Shortcovers is excited to announce a new service – the Shortcovers Publisher Conversion Program. Publishers can provide us with their digital source files – PDFs, Quark files, InDesign, .doc, .rtf – and for a shockingly low fee*, we’ll convert them into ePUB files, load them up into Shortcovers and then give back the ePUB file so the publisher can send it off to other vendors who also accept ePUB files.
Basically, we wanted to make sure that no matter what size a publisher is, or how “digital” they felt they are, they can still get their books onto devices and into the hands of readers. Shortcovers wins because we love having more books to sell. Publishers win because they get an easy entry into the eBook space. Readers win because they get access to thousands of new titles they might not otherwise be able to read in eBook form. And it’s good for the eBook market as a whole because it encourages standardization and competition in this growing market. Good news all around!
(If your interest has been piqued already, contact conversion@shortcovers.com for more information. Otherwise, read on!)
For those of you who aren’t huge eBook-file-format fans, the eBook landscape has been a tangle of competing file formats for years — .lit, .mobi, BBeB — each one tied to its own device or software or service.
Shortcovers decided early on that we weren’t going to force publishers to support another format. And we didn’t want to support all of the weird and wild proprietary formats that are floating around out there, so we have standardized our eBook process entirely on ePUB. It’s an open, free, platform-neutral, reflowable format that works well on the web, on mobile devices, eInk devices — basically all of the places where readers want to read.
The response from publishers, especially larger publishers, has been fantastic and the files are rolling in by the thousands. But we were also hearing from a lot of publishers who want to sell eBooks but don’t have the resources to create .epub files themselves. Independent presses, regional publishers, literary presses — publishers who are producing fantastic books but don’t have the wherewithal or the time to produce the accompanying digital files themselves. We also heard from medium and larger publishers who are grappling with the task of converting backlist that they think would be a good fit for the eBook space, but are shocked by the fees charged by conversion houses to convert their source files to digital.
That seemed like a problem we could solve.
The Publisher Conversion Program is all set to go. If you’re a publisher with books you’d like to convert, send an email to conversion@shortcovers.com. We’ll send you back some pricing info and options and more information about the program.
(Find out more about ePUB here - http://www.idpf.org/specs.htm – but only if you’re really interested in technical specifications.)
* Yeah, you knew there would be an asterisk there. Conversion prices vary depending on the complexity of the book. Straight-up text books are the cheapest, while hyperlinks, images, scientific formulas, etc. all add to the cost. But we’ve looked around and as far as we can see, the prices we’re able to provide are excellent — up to 50% less than what a small/medium publisher would pay if left to their own devices.
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I don’t completely get this announcement. If Shortcovers supports ePub, why can’t I use Shortcovers books on my Sony Reader. Is it that you haven’t bought into the Adobe DRM? Whatever the case is, it seems silly to tout that you’re in favour of ePub, when people who use devices that read ePub can’d read your books. There’s an installed base of people who bought devices specifically for reading books, and Shortcovers doesn’t seem interested in selling to those folks.
Here’s my bet for how the future data is going to shake down: once we get some good analysis on who buys what, we’ll see that the people who buy Kindles and Sony Readers and CoolER readers and Foxit Readers and so on actually buy and read many, many more books on average than iPhone owners. Start selling to people who read. Please.
On the other hand, if I’m wrong and can now buy books at Shortcovers for my Sony Reader, please excuse my ignorance and show me how to do so. I’ll stop buying at the Sony eBook store right away and you’ll have a new customer.
David right on. Shortcovers listen to what this man is saying. Sell books to us who read. We are the ones who buy the ebooks. Especially now we can buy ebooks on a
whim. Make a book available and we will buy it. Currently I buy books from the Sony store, Fictionwise, eReader and whoever sells me what I want to read. So, if I could read my Shortcovers books (152 and counting) on my Sony reader I would be thrilled.
I agree with the above comments wholeheartedly. I was thrilled to see you supporting ePUB and I can’t figure out why you’re leaving eBook readers out in the cold. I have a Sony Reader and I really like the device itself, but the software interface with the Sony eBook store is just awful. Plus the store really caters mostly to the American market.
I’m an avid reader, as is my husband, but we live in an apartment and have no more room for books, so we thought eBooks would be the perfect solution for us. I already spend enough time working on my laptop and my mobile phone – I have no desire to read on them. I won’t support Shortcovers until you support the way I prefer to read my eBooks. Stop pretending you’re open and platform-neutral. It’s clear you’re not.
Why a proprietary format? Or rather, why charge people to get content into a format from which your application benefits?
Today, I can use a free Word plug-in to convert my text to MS Reader format. Thus, users are more likely to use MS Reader (and buy MS Reader content). If you make it a no-brainer to *produce* content for ShortCovers (via a free app) then there will be more reasons for people to *use* ShortCovers .