making ebooks profitable: a case study
DESCRIPTION
I’ve got a story for you…and it stars the elusive EPUB format. Once upon a time, I had dreams of taking my books to the EPUB format so we would occupy a private spot on the iBookstore book shelf. Like a scene from the Godfather, I was “strongly encouraged” to pick from a limited list of approved vendors who would happily take my content to the EPUB format—for a price. I was told that the process was complicated. I should expect it to take a long time, it was going to be expensive, and I’d need to surrender my beloved source content. Or else…TRANSCRIPT
Making eBooks Profitable: A Case Study
Kevin Siegel IconLogic, Inc.
www.iconlogic.com | [email protected]
Twitter: kevin_siegel
Why?
Why eBooks?
It’s totally awesome to play in the Apple sandbox
Why eBooks?
International reach
Increase revenue
Lower expenses
Phase out print books
Easily update content on vendor sites
What We Had…
Dozens of books
Developed in Adobe FrameMaker
Dozens upon dozens of client books developed in Word
Deep knowledge of Adobe tools
FrameMaker
RoboHelp
Captivate
What We Needed…
Seamless conversion of existing books to EPUB
Quick turnaround
Ability to quickly update manuals and EPUBs at the same time (Single Sourcing)
Valid EPUBs
Use tools we already knew
Limit the need for retraining
What we were “urged” to do
Work with an approved Aggregator
Aggregator would happily convert existing FrameMaker content to ePub
Complicated process
We wouldn’t be able to do it without an Aggregator
Validation failure assured unless we worked with the Aggregator
We were doomed!
The Aggregators Required…
Fee of only 50 cents per page for conversion
Average book: 300 pages
$150 per book
Additional fees:
Setup fee: $100 per book
Admin fee: $100 per book
Our source files
3-4 week turnaround
Fix fix a tyypo?
Only 50 cents per page
Average book: 300 pages
$150 per book
Setup fee: waived
Admin fee: waived (so long as the updates are kept to a minimum)
Our source files
3-4 week turnaround
We considered…
Using the Aggregator
Giving up on EPUB
Sandbox, schmandbox
Going to the cops
But wait… we had
Deep knowledge of Adobe tools
FrameMaker
RoboHelp
Captivate
Adobe Had Just Announced…
Technical Communication Suite 3.5
Integration between FrameMaker, RoboHelp and Captivate
Created EPUBs in seconds
Valid EPUBs from existing content
Allowed us to update content and quickly update EPUBs
Also allowed for output in web format
True single sourcing
The Workflow:
All content authored in FrameMaker
FM content linked into a RoboHelp project
Using RH, FM content converted to HTML/XHTML/XML for journey to EPUB
Using RH, Perform a mapping “two-step”
Disco here, disco there…
The Workflow, Part II
RoboHelp project generated into EPUB
Updates to FM source content = alerts in RH project
Right-click > choose Update = Done
An Even Smoother Workflow?
FrameMaker direct to EPUB via File > Publish > EPUB
RoboHelp still does the heaving lifting, only in the background
Direct to EPUB not available in standalone FM
No TCS Budget? No Worries!
Same workflow is available using Word document imported or linked into RoboHelp
No need to purchase the TCS
Standalone RoboHelp includes ability to create EPUBs
Full support for Word TOCs, etc (same as what is seen in FM > RH workflow)
ROI
To date, more than 100 converted to EPUB using TCS
Retail cost of TCS: under $2,000
Total savings (2011) by creating our own EPUBs: $45,000
More savings
15-20% books updated due to typos or required client updates
Another $3,000 saved
More ROI…
EPUB revenue 2010
$0
EPUB revenue 2011
$10,000
Projected EPUB revenue 2012
$20,000
Projected EPUB revenue 2013
$20,000,000
• Hey, go big or go home!