Re: Amazon Kindle

I'd be interested in hearing from more publishers who have been paying
distribution fees of around 50%, either through Mobipocket, or to
other online bookstores. What do you think of DTP's 65% fee? Does
anyone see any other drawbacks to publishing through DTP?

Aaron Shepard wrote:


> In case it helps anyone, it looks like the format for Kindle is
> really Mobipocket, or a close variation of it.
>

I've heard others say this as well, and DTP's formatting guides hint
at that heavily. DTP recommends HTML as the base format for
conversion, so I'll be interested to see whether MOBI or PRC works
better. The other supported formats are zipped HTML, Microsoft Word
(which they recommend you convert to HTML first), PDF (which they
recommend you convert to HTML first), and plain text.

Here's their advice on the topic:

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=19&categoryID=7

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry!default.jspa?categoryID=9&externalID=21&fromSearchPage=true

Note that they also give quite a few formatting tips:

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=11

Marion Gropen wrote:


> I don't think you can call anything
> Amazon does a  royalty.
>

Amazon is the one that uses the word "royalty" in their contract, and
I can't help but wonder why, since they don't list themselves as the
publisher on record for Kindle Books.

Aaron Barnhart wrote:


> http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/thread.jspa?messageID=233
> Amazon's flouting the Int'l ISBN Agency and saying you don't need a
> separate ISBN for electronic editions of a print title.
>

The DTP administrator is being hopelessly convoluted in explaining
this. The important thing to note was that he was responding to a
question from someone who did *not* have prior e-book editions; all
that the author had was print editions.

What I think the DTP administrator is trying to say is the following:
Amazon doesn't apply ISBNs to Kindle Books, as far as the entry is
concerned; they assign an ASIN instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Standard_Identification_Number

Here, for example, is the print edition of "Stone Cold," with the ISBN
listed:

http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Cold-David-Baldacci/dp/0446577391

This is the Kindle edition of the same book, with only the ASIN
listed:

http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Cold/dp/B000UZNRS2

As far as the Kindle Books are concerned, the only use of the ISBN,
for Amazon, is as internal reference. You can supply them with a
separate ISBN for the Kindle edition, but this will only be useful if
a customer does a search on that ISBN. If, on the other hand, you
supply them with the ISBN for the print edition, this will allow any
customer who does a search for the print edition (using that ISBN) to
also see that you have a Kindle edition.

So, in the above example, I'm guessing that what happened was that
whoever put together the entry for the Kindle Book edition of "Stone
Cold" put the print edition ISBN in the appropriate box for the ISBN,
which allowed Amazon to easily tie in the two editions. But this is
invisible to the customer; all that the customer sees is the ISBN
listed on the entry for the print edition, while an ASIN appears on
the entry for the Kindle edition.

If I'm right about all this, I think this may be a silent protest on
Amazon's part to the idea of having separate ISBNs for separate
editions :), but it's a very silent protest, only visible to the folks
who are putting together the entry information.

Dusk Peterson
--
BARD OF PAIN. The tale of a torturer's fate.
Book preview and book trailer:
http://duskpeterson.com/threelands#bardofpain




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