Tag Archives: publishing

Google One Pass

Kelly Abbott | February 19, 2011 - 7:14 am

Google One Pass.

We’ve been looking for a better way to monetize the experience over at CompleteGuides.net. We’re giving serious consideration to Google’s One Pass.

Posted in our books, product reviews | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Complete Android Guide

Kelly Abbott | September 15, 2010 - 9:31 am

Today we published The Complete Android Guide by Kevin Purdy a writer at Lifehacker and our friend. This book is the second in our Complete Guides series. The first was The Complete Guide to Google Wave by Gina Trapani and Adam Pash. By way of introducing our audience I’ll say a few things about what the book entails. Then we’ll describe how we are publishing it (our backstory on how we want to see tech book publishing evolve). But first, why?

Why Complete Guides?

We’re fans of technology. Like most geeks we want to know more about the things we use every day. Whether they are low or high tech, it doesn’t matter. In the same way that we only use 10% of our brains, we have noticed that we only use a small percentage of what our technology is capable of. Hence, The Complete Android Guide. Hence, The Complete Guide to Google Wave. These are products many people use every day. It’s a shame that they go so under-utilized. The love one has for one’s gadgets knows no bounds. As corny as it may sound, The Complete Guides series is a manifestation of that love.

How Complete Guides?

We are following the model that Gina established with the first book. Publish the book in three formats simultaneously:

  1. Online as a destination with free and open access with Creative Commons DRM-Free copyright terms.
  2. Inexpensive electronic versions available via download also with Creative Commons, DRM-Free copyright terms.
  3. A slight more expensive Print-on-Demand version available via Lulu.com also with Creative Commons, DRM-Free copyright terms.

We partnered with MindTouch to create a publishing platform that has two significant advantages for us and for the reader (indeed we do not make a distinction between ourselves and the reader because we are fans of our own products).

Read-Write-Edit-Publish

While our Authors get the credit and share revenues for the books, we get a ton of feedback from fans, followers and visitors. The site itself is a collaborative platform where we have had the help of over 50 volunteers in proofing the book, recommending content, and generally giving their seal of approval.

New Technology, New Publishing Platform

The platform itself allows us to create the digital and print version of the book ver efficiently. Unlike most books about technology, our version is guaranteed to be up to date because the effort to turn our live content on the site into static content in eBook and print formats is so effortless. It literally takes us less than an hour to turn the entire book online into a print-ready file for Lulu.For ePub it takes a bit longer. But compared to other publishers of technology books, our turnaround time is lightning fast when you consider that most books take 3-6 months to go through a single publishing cycle. We imagine turning around a new copy of the book within a week of any new major product revision. As fast as Google updates Android, so go the data-crunching wizardry of our MindTouch-powered publishing platform.

What is The Complete Android Guide?

I have an iPhone. But after reading this book, I’m on the fence. If ever an iPhone user wanted a reason to switch, he will find it in this book. Quite simply, the Android phone is an amazing product. Yes, Apple changed the game when they introduced the iPhone 3 years ago. But Android is quickly gaining popularity and it’s no wonder. You can do a lot more for a lot less. Wow.

While book is written from the perspective of a new Android user, every chapter covers a feature set from intro to advanced uses. There are 16 chapter in all, plus 7 bonus tutorial chapters on nifty things you probably hadn’t considered doing before.

Additionally, because Android is available on so many carriers and for so many phone manufacturers, the book serves all the above. The samples, screenshots and tutorials consider that Android users are not all experiencing the same thing. When we know the difference between Verizon and T-Mobile, we tell you. When there’s a difference between the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC EVO, we tell you.

So, if you have an Android phone and you want to show all your iPhone-toting friend what a Droid does better? Buy the book. Learn the lessons. Go forth. Conquer.

Friend, Follow, and Frequent

For frequent updates from the book (tips, tutorials, ideas, news) follow @completeandroid on twitter or join the Fan page on Facebook.

For updates from Complete Guides about our books and authors follow @icompleteme on twitter or join the Fan page on Facebook.

If you’re an author and want to write about technology you use everyday, email me.

If you’re a fan of technology and you want to contribute to our existing books, visit completeguides.net, sign up, share, comment, rate and generally make use of the platform.

From left: Adam Pash, Somebody, Kevin Purdy, Gina Trapani, Somebody else

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(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

Kelly Abbott | July 16, 2010 - 7:53 am

Because I know you care, here’s the backstory.

(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

A while back we decided to dip our toes into the ePublishing business. It came first with the offer to help Gina publish her book, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, in as open and free-as-in-freedom way as possible. As it were, Gina wanted help turning the page on the traditional publishing model. Who are we to blow against the wind?

But Gina’s is a tech book. I come from creative writing stock. Indeed, Jon and Trish are avid readers of fiction and non-fiction as well. So in our collective affinity for the humanities I reached out to see if there would be any writers interested in turning the page on traditional publishing outside of the tech world.

And then came Mary.

