New Feature 📢 on Pothi.com : Free eBooks with a Single Click

Getting a free eBook at Pothi.com used to be quite cumbersome and a multi-step process. You needed to add the eBook to your cart and go through the checkout process even though the eBook was free. This was a hindrance for potential readers and many times they did not follow through and ended up dropping out.

Keeping this in mind, the Pothi.com team has now created a hassle-free single-step process so that you can get your free eBooks at the click of a button.

When visiting a free eBook page, if you are already logged into your Pothi.com account, if you are a logged in user, you can then add any free eBook to your library by clicking the Add to Library button. If you are not logged in, you will be prompted to login or register.

 

Now you can click on the Go To Library button or your eBook library link in the success message and download the free PDF from there.

So go to the Free eBooks collection from the Shop section in the top navigation menu or click here to get access to an array of eBooks. Happy reading!

 

Brand New Service 📢: eBook Conversion @ Pothi.com

The more accessible a book is, the better its chances of selling well. That is why making your eBook available on platforms like Amazon Kindle and Apple is a must for every serious eBook publisher.

Is that as easy as it sounds? Well, it can be! Selling your eBook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform or Apple Books requires that you have a version of the book available in EPUB format. EPUB is an eBook format optimized for reading on a screen, its most distinguishing feature being its reflowable layout. This means that rather than staying static on a screen, the text of the book adjusts itself to fit the screen size or the font that a reader selects. No need to scroll or zoom in and out – whatever the size of your screen, the EPUB is the right fit for you.

Converting your manuscript from MS Word to EPUB can be tricky without the right tools, and professional EPUB conversion needs to factor in compatibility with the specifications of different eBook selling platforms to optimize your eBook.

We at Pothi.com are happy to announce that we are now offering a cost-effective eBook conversion service which delivers to you files that are ready to be uploaded on Amazon KDP and Apple iBooks store. Our ebook creation service comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, manual Quality Checks and the longest term post-project support that can be found anywhere.

Learn More. Talk to Us Today!

Brand New Feature 📢: Linking Print Book and eBook!

The pandemic may have taken a toll on print publishing, but that’s no reason to let it affect the sales of your book. And what better way to maintain your sales than to ensure that the eBook version of your book is available for sale?

We at Pothi.com have come up with a few measures to make setting up and selling your eBook easier than ever.

Linking of Print and eBook Versions Now Enabled!

In the most recent feature update to the Pothi.com Online Store, the link to the eBook version of a title can now be seen on the print book listing, and vice versa. If you already have an eBook version set up for your print book, and the two aren’t linked yet, please write to us at info@pothi.com with the SKU numbers of the books, and we will have the listings linked for you.

Take the book Ice Creams and Time Machines: A Young Author Program Anthology– we have linked the print and eBook versions on the same page!

 

You can also write to us if you haven’t published your eBook yet and you have a print book with us. Just send us an email with the SKU of your print book, and we will help you set up the eBook.

So what are you waiting for? Write to us now to set up your eBook on Pothi.com… for free!

 

5 Types of Books you can Self-Publish Apart from Fiction and Poetry

Despite the stereotypical image, a writer of books is not always a recluse or an eccentric person. Books give expression to many different kinds of talents and purposes.

Here are five types of books beyond fiction and poetry that people have been writing and self-publishing on Pothi.com.

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Exam Preparation Books

‘Competitive exams’ is a phrase Indians of all ages and regions are familiar with. If you are a teacher or a professional in the relevant field, you can write a book to help people with these competitive exams. We have seen books related to engineering, medicine or design entrance exams, CA/CS preparations, civil services exams and everything else you can think of. Solved question papers of previous years and interview preparation books are some attractive sub-genres.

 

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Professional Books

Whether you are a software engineer working on a niche technology, a manufacturing executive with a lifetime of learning in mechanical products, or a teacher who has figured out how to spark student interest in difficult subjects, you may have a book in you. Write that book to help others in your profession succeed!

Also common are short introductory books to fields that are in the news, but an average person has little information about.

 

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Family Cookbooks

People are more mobile these days and families are often spread not only all around the country but also across the globe. Nothing connects Indian families more than food. So how about creating a family cookbook with your own crazy, unique family’s special recipes that will help youngsters moving out recreate the food magic from back home? You can keep this book private to share only with family members, or let the world have a peek too by making it available for sale.

 

 

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Translations of Public Domain Books

Are you bilingual? Then you can make a great contribution to your mother tongue if you translated out of copyright books into or from that language. With out of copyright or public domain books you do not have to worry about rights and legal issues. Check out the yearly posts on Pothi.com blog about authors who entered public domain in last few years.

 

 

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Brand-building Books

Are you a consultant, a freelancer or a corporate trainer? Add a book on your subject of expertise to your professional armory. You can give it out to potential clients and it will help your business and brand.

Of course, all these suggestions don’t mean that fiction and poetry should stop rolling in. The human race has always loved stories and our hearts have always leapt with great poetry.

 

Bring out the book in you!

