The primary goal for any writer is to have his work read. For most, the Internet is the place to find that audience. Electronic publishing became a reality with the creation of the Internet, and has since grown into its own lucrative industry.
With the Internet so readily accessible to anyone with a computer and a reliable connection, and with so many applicable formats available, never before has it been easier for a writer to become a published author. Now, nearly anyone with a story to tell has the capability to tell it, it’s just a matter of which option best fits the writer’s needs. The answer is most often, the cheapest.
Electronic Publishing Options
HTML is perhaps the easiest way for a writer to see his words on screen as it is the basic language for most functioning websites. Basic HTML is also relatively easy for any computer literate person to learn with a host of help sites, and site builders equipped with point and click HTML editors.
Other options exist with Adobe’s PDF (portable document format) setting the standard. If one doesn’t wish to shell out the hundred and some odd dollars for a version of Acrobat or InCopy, they probably wouldn’t want to spend the same on the Macromedia Flash program, though it is another visually attractive alternative. The list of available formats is expansive, there are a variety of programs that are essentially the same in that they accomplish the same goal in nearly the same way, the only true difference being a three-letter file extension.
E-Readers
As the traditional publishing industry has advanced with Print on Demand technology, recent technological innovations in electronic publishing have brought handheld reading devices to the market. Amazon’s Kindle, introduced in 2007, is the most well known and widely accepted of these new handheld readers. The Kindle has the capability to download several of the world’s top newspapers and magazines, as well as thousands of book titles, within seconds, all available from Amazon’s website at a cheaper price.
Along with this capability, Amazon provides a way for authors to publish their work directly to Kindle for instant download through their website. Instant readability is enticing to new authors, but with a price of nearly $400, Kindle is still not a practical necessity for most people.
As Kindle has become popular, a new wave of technology is in the works. Electronic paper is next big thing in publishing, period. Plastic Logic’s new E-Reader is the realization of this development. The new devices are as thin and flexible as a sheet of paper, and they read as easily as the printed page because the E-Reader’s screen does not emit light. Plastic Logic has announced the release of the E-Reader for late 2009 or early 2010.
Electronic Copyright
With all the new advances in e-book production, the greatest struggle is finding a way to protect it. The problem with publishing on the Internet is the files can be easily copied, duplicated, changed, and forwarded without receiving permission from the original author. Traditional copyright laws are nearly impossible to enforce over the Web which has led to the development of (DRM) Digital Rights Management. Most DRM software severly restricts accessibility to e-book files, and limits the devices on which they can be read. Though files are protected from illegal piracy, DRM software has caused undesired difficulties for consumers as well.
Electronic publishing is a sure-fire way for an author to get his work seen, but with instant accessibility unfortunately comes little to no profit.
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