Mary L. Tabor is by all counts free. Free-thinking, free-loving, free-wheeling. Free. She’s a graduate of The Ohio State University’s Creative Writing Program (my alma mater as well) and having shucked a past life behind the corporate veil, she’s now proudly living in the ivory tower of creativity. As the title of her book would suggest, she’s older than we are, but challenges us in her youthful understanding of the world. And by youthful, I don’t mean naive. I mean un-blemished. I mean optimistic. I mean joyful and carefree and without pretense or fear. Mary is a breath of fresh air.

Here’s my blurb for the book:

Mary has written a memoir of the highest quality. Her experiences and the way she brings them to us remind us why we bother to read in the first place: empathy is better than callousness, trust more rewarding than cynicism, adventure food for the soul.

A few months ago I was going through the process of helping edit Mary’s memoir and it suddenly occurred to me how important her work was. If you buy the book (and I really hope you do) you’ll see straight away how strange a thing this eBook is. It is, by all counts, a book written in the current times. You’ll be struck at how current the events surrounding her life feel because they didn’t happen too long ago. You’ll be struck at how intimate the memoir can be when it’s raw and recent and un-filtered. And you’ll also be struck at how candid Mary is with her life because, as I mention in her blurb, she has the voice of an adventurer who believes with every gray and flowing hair on her sixty-plus head that there is no fourth wall for empathy. That we are publishing an eBook with her name on it is really the whole point. The medium allows for this kind of recency and intimacy. You should see for yourself.

(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

Available on Kindle, iPad, Sony eReader, PDF, Print, and more.

Posted in on publishing, our books | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Do I Get My Book Published on Amazon.com?

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 8:32 am

This is a short, quick post about how to get your book published independently on Amazon.com. Amazon does a poor job of explaining this and in my research there did not seem to be a consensus answer for this one simple question:

How do I get my book published on Amazon.com?

There are three ways.

  1. Createspace
  2. Digital Text Platform
  3. Advantage

Here are their key differences:

Createspace is the “atoms and bits” solution to getting your creative works for sale on Amazon.com. Caters to books, music and film.

Digital Text Platform is the Kindle channel only. If you want your book on the Kindle and that’s all you care about, use DTP.

Amazon Advantage is the place where a publisher would go to selling and distributing their physical books on Amazon.com – you can ship from your own warehouse and ship them a palette of books to ship for you.

In all solutions, you as the publisher set the price, but Amazon takes 45% of the retail price.

Posted in lessons learned in the trenches, on publishing | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How Do I Publish a Book in the Apple iPad iBookstore?

Kelly Abbott | January 29, 2010 - 10:32 am

Steve Jobs with the iPad

Hi, Steve. Thanks for innovating. We love your work. But there’s just this one thing that’s irking us now. As an independent publisher who’s primary channel for sales is digital, how can I delivery our titles to iPad owners?

This much we know:

  • The iPad is basically a larger iTouch. Yes, there are differences, but let’s just start there.
  • The iPad will have a native app called “iBooks” which is the way iPad owners will access the iBookstore at Apple.
  • HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group are already confirmed publishers with books available in the iBookstore.
  • The ePub format will be supported by the iBookstore.
  • And according to Steve Jobs in his Keynote: “We’re going to open the flood gates for the rest of the publishers in the world starting this afternoon.”

Where’s the flood?

I’m asking this because we’ve been researching this for our own book. We have new titles that will be ready for the iPad launch in 58 days. And if it takes weeks to get a book approved (in the same way it takes weeks to get an app approved) we need to have our ePub book(s) ASAP. I’m not sweating. Really. I’m sure Apple will indeed open the floodgates. But they’re already two days late.

After searching, I’m forced to lob this plea publicly: How do I as a publisher get a book in the Apple iBookstore?

iBooks App on the iPad

iBooks App on the iPad

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The Complete Guide to Google Wave – the eBook published by 3ones

Kelly Abbott | November 17, 2009 - 4:52 pm
Book Cover

Book Cover

With much pride in our work, we announce the arrival of our first published eBook, the Complete Guide to Google Wave, by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash. It’s the first book published about Google Wave. The book is also free to share. Free as in freedom. Free as in, download, share, copy, recycle, re-mix and re-factor. It’s  yours, yours, yours, and yours. You’re all welcome.

Published the Wiki Way

The guide went live a few weeks ago as a wiki first. Gina and Adam continue to write it and edit it. Which is to say, it’s no longer just a book but a truly collaborative book that exists online. If you buy a PDF copy, download it to your kindle or desktop and enjoy. If someone loans you a copy, do the same. But remember…

Credits:

If you think our work was valuable, show it by contributing to the wiki, buying the eBook, or both.

Watch this Space

We’ll be using our site to tell the complete story behind the Complete Guide to Google Wave. We have planned releasing four editions over the next twelve months. As we explore the economics of this open publishing model during that time we’ll share our insights into the business of book publishing in the eBook/Wiki era.

Enjoy!

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