As a byproduct of publishing my books as ebooks and learning the process, I now have a technique for converting books to the epub and mobi formats for Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s Kindle, Sony Readers, etc.

For those of you who have published books, or have been thinking about it, I’ve put together a presentation video on the subject, for those of you who don’t like reading all the technical information that is out there and just want it summarized. It helps paint the picture behind the decision of several authors, such as Seth Godin, to go 100% digital with their future books.

The video also demonstrates why I don’t podcast.

Why eBooks? An Overview for Niche Publishers and Indie Authors from Paul Nowak on Vimeo.

Key points:
1) People buying Kindles and other readers have purchasing power and the desire to read many books. If nothing else, the ebook market segregates avid readers with purchasing power from the rest of the population. You shouldn’t be ignoring that market by not having your books available as ebooks.

2) With 3 million Kindles sold (before the Kindle 3 and not counting the free Kindle App) there is enough market for your ebook to be a best seller, even if only digital. Also note this doesn’t include iBookstore or B&N’s readers!

3) Amazon, Apple, and other retailers are giving the author/publisher 70% of retail sales of the books. No retailer is going to give you that much share of the gross retail price for a product, especially a book. You can keep more of the revenue per sale, making it an efficient market.

4) Don’t think creating a PDF gives you access to this market; they do not display well in many cases on ebook readers. Nor can you sell them through channels like Amazon, where one ebook has already sold over a million copies.

If you have questions about the conversion services, feel free to email me at [email protected]