to the visually impaired or the learning challenged.
• E-books' world wide and free accessibility will help bridge the knowledge gap between developed and developing nations. This means that we will also have better access to literature form authors from developing nations and that they will be able to benefit from their exposure to developed nations markets. This will be the literature version of free-trade coffee.

We do not have complete answers to all the changes described above but we prefer to see them as opportunities for imaginative solutions and innovations.

Already after only a few months in business, we have seen one of our authors Jennifer Poulter come up with the idea of the one page book. Jennifer collaborates with illustrators to create poster-poems that can be downloaded and printed by teachers who get an instant vocabulary lesson for their class. Jennifer received a number of testimonials from enthusiastic teachers.

We have a number of our own innovations in development but we are anticipating that our authors, illustrators and users will continue to come up with great ideas - many better than our own.

Indeed the answer to the question to E or not to E, is to E.

Labels: children books, content, e-books, marketing, publishing, reading