Digital Protecting Ode

5 Simple Steps to Protect your Digital Downloads

A couple of days ago, I was searching for a popular eBook online.

Now I'm not going to tell you the name of this eBook for reasons you'll understand in the next few minutes.

Okay, so here I was, opening Google, entering the name of the eBook - clicking search, and checking through the first few pages of search results.

-> Forward to Page 5 of Google

I saw a link that looked like a PDF document.

Right click -> open in new window

There, in full glory, was the eBook I was searching for!

The complete eBook, mind you, not a trial or demo - sitting there for the world to download.

And this is a product that sells for over $25 online!!

Obviously I'm not going to tell you the name of the eBook because it would not be fair to the reseller.

But it just made me realise that one of the reasons digital theft is so prevalent is simply because... its so EASY!

Don't get me wrong. I don't condone theft of any kind - digital or otherwise.

But would YOU shell out $25 for a product that everyone can 'legally' download off the 5th page of Google?

Most people would just shrug their shoulders, hit the save button and thank their lucky stars.

Result: The opposite of $ KA-CHING $ for the sellers

One of the problems with selling digital products online is that it is so SIMPLE to do. So now everyone and their grandmother wants to do it.

But most newbies have no idea that it requires only a few simple steps to ensure a moderate degree of security for your downloads.

So here I've outlined the five most BASIC security steps That anyone selling digital products online must take.

These will take you only a few minutes to do, and you do not need any special software or programming knowledge.

1. ZIP THAT FILE

The biggest problem arises when sellers store their downloads as PDF documents, as in my experience above.

Now you should know that Google, Altavista and many other search engines can read and list PDF files.

While this may not be a problem for those adding content to their sites in the form of PDF newsletters and reports, it also means that you must never store a product you want to SELL as a PDF file (unless it is in a password- protected folder).

It gets worse. Google also converts your PDF files into HTML documents. So ordinary browsers not only have access to your PDF file, but - horror of horrors - they can download your SOURCE FILE as well!!

The next logical step is for them to customize it with their own links, compile it and sell it or give it away.

Result: The opposite of $ KA-CHING $ for the sellers ...AND the author.

A simple way of keeping your files out of the reach of spiders is to upload them as a zip file. Search engines cannot look inside zip files (yet) and list their contents.

2. CREATE AN INDEX.HTML FILE

You MUST have an index.html file in EVERY folder. It acts like a curtain that keeps your files away from prying eyes.

A folder without an index file is like a house without walls. Everyone can enter and help themselves to the valuables.

The 'index.htm' file is the default file that opens when you click on the link here -

http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/

If you don't create an index.htm or index.html file, you'd be allowing everyone to directly access the root directory of the folder where you store your downloads.

Here is a folder I uploaded to show you what happens when you DON'T have an index file. http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/test/

As you can see, all the files stored in it are clearly visible and ready to download.

And yes, feel free to help yourself - I won't accuse you of stealing :-)

3. SHOW PEEPING TOMS THE EXIT

You can use a simple script to redirect peeping Toms back to your home page.

Here's the easiest way to do it using what it called a "meta refresh tag." Add it between the Header tags like this.

Just replace my URL with your own in the example above and paste it into the head of your document (before your text).

You can see how it works by clicking on the test folder here. http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/redirect/

Now even though you click on the folder URL, you will be sent to my home page.

4. SPIDER-PROOF YOUR DOWNLOAD PAGES

To prevent search engine spiders from reading and listing the download pages that link to your eBooks add the tag below in the head of the document.

This "Robot" tag tells the spider that this page is not to be spidered or indexed. As a result it should never show up on a search.

5. CHANGE YOUR DOWNLOAD LINKS OFTEN

To prevent unscrupulous people from posting your download links on forums or message boards, change the folder or file name where you store them from time to time, even if it means having to change the download links in your merchant account.

Using these methods will give you a good degree of satisfaction, knowing that you have taken the most basic steps to protect your digital valuables - and at absolutely no cost to you.

If you want greater security and more information on plugging the security loopholes in your website, you should take a look at this very revealing report by Bogdan Ravaru.

The HTML Security Report http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/secureport/

Author, Priya Shah, is webmistress of http://www.1whey2health.com. Subscribe to "Health eBiz" http://health-ebiz.com for information on wellness marketing trends and online marketing tips for Health & Wellness Marketers.

