Ebook Format
Ebooks are the fastest growing segment of the book publishing industry. Each year, more and more new and established authors digitally publish their fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenplays and scripts in ebook form.
One of the most common hurdles authors face is how to make their ebook readable on as many different ebook reading platforms and devices as possible. There's the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, the Apple iPhone and iPOD Touch, just for starters.
Here are five ebook self publishing and formatting tips to help make your book as successful as possible:
1. The Page is Dead - In traditional print publishing, the notion of the "page" is critical. All your pages have numbers, and these page numbers are probably referenced either in your table of contents or your index. With ebooks, the notion of the page is turned upside down, literally. All ebook readers have a different idea of what constitutes a page, because they may have different screen heights and widths, or the number of pages may change based on whether your reader is holding their iPhone vertically or horizontally. The number of pages may also change if the reader increases the font size or changes the font style, or chooses to read your book with double line spacing instead of single spacing. So bottom line, try to avoid page numbers, especially for long form narrative. If you MUST include page numbers, then limit your ebook outputs to PDF files, because PDFs do a good job of maintaining formatting (even though PDFs are a horrible e-reading format).
2. Keep the formatting simple - Readers buy your books for the words and stories, not the formatting. Complicated formatting can get in the way of the reader consuming the words in your book. You want to make sure your book is optimized to be read as plain text, which is how most e-readers display your book.
3. Avoid common bad formatting habits - Print publishing is very forgiving, because as long as your manuscript looks the way you want it to look on-screen, it usually prints out fine. Ebooks are less forgiving. Some of the most common ebook formatting mistakes include: Using tabs or spaces instead of Word's indent feature; using multiple paragraph returns to designate page breaks (creates blank pages in your ebook); and using multiple body text styles instead of just "normal" text (creates inconsistent looking text).
4. Publish your book in as many ebook formats as possible - It's impossible to predict which ereading device or platform your reader will use to read your book. They might read it online over a web browser, they might download to their home computer to print it, they may read it on their Kindle, or maybe they want to read it on their iPhone or Blackberry. They might also want to read the same book on multiple devices simultaneously. Therefore, you should publish in multiple ebook formats so the reader can read your book their way. Popular formats include HTML (readable on web browsers), .txt (Plain text, readable on nearly everything), PDF (good for books for which strict formatting is essential to reading enjoyment [picture books, books with charts, graphs, tables of contents and indexes]), epub (an open industry ebook format used by more and more e-reading devices and applications), and .mobi (used by the Kindle).
5. Avoid DRM - DRM, or "digital rights management," refers to schemes that seek to prevent illegal copying or pirating of a digital work, like an ebook or music. Customers hate DRM, because DRM treats them like a criminal and prevents them from enjoying your book in the way they want to enjoy it. Don't use DRM with your ebook. Market research shows that DRM cannot prevent piracy, and it just angers your customers. In fact, research shows that books without DRM outsell books with DRM.
he following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books.
A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a format for production. While the average end-user might arguably simply want to read books, every format has its proponents and champions, and debates over "which format is best" can become intense. The myriad of e-book formats is sometimes referred to as the "Tower of eBabel". For the average end user to read a book, every format has its advantages and disadvantages.
Formats available include, but are by no means limited to:
Plain text files
| Format: | text |
| Published as: | .txt |
E-books in plain text exist and are very small in size. For example, the Bible is about 4 MB.[citation needed] The ASCII standard allows ASCII-only text files (unlike most other file types) to be interchanged and readable on Unix, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, DOS, and other systems. These differ in their preferred line ending convention and their interpretation of values outside the ASCII range (their character encoding).
Hypertext Markup Language
| Format: | Hypertext |
| Published as: | .htm; .html |
HTML is the markup language used for most web pages. E-books using HTML can be read using a Web browser. The specifications to the format are available without charge from the W3C.
As markup language, HTML adds especially marked meta elements to otherwise plain text encoded using character sets like ASCII or UTF-8. As such suitably formatted files can be, and sometimes are, generated by hand using a plain text editor or programmer's editor. Many HTML generator applications exist to ease this process and often require less intricate knowledge of the format details involved.
HTML on its own is not a particularly efficient format to store information, requiring more storage space for a given work than many other formats. However, several e-Book formats including the Amazon Kindle, Open eBook, Compressed HM, Mobipocket and IDPF/EPUB use one HTML file for each book chapter and then Zip compress the files, along with images, metadata and style sheets into one file.
