eBooks

What is an ebook?
An ebook is an electronic version of a physical book that can be read on any number of dedicated ebook readers, computers or mobile devices. The best known dedicated ereaders are Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader, but there are many others available, including the Nook and Cool-er. Mobile phones and PDAs are also becoming popular for reading ebooks on through applications such as Stanza and Adobe Digital Editions.

Ebooks are available in different formats, the most common being ePub (a non-proprietary format), Adobe’s Digital Editions PDF format, and Amazon’s Kindle, the latter two being proprietary formats. Apple’s iPad launch in February 2010 was seen as an important milestone in the ebook market as it expected to kick-start what to-date has been a relatively small part of the books market.

New ebook readers and mobile platforms are being launched at a fast rate as the market is seen to mature by both device manufacturers, software developers and retailers.

Creating ebooks
Different ebook formats are created in different ways. There are two main forms of ebook: reflowable (where the text reflows with a different size screen), such as Kindle and ePub formats; and fixed (where the text retains its format and does not reflow as the screen changes), such as Adobe’s Digital Editions format. The reflowable ebook formats are best for novels and books with few illustrations or photographs, where text can reflow according to screen size. The fixed format is best for books that have a lot of graphical content or tables.

Books with complex layouts that must be retained or essential colour elements are often not suitable for conversion to ebook format. Ebook technology is developing all the time, but at present most ebook readers display in black and white only, and complicated layout information cannot be retained in ebook format.

Depending on the ebook format that is required, the final typeset files that were used to print a physical book need to be converted into one of a number of digital formats. Usually this involves conversion from Print File > XML > HTML > ePUB, Kindle or another final format. The ebook files must then be tested on the target ebook reader (Kindle, Sony Reader etc.) to check that the ebook displays and behaves as it should. Conversion and verification of ebooks is a complex task usually carried out by specialist companies. Matador ebooks are created for us by several different suppliers, depending on format.

Matador publish ebooks in ePub and Kindle formats for novels, and in Adobe Digital Editions format for books with graphics. ePub is the most widely-used non-proprietary ebook format, with ePub books being readable on nearly all ebook readers and mobile devices (and on Apple’s new iPad). Amazon’s Kindle uses a different format, and creating an ebook for Kindle involves a separate conversion process to that for ePub, but as Amazon is the leading ebooks retailer we shall also be making this available to our authors.

Ebooks must have a different ISBN number to the physical book, so our conversion process includes the allocation and registration of the ebook with Nielsen BookData, plus a separate entry on Matador’s website which is linked to the physical book.

Ebook distribution
Ebooks are sold online through both dedicated ebook retailers like Kobo and general books retailers like Waterstones.com and Amazon. Ebook files have to be placed with numerous different suppliers to ensure they are available from a wide range of retailers. Matador has accounts with all the major ebook distributors to ensure that our ebooks are widely available both in the UK and overseas.

We also have accounts with a number of the major independent ebooks retailers. They are also available through elibrary distributors in the US and UK. When Apple’s iBook store is up and running, we shall also work to ensure our books are available through that route as well.

Matador’s website will not be selling ebooks direct, but we link through to either Waterstones.com or Amazon.com. This is because of the complexities of adding Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the point of sale.

Distribution channels are constantly evolving in this relatively new area, and we shall ensure that our books are available to as wide an audience as possible. Other than for selected retailers, it is currently impossible to ensure that all ebook retailers will list a title.

How does ebook distribution work?
We place our ebook files with the distributors and retailers direct (where applicable). In doing so, we control the Digital Rights Management (DRM) features, which essentially ensures that anyone who buys an ebook cannot simply then give it away to others. A DRM protected ebook can only be read on an ebook reader or device registered to the purchaser. As with physical books, we receive sales information from the distributors and retailers, and log this onto our authors’ accounts. Royalties are paid to authors every three months.

Ebook pricing

There is much debate within the publishing industry at present as to what ebooks should be priced at. Some believe that they should be the same price as a physical book, others that they should be virtually given away. We tend to take the view that an ebook should be about 30% cheaper than the equivalent physical book, so we price our ebooks accordingly.

Author royalties
With so many different retailers taking varying percentages of an ebook’s sale price, and in many different currencies, it is impossible to list all receipts from all retailers. We thus make a flat payment to authors of 80% of the net receipts from all ebook sales.

How much does it cost?
We currently only offer ebook conversion and distribution to authors who have published a physical book with Matador. This add-on service is offered as an option to Matador authors at the following rate:

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