Are All These New Formats, Like ePub, Important?

An "ePub" document is an "electronic publication" (aren't they all?) which can be read by online software. As such it is a kind of competitor to PDF, though Adobe - the creators of the PDF system - also allow you to read ePub documents. So, it is even more confusing. Since PDFs are so ubiquitous why don't we stick with them? The reason is the Barnes and Noble "Nook". This is an e-book reader, similar to an Amazon Kindle - but it reads documents in "ePub" format. If you want your book, your newsletter, your blog even, to be available to the millions of Barnes and Noble customers, you need to produce your content in ePub form.

The "mobi" form is the one used by the Amazon Kindle. So if you want your content on the Kindle, you need to produce it as a "mobi" file. And then there is the "LRF" - that's the file format accepted by Sony Ebook Readers. Plus if you want your content on a Palm device, you need to save it as a "PDB" file.

Essentially, hardware manufacturers have opted for one format for their device so they can be unique. If every piece of hardware in the ebook reader marketplace used the same software there would be no competitive edge and these items would then become commodities - not what the manufacturers want...! So that means, several different file formats for content producers like you and me. If you want your content to have the maximum exposure you now have to produce it in various file formats - PDF on its own is no longer acceptable. And don't think you can wait - Amazon announced this week that Kindle sales of new books has now overtaken sales of printed books. In other words more people already prefer the ebook format.

This doesn't mean that printed material will disappear, of course. But what it does mean is that people now have a wider variety of choices in which they can get their content. And that means you need to deliver your content in as many different forms as you can.

To help you do this there are two options you can choose. The first is software that will translate your PDF files, for instance, into "mobi" or "ePub" format. The best I have found is called Calibre and is available from:http://calibre-ebook.com/- and by the way, it is free.

You could also sign up (again free of charge) to Smashwords athttp://www.smashwords.com/which can act as a central distribution point for your electronic content.

But whichever solution you choose, you cannot ignore these new file formats.

Graham Jones
Internet Psychologist
www.grahamjones.co.uk