Freelance Written Poem

Related Themes: Essay, Essay Writing, Writing Job, Writing Short Story, Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Job, Internet Job, Writing Job Description, Work At Home, Extra Income, Technical Writing Job, Poetry Contest, Short Story Contest, Songwriting, Songwriting Contest, Writing Lesson, Writing Software, Writing Skill, Writing Fiction, Writing Contest, Effective Writing

Freelance Writing Markets, Poetry Markets - Highly Paid -v- Unpaid

Amazing as it may sound, there is a real shortage of good writers and poets. Try telling that to the thousands of writers and poets who get daily rejection slips.

As far as they are concerned, writing is virtually impossible to break into no matter how hard they seem to try.

There may be a number of reasons why they don't succeed:

Their writing is not up to standard - as far as the particular publishers or editors are concerned;

They don't bother polishing their writing before submission;

They knock on the wrong doors - sending materials on a random basis;

They have failed to do basic research;

The list goes on.

1000s of publishers

There are of course thousands of publishers, especially online, who are willing to publish your work without payment. Such publishers can't or won't pay writers or poets.

Professional writers on the other hand command handsome fees. They make a good living out of writing.

Anyone can become a professional writer. You just need the determination to succeed. If you don't have a natural gift, you can learn to write well. This can be by self-study, online, or at a college or school near you.

High quality professional writers demand anything from $1000 to $5000 per project - and the best earn substantially more. A project may involve just one page or a few poems.

Why do most aspiring writers and aspiring poets fail?

In a recent survey conducted on behalf of http://www.WritingHolidays.com, it became apparent that most writers and poets were not willing to invest time or effort in training or acquiring the necessary skills.

The survey revealed that most writers and poets were happy to plod along by trial and error rather than investing in a decent course. They accordingly fail to reap the rewards that are there for the taking.

They remain amateur writers and poets whilst their professional colleagues cream off the best paid writing markets.

The survey compared writers and poets to other professions. Lawyers, Accountants, Doctors, etc., are all highly paid. They all undergo training before the rewards are forthcoming. Yet, most writers and poets believe that the riches will come to them without spending $1 on training or developing skills.

One per cent. of writers or poets may get lucky. They may have been "born writers or poets" - they succeed without any training. The rest slog away - hoping that one day they may make some money from writing.

The good news

The good news is that there are 1000s of paid writing markets that are waiting to be exploited. There are more assignments than writers or poets.

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Consulting Editors, Authors and Writing Mentors at http://www.askprofessors.com - creators of the Affiliate Intelligence and Writing systems. Network for Authors, Freelancers, Poets, Reviewers, Homeworkers © Editors, Writers and Reporters. Content Syndication by www.InternetPressOffice.com.

Asking Publisher Serenade

"Manuscripts Wanted" - Questions You Should Ask The Publisher Before You Sign

There are days when I feel as if everyone I know is a writer, and that they are all looking for the same thing, to be heard. The pursuit of finding someone to accept a manuscript for publication is at best disheartening. Many begin to feel that continued rejection is about as miserable as a writer will ever feel – it is not. Signing with the wrong publisher not only brings misery in a new and clever package, but it can also quite possibly destroy the inclination to write.

Greed and deception are as prevalent in publishing as anywhere else. There are many companies willing to take an authors money and hard work. The irony is that it is given just for the asking. Choosing a good company to work with is equally important as the words chosen in the manuscript.

In an author beware world it pays to be informed. This guideline is designed to help you make decisions based on information, rather than emotion.

The Company

Like it or not, you and your publisher enter into a kind of marriage, the kind of marriage where their name attaches itself to you. Think about that. An important facet of the relationship is the reputation your new partner has in the industry. If their stature is questionable, it may be difficult to find reviewers, distributors and even readers. It’s called guilt by association. Therefore, your first order of business is to do research.

One way to establish a publisher’s reputation is to visit your local bookstore and ask the owner if they are known. If so, what are they like to do business with? Using the Internet to investigate the company’s name and their officers is also an advisable avenue. Still another approach is to post questions within various writing groups. By far, writing groups can be your best source of information.

Be direct and ask the publisher how many books they put into print last year. How many to date? Are they are willing to provide you with a list of their authors for references? A useful gauge in picking a publisher is knowing how well the company treats its authors. Find out how many books the average author has with this house – you want to know if authors stay for more than one book.