Amazon Kindle
| Format: | Kindle |
| Published as: | .azw |
With the launch of the Kindle eBook reader, Amazon.com created the AZW format. It is based on the Mobipocket standard, with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a Dollar sign) and its own DRM formatting. Because the eBooks bought on the Kindle are delivered wirelessly over its wireless system called Whispernet, the user does not see the AZW files during the download process.
Open Electronic Package
| Format: | Open eBook |
| Published as: | .opf |
OPF is an XML-based e-book format created by E-Book Systems.
TomeRaider
| Format: | TomeRaider |
| Published as: | .tr2; .tr3 |
The TomeRaider e-book format is a proprietary format. There are versions of TomeRaider for Windows, Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC), Palm, Symbian, iPhone and more[specify]. Several Wikipedias are available as TomeRaider files with all articles unabridged, some even with nearly all images. Capabilities of the TomeRaider3 ebook reader vary considerably per platform: the Windows and Windows Mobile editions support full HTML and CSS. The Palm edition supports limited HTML (e.g., no tables, no fonts), and CSS support is missing. For Symbian there is only the older TomeRaider2 format, which does not render images or offer category search facilities. Despite these differences any TomeRaider ebook can be browsed on all supported platforms. The Tomeraider website[1] claims to have over 4000 ebooks available, including free versions of the Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia.
Arghos Diffusion
| Format: | Arghos Reader |
| Published as: | .aeh |
The AEH format is an XML-based proprietary format developed by the French firm Arghos Diffusion. AEH files use a proprietary DRM and encryption method and are readable only in the Arghos Player. It supports various input formats for text, audio or video, such as PDF, WMA, MP3, WMV, and allows multiple interactive functions such as bookmarking, advanced plain-text searching, dynamic text highlighting, etc.
Flip Books
| Format: | Interaxive media |
| Published as: |
A "Flip Book" is a type of E-Book distinguished by virtual pages that actually "flip", much like turning pages of paper in a real book or magazine. The first dynamic Flip Book Reader was developed in 2003/2004 by Interaxive Media for Nishe Media (Canada) and was therefore called "Nishe Pages". The first version was produced in part by Cybaris (Canada) and was first publicly showcased in August 2004. Soon thereafter, many copycat "flip books" started appearing thanks to technological advances in Macromedia Flash, mostly hardcoded using Flash components.
The original software remains unique in that it is powered by a complete server-based CMS system that allows the books to be created, published, and viewed remotely from a web server without requiring any custom software to be installed. Nishe Media went defunct in 2004, leaving the unfinished software to Interaxive Media who continued its development in Hong Kong. Though not widely used outside of Asia, it is now at version 3.0 and can be a server-based E-Book platform. It remains privately held by the original developer, Ryan Sutherland, owner and founder of Interaxive Media.
NISO Z39.86
| Format: | DAISY |
| Published as: | DTB[citation needed] |
DAISY is an XML-based e-book format created by the DAISY international consortium of libraries for people with print disabilities. DAISY implementations have focused on two main types: audio e-books and text e-books. A subset of the DAISY format has been adopted by law in the United States as the National Instructional Material Accessibility Standard, and K-12 textbooks and instructional materials are now required to be provided to students with disabilities. [2]
FictionBook
| Format: | FictionBook |
| Published as: | .fb2 |
FictionBook is a popular XML-based e-book format, supported by free readers such as Haali Reader and FBReader. See http://haali.cs.msu.ru/pocketpc/FictionBook_description.html
Text Encoding Initiative
| Format: | TEI Lite |
| Published as: | .xml[citation needed] |
TEI Lite is the most popular of the TEI-based (and thus XML-based or SGML-based) electronic text formats.
Plucker
| Format: | Plucker |
| Published as: |
Plucker is a free e-book reader application with its own associated file format and software to automatically generate plucker files from HTML files, web sites or RSS feeds. The format is a compressed HTML archive, somewhat like Microsoft's CHM.
Compressed HM
| Format: | Microsoft Compressed HTML Help |
| Published as: | .chm |
CHM format is a proprietary format based on HTML. Multiple pages and embedded graphics are distributed along with proprietary metadata as a single compressed file. In contrast, in HTML, a site consists of multiple HTML files and associated image files in standardized formats.
