Dear Reader, I need your help to answer
this question.
 |
I am in a quandary. For a year or so
now I have wanted to bring out Dernier Publishing books and booklets
in digital format – to join the e-book revolution. Not because I
love e-books, but because we are here to serve our customers and they
want them.
Our aim is to encourage and inspire
young people in their faith and show non-church kids what they are
missing – anything we can do to reach more young people has got to
be good, hasn't it?
Or has it . . . ?
Certainly going digital is essential.
If kids are reading digital books, we must provide them. So that's
not the issue; it's the format of the books which is giving me a
headache. Hence the title of the post . . . to Kindle or not to
Kindle.
Because it seems to me that there are
two choices:
E-pub format, or Kindle format.
There are pros and cons of both (unless
I have got this completely wrong, and do please tell me if I have).
The big plus of e-pub format e-books:
They can be sold anywhere, from any
website. We have control over where they are sold, which can include
bookshop websites – we are dedicated to supporting 'bricks and
mortar' bookshops where we can, although we must of course first and
foremost supply as many books as we can to as many children as we
can because this our reason for existence.
The big plus of Kindle format:
It is relatively easy to do – I can
do it myself. I could start this weekend and have a booklet up and
for sale by Monday. And if I make a mistake, the file can be edited
at any point . . . plus Amazon do all the sales. Simple!
Well, kind of simple. Because there are
cons with the Kindle model too.
Here are the two major problems as I
see it:
- We sincerely want to help high street bookshops in their struggle to survive (Kindle books are sold solely through Amazon)
- I don't like Amazon's monopoly on the market. I am also uncomfortable with their aggressive business philosophy of taking over the world, no matter how many shops (real people and livelihoods) they walk over in the process.
If we had the money and the resources
and the expertise, there's no doubt about it, we would go down the
e-pub route, where the e-books can be sold even by bookshops.
But, sigh, I'm increasingly veering
towards thinking just going for the Kindle right now, and work
towards making enough money to pay for resources and expertise to do
e-pub books in the future. Because we just don't have the money, time
or expertise to do e-pub books right now. Which is why we still don't have any e-books right now . . . and also means that we just
won't have e-books in the near future.
Please do feel free to leave feedback, I would be most gratefu.
With many thanks for your support,
Janet