The Product

Something else to consider is the book itself. Just what is it this company is going to produce for you? A hardback? Trade paperback? Paperback? E-book? Ask them what the size is going to be, along with an estimated page count. What is the proposed list price?

What you need to establish is how well your book is going to stand up to the competition – other books sitting on the shelf in your genre. If similar titles are selling in the $13 -$15 range, and the publisher wants to list yours at $22, your book may be tough to sell. Price does matter.

Find out what services the publisher provides. Editing? Copy Editing? Format? Cover Design? Copyrights? How about help with the permissions for songs or quotes? Are there any fees attached? Will the publisher help you locate a well-known author or celebrity to write a forward? What about that all-important back cover blurb – any help there?

Is the editing accomplished electronically or is it sent snail mail? How many edits should you expect? How long does the process usually take? Will the product have an ISBN? How about a bar code? Will they provide the author with any free copies? How many? Is this publisher willing to send you a sample of their current work? The sample should ultimately be a reflection of something you would be proud to put into public view.

The Contract

Read it, read it again and then have somebody else read it – like an attorney. The last thing you want to do is to sign away the rights to your manuscript without understanding every single detail.

What are you getting out of the deal? Royalties? Movie rights? International rights? Anything? You need to know exactly how much you are going to get paid and when. Watch out for percentage contracts with variable rates. Does this publisher pay their authors? What is the average pay for an author? Are they willing to give you verification?

When was the last time this company was audited? Is the company in good fiscal health? How long is the contract for? Six months? A year? Your next two books? Is the publisher asking for any money from you? Why? A reputable publisher pays you – not the other way around. How long do they plan on keeping your title in print?

The Marketing

While many will produce, few will promote. Even an outstanding book will not sell unless it is correctly marketed. The major expense in publication lies not in book production, rather book promotion. Some publishers would like you to believe that once your book is in print, it will sell – but that isn’t the truth. A successful author will tell you that it takes a lot of hard work to get a new book into the public’s eye. If your publisher is unwilling to show to you a proven marketing strategy, look for another company.

What you need to find out is how the publishers marketing system works – in other words, who is going to distribute your book? Ingrams? Baker & Taylor? A regional distributor? Will sales be restricted to giants like Amazon or Barnes & Noble? Does the publisher have adequate contacts with independents like BookSense? Grocery stores? Chain stores? Warehouse Stores? Are they willing to service the local stores in your area?

What are the sales percentages for each distributor? This is extremely important. Some publishers will claim to list your book with many different distributors, but just how many are actually being sold? Listing isn’t selling. You may want to ask yourself how this company stays in business if it doesn’t actively promote and sell books.

Ask what the terms of payment are for a given distributor. Most retailers are accustomed to an open account with books being taken on a returnable basis. Check to make sure that your publisher allows returns and doesn’t demand orders to be paid in advance. This type of business practice will get few, if any orders.

How many books does the publisher plan on initially distributing? Don’t get tricked with some type of “Print on Demand” language – you need to know if your publisher will commit to running a thousand books or more at their expense, because “demand” is only created after a number of reputable people have read your work and then communicate to others in a positive manner.

Your book should be circulated to reviewers, newspapers, bookstore owners, retailers, radio stations – even to your friends and family who will give you a tremendous boost through their contacts – months before it is ever “released.” This gives potential retailers a chance to preview the product and opt-in. So, another piece of valuable information is the number of copies the publisher plans on printing for advance review copies.

Ask if the ARC’s are going to be distributed in the form of a book or professional galley. If it is a galley, ask for a sample – again, it has to be something you’d be proud of. Who will be paying for these copies and the mailings? Will the publisher furnish a professional media kit? This is a regularly updated promotional tool used to highlight your interviews, signings, reviews, awards and appearances. If so, ask to see a sample.

Do they provide posters? Shelf talkers? Bookmarks? What about a web site? Will the publisher provide you with this service or are you expected to furnish your own?

Are authors given an in-house publicist? Who is it? What is their experience level? How many authors does the publicist work with at one time? Will your publicist set up a book tour? Are they going to pay for it? If so, ask where, when and how long you will be expected to be away from your family. How about the scheduling of radio and newspaper interviews? Will your book be introduced at tradeshows?