Portable Document
| Format: | Adobe Portable Document |
| Published as: |
A file format created by Adobe Systems, initially to provide a standard form for storing and editing printed publishable documents. The format derives from PostScript, but without language features like loops, and with added support for features like compression and passwords. Because PDF documents can easily be viewed and printed by users on a variety of computer platforms, they are very common on the World Wide Web. The specification of the format is available without charge from Adobe.
PDF files typically contain brochures, product manuals, magazine articles — up to entire books, as they can embed fonts, images, and other documents. A PDF file contains one or more zoomable page images.
Since the format is designed to reproduce page images, the text traditionally could not be re-flowed to fit the screen width or size. As a result PDF files designed for printing on standard paper sizes are less easily viewed on screens with limited size or resolution, such as those found on mobile phones and PDAs. Adobe has addressed this by adding a re-flow facility to its Acrobat Reader software, but for this to work the document must be marked for re-flowing at creation [3], which means existing PDF documents will not benefit unless they are tagged and resaved. The Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC) version of Adobe Acrobat will automatically attempt to tag a PDF for reflow during the synchronization process using an installed plugin to Active Sync. However, this tagging process will not work on most locked or password protected PDF documents. It also doesn't work at present (2009-10) on the Windows Mobile Device Center (Active Syncs Successor) as found in Windows Vista and Windows 7. This limits automatic tagging support during synchronization to Windows XP/2000.
Multiple products support creating and tagging PDF files, such as Adobe Acrobat, PDFCreator, OpenOffice.org, iText, and FOP, and several programming libraries. Adobe Reader (formerly called Acrobat Reader) is Adobe's product used to view PDF files; third party viewers such as xpdf are also available. Mac OS X has built-in PDF support, both for creation as part of the printing system and for display using the built-in Preview application.
Later versions of the specification add support for forms, comments, hypertext links, and even interactive elements such as buttons for forms entry and for triggering sound and video. Such features may not be supported by older or third-party viewers and some are not transferable to print.
PDF files are supported on the following e-book readers: iRex iLiad, iRex DR1000, Sony Reader, Bookeen Cybook, Foxit eSlick, Amazon Kindle (1, 2, International & DX) and Barnes & Noble nook.
PostScript
| Format: | PostScript |
| Published as: | ps |
PostScript is a page description language used in the electronic and desktop publishing areas for defining the contents and layout of a printed page, which can be used by a rendering program to assemble and create the actual output bitmap. Many office printers directly support interpreting PostScript and printing the result. As a result, the format also sees wide use in the Unix world.
DjVu
| Format: | DjVu |
| Published as: | .djvu |
DjVu is a format that specializes in and particularly excels at storing scanned images. It includes advanced compressors optimized for low-color images, such as text documents. Individual files may contain one or more pages.
The contained page images are divided in separate layers (such as multi-color, low-resolution, lossily-compressed background layer, and few-colors, high-resolution, tightly-compressed foreground layer), each compressed in the best available method. The format is designed to decompress very quickly, even faster than vector-based formats.
The advantage of DjVu is that it is possible to take a high-resolution scan (300-400 DPI), good enough for both on-screen reading and printing, and store it very efficiently. Several dozens of 300 DPI black-and-white scans can be stored in less than a megabyte.
The format has long remained in obscurity, but free tools to manipulate the format have recently become available.
Microsoft LIT
| Format: | Microsoft Reader |
| Published as: | .lit |
DRM-protected LIT files are only readable in the proprietary Microsoft Reader program, as the .LIT format, otherwise similar to Microsoft's CHM format, includes Digital Rights Management features. Other third party readers, such as Lexcycle Stanza, can read unprotected LIT files. There are also tools such as Convert Lit, which can convert .lit files to HTML files or OEBPS files.
The Microsoft Reader uses patented ClearType display technology. In Reader navigation works with a keyboard, mouse, stylus, or through electronic bookmarks. The Catalogue Library records reader books in a personalized "home page", and books are displayed with ClearType to improve readability. A user can add annotations and notes to any page, create large-print e-books with a single command, or create free-form drawings on the reader pages. A built-in dictionary allows the user to look up words.
eReader
- Formerly Palm Digital Media/Peanut Press
| Format: | Palm Media |
| Published as: | . pdb |
eReader is a freeware program for viewing Palm Digital Media electronic books. Versions are available for iPhone, PalmOS, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile Pocket PC/Smartphone, desktop Windows, and Macintosh. The reader shows text one page at a time, as paper books do. eReader supports embedded hyperlinks and images. Additionally, the Stanza application for the iPhone and iPod Touch can read both encrypted and unencrypted eReader files.
