Proposal for a new Google product: Book count

For sponsered books, proof how many downloads

[jetteroheller]

I am just writing my second book.
I am just searching a publisher and develop ideas.

When I offer my web content for free, financed by Google AdSense,
why not something similar with the book?

Maybe I find some companies to advertise in my book.
Maybe some sort of contract, 5 Cent per copy downloaded.

But how to proof how many dowenloads by real people?

What company could provide a better service than Google,
when it comes to the question, download by real people?

BTW what forum here is for ebook publishing?

[eddieh]

Take a look at Amazon Kindle publishing. Amazon are crying out for Kindle publishers and it seems there is a lot of money to be made.

I have been reading and clueing myself up just recently about Kindle publishing. The idea is to take the contents of some of my existing niche websites, rewriting and updating the content and converting them into ebook form for Kindle. If you already have one book written, might be worth publishing it in Kindle format and listing it in the Kindle store on Amazon. Nothing to lose but plenty to gain.

[jetteroheller]

My first book has some problems at the conversion to PDF.
I wrote it 1992.

I just started to test Kindle on my notebook and my Android cell phone.

[explorador]

Nice idea, just proposed that to the company related to X project...

I made test using html, word and direct export from Indesign (via kindle plugin). I have better control over the content and format with Indesign export. HTML has potential (I mean having control over it impacting the result), there is a command line tool you should try.

On the other side, Apple released a freeware tool to allow people creating content for IPAD, it offers more interactivity and facilities than the rest of tools, only available on MACOSX...

[jetteroheller]

I took a look at Amazon Kindle pubplishing.

So I downloaded from [pdftokindle.com...]

The conversion was a total disaster, the result are some fragments of my text.

It's not small failures, it's nearly nothing to see on Kindle what was origingal in the PDF.

How do You convert from PDF to Kindle?

[Rosalind]

Maybe I find some companies to advertise in my book.
Maybe some sort of contract, 5 Cent per copy downloaded.

But how to proof how many dowenloads by real people?

What company could provide a better service than Google,
when it comes to the question, download by real people?

I can't really see how Google could intercept that relationship in order to make money. So why would they do this?

[eddieh]

>> How do You convert from PDF to Kindle

Although I have never used it, there is a free (donation-ware) program called Calibre (calibre-ebook . com) which can convert between and to various formats. The program says it can do PDF to MOBI format amongst many others and there are versions for Windows, Linux, OS X and Portable.

[jetteroheller]

Thanks, just tested Calibre. Nearly the same sort of disaster like
pdftokindle.com

I write my book with Scribius 1.4.0
I use lines and shapes in Scribus.
This all is very good in the PDF, it's like expected.
But the PDF does not convert like expected to ebook.

I can not understand, what the ebook format should bring, when PDF is a perfect solution.

I have Kindle installed on Windows 7 and Android 2.3.5.
Both Kindle installations show my book perfect.

I have Acrobar Reader installed on Windows 7 and Android 2.3.5.
Both PDF Reader installations show my book perfect.

And there is also this IRS 30% upfront for authors not in the USA
I am from Austria and should take a US IRS number?!?
30% up front for a small author, while Rommney pays only 15% from his millions income.

[jetteroheller]

I can't really see how Google could intercept that relationship in order to make money. So why would they do this?

Google takes 33% for bringing ads to Your web site.

Why not take some 5 to 10% for having an identity service

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

And there is also this IRS 30% upfront for authors not in the USA
I am from Austria and should take a US IRS number?!?

It's my understanding, and I am not a tax expert, that you don't need a U.S. tax number, Amazon does. The 30% is tax on books sold in the U.S. and it does seem excessive for nothing of value in return.

You could always make the download available on your own website and accept payment there but getting your name out there as an author would be more difficult. Another option is to approach a publishing house whom will also take a cut but they will then deal with all of the promotional and sales hassle for you.

[piatkow]

But the PDF does not convert like expected to ebook.

I imagine that it works like DTP software for print media and deconstructs the PDF. The dedicated format is to lock ebook owners in to the ebook supplier.

I looked at making my print magazine available as a download but at the moment I can't justify the time and expense after whatever service would deliver it takes their cut.

[explorador]

jetteroheller, I get you are trying to work a way out FROM your original PDF... is that right? if so, then I could tell you, the pdf might be the problem. Why? many times the text doesn't follow a line by line, specially if images are inserted, so when you perform copy paste (just to say something) you might not get the full useful text, but a truncated output with lines mixed everywhere.

I suggest you try to find your original text and begin testing from there.

[jetteroheller]

I suggest you try to find your original text and begin testing from there.

I set my book complete in Scribus 1.4.0

For example there is a photo and I write white on the photo.
The converter brings the photo and after the photo
is the white text on white background.

[coachm]

I feel bad for not chiming in here. Ok. It's not worth converting from pdf to ebook. Period. Go back to original text, and/or an html version of the text. If you are self-publishing, and want "counts" of downloads, use createspace for print. The amazon Kindle platform to create for that (and follow their instructions), and smashwords for other mobile e platforms (I'd suggest not using it for kindle).

They all provide third party stats, if that's what you want.

As for tax numbers, createspace and smashwords require them if you want to avoid foreign withholding. Kindle, for some reason, seems not to, but I have it set up differently.

[coachm]

Piatkow, what software to you use for the print mag? It's usually an incredibly easy task to produce a pdf and sell it yourself as a downloadable product. Unfortunately, amazon has pretty much stopped selling pdf's now.

[explorador]

I set my book complete in Scribus 1.4.0

For example there is a photo and I write white on the photo.
The converter brings the photo and after the photo
is the white text on white background.

question: you are talking about the pdf output here right?

I tested Scribus, liked it but had better luck using SoftMaker Office (you can download a freeware version of it, 2008 ver, yes, an alternative to MS Office). I switched to it, I love it, specially for creating PDFs (my CMS manuals), I have no problem with aligned pictures (exporting to PDF). Word worked but had problems aligning images.

As for creating Kindle content... I can only say that all my test were difficult (word, html pdf) but using Adobe Indesign meant less troubles. Don't know how useful this info is for you, hope it helps. Yes, html worked fine in my case but had trouble with the TOC and index... as for SoftMaker you can use the styles, just plain as that, and the software will use that to create the TOC for you.

By now (I could be wrong, limited to the tests I made) but I found out, that it's better to use wide images, full page, top or bottom, bot not aligned images with footers...

[piatkow]

For example there is a photo and I write white on the photo.
The converter brings the photo and after the photo
is the white text on white background.

I don't know the software that you are using and it has already been suggested that you are doing this redundantly but if I had to resolve this problem I would try converting the text to curves and grouping text and graphic as a single image.

PDF is fantastic for delivering a consistent print format but terrible as an intermediate file format.