How important is it to protect the copyright on this material?

If this is important – and, believe it or not, it isn’t to all publishers – you’ll want to make sure that the material is encrypted to protect your digital rights. Some people point out that anyone can make and distribute photocopies of a printed page, too, but the ability to attach an electronic document to an email and send it to 100 of your best friends is far easier. It’s also one of the things that have held back publishers’ interest in ePublishing. HTML and text documents are easily copied. PDF documents, Rocket eBook and Microsoft Reader files offer you flexibility in this area: you can choose whether to encrypt the material or not.

How important is maintaining consistency with the printed version’s appearance?

Consider the benefits and tradeoffs of having your electronic material look just like its printed equivalent. If this is important to preserve graphic placements, etc., PDF is likely the best choice for you. HTML, XML, text options, Rocket eBook and Microsoft Reader all are formatted differently.

Can this material be broken into sections and sold “granularly”?

If you publish directories or other materials of which just parts would be of value to readers, you might want to consider what is sometimes called “granular ePublishing.” Not only is it often better for customers, but it is also possible to make more money by selling your materials this way. It also can be a good way to avoid competing with your traditional sales channels.

One good example of this is the Audiobook Title Locator, a joint project of the Audio Publishers Association and R.R. Bowker. In its printed form, this annual is known as Books on Cassette and costs more than $200. Finding only those audiobooks by a certain author, publisher or reader isn’t easy. Yet in the online edition, purchasers can buy one search, 10 searches or a one-year subscription. Although this sort of material is usually delivered in HTML format, copyright infringement is difficult because each listing must be accessed individually.

Would aspects of this document be more valuable if they were interactive?

Johnny Hamilton of Construction Trades Press is preparing his books for electronic release in Adobe PDF format, but he doesn’t want them to mirror the printed document. “It has to be interactive, or how can I charge them as much as for the printed version when production costs are so much lower?” he asks. “The electronic version is much more valuable if people can click from the questions in the front of the book right to the answers in the back of the book. I might also offer glossaries, in which users can click right to the definition from within the text.”

Hamilton points out that a publisher also can link to Web sites for current information, reducing the need for printed revisions. “It’s a very similar dynamic to a Web site, in which you’re creating a community and you want people keep coming back,” he said.

What is the economic impact of offering books in electronic format?

Along with the many ways to produce and offer eBooks come wildly varying costs and prices. Producing electronic versions of your book can vary from nothing to several hundred dollars, depending upon the complexity of the project and the way it is going to be offered. There are several sites offering eBooks that will convert at no charge -- in exchange for 40 to 60 percent the purchase price.

Unlike printed editions, once the material has been converted, however, there are no additional printing costs. That – and competition – has driven many publishers and sites to offer books at a 33 percent discount. Others charge the same price as the printed edition. Some sites do not charge for conversion but take a 50 percent cut of each sale from their site.

Do I want to sell from my own site or someone else’s site?

Many of the ePublishing services require sales from their sites. You can easily link to those sites, or you can sell from your own if you prefer to maintain control of your intellectual property. While he also has his eBooks listed at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders and the BookLocker, Wayne Perkins of Hypnotism Education Publishing also sells his electronic reports and books from his own site at www.wayneperkins.net.

“[People] come looking for information about hypnotism, which is what my site is all about,” he explains. Visitors pay for the materials, then Perkins ships them by attaching them to an email message.

BookZone offers the option to sell from your own site with the setup of your own payment, delivery and sales reporting system, with or without digital rights protection, and a 16 percent or 7 percent fee per download, respectively. Like any business decision, it behooves each publisher to “work the numbers” and determine the feasibility of offering each format.

How does ePublishing relate to Print-on-Demand technology?

Print-on-demand (POD) is a technology that may indeed have greater impact on the publishing industry than electronic publishing. Interestingly enough, the “front end” for POD is the Adobe PDF format, which is currently the leading ePublishing format. Although the settings must be adjusted somewhat for optimum presentation in print or in pixels, the synergy reduces the learning curve – and costs – for publishers.

Can I use ePublishing to test product viability?

As ePublishing develops, this question arises frequently. Compared with publishing printed material, producing an eBook is so cost-effective and quick that many authors and publishers are drawn to publish electronically first, then go to print as volume increases. Wayne Perkins was able to take this approach with his hypnotism books. When he discovered that people were visiting his site to read about how to hypnotize other people by a three-to-one margin, he created an eBook called How to Hypnotize People and Other Living Things. “Between December 5, when I put the eBook on my site, and January 6, I had 100 orders for that title from my site,” says Perkins. “There is no other publicity for that title.” Although his new book on publishing eBooks, A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-Publishing eBooks, is doing very well at Barnes & Noble, sales at the Barnes & Noble site for the hypnotism title are modest. Perkins has promoted his site heavily as a source for information about hypnotism, however. Indeed, promotion is no less critical for eBooks than for printed ones.

Popularity in electronic format will indicate overall interest in your information, but a lack of eBook sales may not necessarily suggest that a book wouldn’t sell in printed or even audio editions.

Are there any other benefits of ePublishing?

When computers first became popular, there was much talk about how they would save paper. Now, of course, we know they did quite the opposite, prompting people to use more paper than ever! ePublishing, however, does offer real hope of saving resources. As an example, consider Stephen King’s recent eBook release: 400,000 copies of about 60 pages each (not including a much heavier paper stock to produce a full-color cover) means that, in its debut on the Internet, the eBook Riding the Bullet saved more than 24 million pages in its first 24 hours, which roughly equates to 6,700 trees. With the rapid disintegration of rain forests worldwide in the last half of the twentieth century, eBooks offer an attractive, environmentally conscious alternative in helping to create and maintain a better-balanced natural world.

Although ePublishing is still new territory for many publishers, it won’t be long before purchasers will be able to browse a book “automat” from which they will buy the format that works best for them. Just as movie studios now decide whether to initially release a film into theatres first then into video, straight to video, or to television, publishers will have many options for serving their customers. That’s good for publishers, authors and readers.

Author Mary Westheimer is CEO of BookZone (www.bookzone.com), the largest provider of Internet hosting, design, development and promotion services for the publishing industry. BookZone offers granular and full-document ePublishing systems, including digital rights protection. For more information, contact BookZone at epub@bookzone.com and 800-536-6162 (480-481-9737 in Arizona).