The company's web site - ereader.com maintains a wide selection of eReader-formatted ebooks, available for purchase and download, with a handful of public domain titles available for free. Those books that aren't free are encrypted, with the key being the purchaser's full name and credit card number. This information is not preserved in the ebook. A one-way hash is used, so there no risk of the user's information being extracted.
The program supports features like bookmarks and footnotes, enabling the user to mark any page with a bookmark, and any part of the text with a footnote-like commentary. Footnotes can later be exported as a Memo document.
The company also offers two Windows/MacOS programs for producing ebooks: the Dropbook, which is free, and the eBook Studio, which is not. Dropbook is a file-oriented PML-to-PDB converter; eBook Studio incorporates a WYSIWYG editor. Both programs are compatible with simple text files.
There is also support for an integrated reference dictionary (with many options up to and including a 476,000-word Merriam-Webster Dictionary, including pronunciation keys) so that any word in the text can be highlighted and looked up on the dictionary instantly. Commercial fonts can also be individually purchased and downloaded at the company's web site, ereader.com.
On July 20, 2009, Barnes & Noble announced[4] that the eReader format will be the method they will use to deliver eBooks. Updated versions of the Palm Digital programs for Apple iPhone/Touch, Blackberry, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms were made available on the Barnes & Noble eBooks website.
On October 20, 2009, Barnes & Noble announced[5] that their Nook Reader will support the eReader format.
Desktop Author
| Format: | DNL Reader |
| Published as: | .dnl; .exe |
Desktop Author is an electronic publishing suite that allows creation of digital web books with virtual turning pages. Digital web books of any publication type can be written in this format, including brochures, e-books, digital photo albums, e-cards, digital diaries, online resumes, quizzes, exams, tests, forms and surveys. DesktopAuthor packages the e-book into a ".dnl" or ".exe" book. Each can be a single, plain stand-alone executable file which does not require any other programs to view it. DNL files can be viewed inside a web browser or stand-alone via the DNL Reader.
DNL format is an e-Book format, one which replicates the real life alternative, namely page turning Books. The DNL e-Book is developed by DNAML Pty Limited an Australian company established in 1999. A DNL e-Book can be produced using DeskTop Author or DeskTop Communicator.
Newton eBook
| Format: | Newton eBook |
| Published as: | .pkg |
Commonly known as an Apple Newton book; a single Newton package file can contain multiple books (for example, the three books of a trilogy might be packaged together). All systems running the Newton operating system (the most common include the Newton MessagePads, eMates, Siemens Secretary Stations, Motorola Marcos, Digital Ocean Seahorses and Tarpons) have built-in support for viewing Newton books. The Newton package format was released to the public by Newton, Inc. prior to that company's absorption into Apple Computer. The format is thus arguably open and various people have written readers for it (writing a Newton book converter has even been assigned as a university-level class project[6]).
Newton books have no support for DRM or encryption. They do support internal links, potentially multiple tables of contents and indexes, embedded grayscale images, and even some scripting capability (for example, it's possible to make a book in which the reader can influence the outcome)[7]. Newton books utilize Unicode and are thus available in numerous languages. An individual Newton book may actually contain multiple views representing the same content in different ways (such as for different screen resolutions).
Founder Electronics
| Format: | Apabi Reader |
| Published as: | .xeb; .ceb |
APABI is a format deviced by Founder Electronics. It is a popular format for Chinese e-books. It can be read using the Apabi Reader software, and produced using Apabi Publisher. Both .xeb and .ceb files are encoded binary files. The Iliad e-book device includes an Apabi 'viewer'.
iPod Notes
| Format: | iPod media |
| Published as: |
Notes is a feature of iPod that allows short text notes to be displayed on the iPod screen. As the size limit for one note is 4096 bytes, there are some tools that create the notes from the longer plain text file. Basic HTML is allowed, but otherwise the format is plain text only.
Libris
| Format: | Mobile Information Device Profile |
| Published as: | .lbr; .bin |
Libris is a Java based eBook reader for mobile devices such as cell phones. Libris will run on most Java enabled devices that support MIDP. The reader formats books to fit the device screen, and shows one page at a time using high quality anti-aliased fonts. Books may employ encryption or be unrestricted. Libris content may be produced using the MakeLibris tool. The Libris reader also supports the PalmDoc format.