Summary

Granted, if you are a first time author, you may not get everything that you want, but the company should still offer you fair compensation and a reasonable chance for success.

The best advice that I can give to you is to keep your checkbook closed, be patient and do the homework. Don’t take the word of the publisher or agent at face value, instead, confirm their responses with others who have had past business dealings and then make sure everything is in writing. Keep in mind that web sites and promo literature are often clouded enough to the point of being untruthful. Protect your work, protect your dreams and keep trying.

Where to Get Started:

Preditors and Editors
A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers
http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/peba.htm

Print on Demand Database
“FOR-A-FEE” PRINT-ON-DEMAND PUBLISHER DATABASE©
http://www.geocities.com/dehannabailee/pod.htm

Types of Publishers
An ongoing discussion courtesy of Writers Net
http://www.writers.net/forum/read/13/786/771Vf

Writer Beware
Fraudulent Literary Agents/Publishers in the News
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

WritersWeekly Warning Reports
The highest-circulation freelance writing ezine in the world
http://www.writersweekly.com/warnings/warnings.html

The Writer’s Center
"The easy path to publication is paved with your dollars."
http://www.writer.org/scamkit.htm

Written by Vic Peters, author who specializes in spiritual fiction, author of "Mary’s Field". You can learn more about him and his book by visiting http://www.marysfield.com.

e-Publishing Content Serenade

The Medium and the Message

A debate is raging in e-publishing circles: should content be encrypted and protected (the Barnes and Noble or Digital goods model) - or should it be distributed freely and thus serve as a form of viral marketing (Seth Godin's "ideavirus")? Publishers fear that freely distributed and cost-free "cracked" e-books will cannibalize print books to oblivion.

The more paranoid point at the music industry. It failed to co-opt the emerging peer-to-peer platforms (Napster) and to offer a viable digital assets management system with an equitable sharing of royalties. The results? A protracted legal battle and piracy run amok. "Publishers" - goes this creed - "are positioned to incorporate encryption and protection measures at the very inception of the digital publishing industry. They ought to learn the lesson."

But this view ignores a vital difference between sound and text. In music, what matter are the song or the musical piece. The medium (or carrier, or packing) is marginal and interchangeable. A CD, an audio cassette, or an MP3 player are all fine, as far as the consumer is concerned. The listener bases his or her purchasing decisions on sound quality and the faithfulness of reproduction of the listening experience (for instance, in a concert hall). This is a very narrow, rational, measurable and quantifiable criterion.

Not so with text.

Content is only one element of many of equal footing underlying the decision to purchase a specific text-"carrier" (medium). Various media encapsulating IDENTICAL text will still fare differently. Hence the failure of CD-ROMs and e-learning. People tend to consume content in other formats or media, even if it is fully available to them or even owned by them in one specific medium. People prefer to pay to listen to live lectures rather than read freely available online transcripts. Libraries buy print journals even when they have subscribed to the full text online versions of the very same publications. And consumers overwhelmingly prefer to purchase books in print rather than their e-versions.

This is partly a question of the slow demise of old habits. E-books have yet to develop the user-friendliness, platform-independence, portability, brows ability and many other attributes of this ingenious medium, the Gutenberg tome. But it also has to do with marketing psychology. Where text (or text equivalents, such as speech) is concerned, the medium is at least as important as the message. And this will hold true even when e-books catch up with their print brethren technologically.

There is no doubting that finally e-books will surpass print books as a medium and offer numerous options: hyperlinks within the e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc., embedded instant shopping and ordering links, divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines, interaction with other e-books (using Bluetooth or another wireless standard), collaborative authoring, gaming and community activities, automatically or periodically updated content, ,multimedia capabilities, database, Favourites and History Maintenance (records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more), automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities, full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities and more.

The same textual content will be available in the future in various media. Ostensibly, consumers should gravitate to the feature-rich and much cheaper e-book. But they won't - because the medium is as important as the text message. It is not enough to own the same content, or to gain access to the same message. Ownership of the right medium does count. Print books offer connectivity within an historical context (tradition). E-books are cold and impersonal, alienated and detached. The printed word offers permanence. Digital text is ephemeral (as anyone whose writings perished in the recent dot.com bloodbath or Deja takeover by Google can attest). Printed volumes are a whole sensorium, a sensual experience - olfactory and tactile and visual. E-books are one dimensional in comparison. These are differences that cannot be overcome, not even with the advent of digital "ink" on digital "paper". They will keep the print book alive and publishers' revenues flowing.