 

 

e-book formats made easy

Kindle ImageIn July 2010, Amazon.com reported that sales of its Kindle e-books outnumbered that of hardbacks on its store. Bibliophiles who swore by printed books have begun to see the advantages of e-books today. Although they don’t completely switch over to e-books, they have invested in an e-reader and have a small library of e-books loaded on it.

In India, e-readers have not yet become as popular as they have in America, but the trend is catching on.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an e-book as “a book composed in or converted to digital format for display on a computer screen or handheld device.”

E-books offer several advantages to the modern way of life. You can load hundreds or thousands of books into your e-reader, based on its capabilities, so the weight you have to lug around diminishes remarkably. E-books never go out of print or fade. Often, it is cheaper to print out an e-book than to buy a print version. Lots of e-books are offered free online, especially those that are in the public domain.

Many e-readers offer features like changeable font size, good readability in all kinds of light from bright sunlight to total darkness, translation into other languages, bookmarks, highlighting, dictionary reference, annotations, text-to-speech software for visually impaired or dyslexic readers and so on. Also, some e-readers let you shop for books directly from the device.

As with anything, there are disadvantages to e-readers and e-books. An e-reader may be stolen or damaged, destroying your e-books as well so you need to re-purchase the e-books. E-book formats change and evolve over the years, so e-books may need to be converted to be kept up to date. Books with pictures, diagrams or maps are more convenient to read in print. As many bookworms will say, a printed book has a feel and personality of its own, which an e-book just does not have.

That said, e-books have been around for a decade and are here to stay. As an author or publisher, it is important to keep up with the trends and know what formats work best for your books so you can make the best of the technology and use all available channels to reach readers.

The standard PDF

Adobe’s PDF (portable document format) is a common format for electronic documents and e-books around the world. Most devices can read PDFs and, in that sense, it is a universal format that represents the original set page exactly on any device. But it has its limitations—PDF is a fixed size format, so the text is not reflowable. Zooming in to increase the text size causes some of the text to go off the screen so that you need to scroll to see the rest. This makes for uncomfortable reading. If you fit the entire page to the screen, the font often becomes too small to be legible.

In reflowable text, the length of a line or page is not predefined; instead, the text is unrestricted so that fewer words are visible if the font size is increased or more fit in the screen if the font is smaller. Also, if the screen is small, fewer words are shown per line and a fewer number of lines appear per screen. So, the concept of a defined page goes away. This is similar to how Internet browsers often display text.

If you use fancy features that a particular e-book creation software offers, not all e-readers may be able to handle it, so it becomes difficult to ensure that your books appear as intended across all readers. PDF, on the other hand, is a mature format and most platforms have good PDF readers available all over the world.

Main formats today

Most new e-book formats are HTML based but also contain extra information specific to books such as the concept of chapters, bookmarks, table of contents and meta-data like author name, publisher and ISBN.

While there are several e-book formats available in the market today, including the popular Mobipocket and Topaz, the main formats that authors and publishers need to be aware of are PDF, EPUB and AZW.

The format widely considered the standard today is EPUB, which is used by most devices including iPad, Nook, Pi and Wink. Many free applications are available for reading this format on computers and smart phones. Google Books offers free e-books in this format. Several online libraries also offer EPUB formatted books. This is easily the most important format for e-books today.

Amazon.com created a proprietary format called AZW for its Kindle e-reader and all Kindle applications. If you use Amazon.com’s Direct Publishing platform, it can convert several formats, including EPUB, into AZW on its own. So, if you have your files prepared in EPUB format, you’re pretty much sorted out.

While EPUB looks like a perfect answer to the issues with PDF as an e-book format, it has its limitations, too. Reflowing can be a problem if the book is image heavy (like picture books or comics) or uses very wide tables. While people have worked around these issues, EPUB is still not ideal for every kind of book—especially if relative positioning of content is important.

There are a few questions that authors and publishers have about security of e-book files and DRM, which we’ll address in a separate post.

Here’s a quick glance comparison of EPUB and PDF formats:

Formats PDF EPUB
Reflowable text No Yes
Retains original format and settings for uniform viewability Yes No
Free e-reader applications available for the format Yes Yes
Multiple platform on Mac OS, Windows, UNIX and mobile phone OS Yes Yes
Extensibility (number of software providers worldwide who use the format for creation, plug-ins, consulting, training and support, etc.) Many, worldwide Fewer, as it is relatively new
Supported on e-readers All All except Kindle, which does not support it directly
Security features and DRM Yes Yes
Supports colour images, video, Flash Yes Yes

Formats authors should use

It is clear that both EPUB and PDF have their benefits and weak points, so which one should authors prepare their books in?

If the content is suitable, that is, if it is mainly text and can be reflowed well, prepare it in both formats. If the content is not suitable for EPUB format, you can prepare it as PDF alone. If you already have the e-book in one format, there are plenty of converters available that will convert the book from one format to the other, but how well this works is based on the content and what these formats are good for (see table).

You could decide on the format based on your target readership. For international readers, EPUB would be a better option as e-readers are rapidly gaining popularity in the west, but for an Indian readership, you could get by with a PDF for now.

However, as e-readers become more common and these formats evolve, the decision on formats may need to change.

How to prepare the book in different formats will be covered in a separate article.