Mobipocket
| Format: | Mobipocket |
| Published as: | .prc; .mobi |
The Mobipocket e-book format based on the Open eBook standard using XHTML can include JavaScript and frames. It also supports native SQL queries to be used with embedded databases. There is a corresponding e-book reader. A free e-book of the German Wikipedia has been published in Mobipocket format.[8]
The Mobipocket Reader has a home page library. Readers can add blank pages in any part of a book and add free-hand drawings. Annotations — highlights, bookmarks, corrections, notes, and drawings — can be applied, organized, and recalled from a single location. Mobipocket Reader has electronic bookmarks, and a built-in dictionary
The reader has a full screen mode for reading and support for many PDAs, Communicators, and Smartphones. Mobipocket products support most Windows, Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm operating systems. On Linux and Macintosh applications like Okular and FBReader can be used to read non-encrypted files.
The Amazon Kindle's AZW format is basically just the Mobipocket format with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a Dollar sign).
Mobipocket is working on an .epub to .mobi converter called mobigen.[9]
Notably, Eastern European letters with diacritical marks are not supported.
International Digital
| Format: | IDPF/EPUB |
| Published as: | .epub |
The .epub or OEBPS format is an open standard for eBooks created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It combines three IDPF open standards:
- Open Publication Structure (OPS) 2.0, which describes the content markup (either XHTML or Daisy DTBook)
- Open Packaging Format (OPF) 2.0, which describes the structure of an .epub in XML
- OEBPS Container Format (OCF) 1.0, which bundles files together (as a renamed ZIP file)
Currently, the format can be read by the Sony Reader, BeBook, Adobe Digital Editions, Lexcycle Stanza, BookGlutton, AZARDI, Aldiko and WordPlayer on Android and the Mozilla Firefox add-on OpenBerg Lector. Several other reader software programs are currently implementing support for the format, such as dotReader, FBReader, Mobipocket, uBook and Okular. Another software .epub reader, Lucidor, is in beta. On October 20, 2009, Barnes & Noble announced[10] their Nook Reader will support the epub format.
In 2008 BookGlutton launched a server-side HTML-to-EPUB converter.[11]
Adobe Digital Edition uses .epub format for its e-books, with DRM protection provided through their proprietary ADEPT mechanism. The recently developed INEPT framework and scripts have been reverse-engineered to circumvent this DRM system.[12]
DSLibris, a Sourceforge.net project, is able to decode eBooks in .epub and .xht format for reading on the Nintendo DS/DS Lite/DSi systems (through the use of a flash linker, such as SuperCard DS One). The eBook is presented in a natural page format (the DS console is held sideways with both screens simulating left and right pages of a book), and page turns are accomplished by either left or right buttons pressed on the directional pad or stylus taps on the left or right side of the touchscreen. Bookmarks can be created using the Select key, and the user can return to them using the up or down directional pad buttons when the eBook is reopened.[13]
Broadband eBooks
| Format: | Sony media |
| Published as: | .lrf; .lrx |
The digital book format used by Sony Corporation (ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki Kaisha?) [2]. It is a proprietary format, with no known reader software for non-Sony devices. The LRX file extension represents a DRM encrypted eBook.
SSReader
| Format: | SSReader |
| Published as: | .pdg |
The digital book format used by a popular digital library company 超星数字图书馆[3] in China. It is a proprietary raster image compression and binding format, with reading time OCR plugin modules. The company scanned a huge number of Chinese books in the China National Library and this becomes the major stock of their service. The detailed format is not published. There are also some other commercial ebook formats used in Chinese digital libraries.
Multimedia eBooks
| Format: | Eveda |
| Published as: | .exe or .html |
A Multimedia EBook is media and book content that utilizes a combination of different book content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. Currently, configuration of several forms of media is possible only on the basis of technology Adobe Flash. The technique of a Flip Book is applied to preservation sequences statements of the traditional book.[14]
The 'multimedia eBook' term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or text book. Multimedia EBook includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms. The formats used to create a literary fiction book somteimes have an addition of an audio-visual element and interactive contents allowing new form of creativity. The user (eg., reader) has an opportunity to participate in events occurring to characters, to feel influence of a musical part of a narration and graphic part. The perception of several media forms of contents considerably expands depth of transfer power of art and creativity.
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