People buy printed matter not merely because of its content. If this were true e-books will have won the day. Print books are a packaged experience, the substance of life. People buy the medium as often and as much as they buy the message it encapsulates. It is impossible to compete with this mistique. Safe in this knowledge, publishers should let go and impose on e-books "encryption" and "protection" levels as rigorous as they do on the their print books. The latter are here to stay alongside the former. With the proper pricing and a modicum of trust, e-books may even end up promoting the old and trusted print versions.

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com.

Fee Based Ezine Poem

10 Reasons To Sell A Fee Based Subscription Ezine

1. You will create residual income. For example, if you charge a monthly subscription fee, you will get recurring income every month.

2. You won't have to spend all your time marketing to gain new subscribers. Just get and keep enough subscribers to reach your monthly income goal.

3. You can figure how many subscribers it'll take to meet your income goal. Note on your ad that you'll only accept a limited number of subscribers.

4. You won't have any shipping or materials costs like offline subscription publications. You'll just have your internet access and web site expenses.

5. You can sell back end or upsell products inside a fee based subscription ezine. It could be your own products or affiliate programs you've joined.

6. You can start an affiliate program that will give people residual commission. People will want to join because it's residual instead of one time sales.

7. You could publish a free ezine and allow people to upgrade to your fee based ezine. If they like your free one, they'll likely subscribe to your paid ezine.

8. Your ad copy automatically builds itself into an order pulling machine. Each issue you archive gives you new benefits to add to your sales letter.

9. You could transform your fee based content into another product to sell. It could be an ebook, video, audio book, report, book, etc.

10. You could become known as an expert on the topic of your fee based ezine. You may get hired by other businesses to do speaking engagements.

Over 40,000 Free eBooks & Web Books when you visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com.

Self Publish Serenade

A New Way To Self Publish

More and more good authors are turning to the Internet to self publish. There are several reasons for that. All of them are probably well known to every writer by now, so we'll not go into them here. What we'll talk about here is a new way to self publish.

Everyone has, by now, heard of ebooks. This is a wonderful way to publish on the net, but it requires special programs to empliment it. And there are web sites that will do all that for you for a fee. But what if you simply can't afford it or you don't want to pay anyone?

This idea I've come up with may be out there in left field, but out in left field is where you usually find some great ideas. Here is what I found.

Create a credit card account somewhere first. Pick any company you are comfortable with and doesn't cost a great deal. After that is all set, put your novel on your web site, create its own page, and use the ariel font. Use size 10 for the main text. Your title and chapter headings can be larger.

Write an intro page for your novel and create a separate page for it. Here is where you'll put any illustrations you may have. So people will have an example of your writing, copy and paste the first chapter of your novel and put it here, too. Also on this page will be the link to your credit card payment company.

The next step is to set up your credit card account to connect with the novel page after your customers have paid for it and then they can simply print out the novel or copy and paste it to their Word or Works program that is already on their computers.

This is a simple and yet effective way to self publish and it does not cost you anything, either. Out in left field, I know, but hey. Anything to survive, huh?

Anna Kathryn Bir is a published author of many sci fi short stories. One of them was a Star Trek story. You can find her sci fi novels on her web site http://e-sac.com.


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Electronic Publishing Future Serenade

The Future of Electronic Publishing

UNESCO's somewhat arbitrary definition of "book" is:
"Non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers".

The emergence of electronic publishing was supposed to change all that. Yet a bloodbath of unusual proportions has taken place in the last few months. Time Warner's iPublish and MightyWords (partly owned by Barnes and Noble) were the last in a string of resounding failures which cast in doubt the business model underlying digital content. Everything seemed to have gone wrong: the dot.coms dot bombed, venture capital dried up, competing standards fractured an already fragile marketplace, the hardware (e-book readers) was clunky and awkward, the software unwieldy, the e-books badly written or already in the public domain.

Terrified by the inexorable process of disintermediation (the establishment of direct contact between author and readers, excluding publishers and bookstores) and by the ease with which digital content can be replicated - publishers resorted to draconian copyright protection measures (euphemistically known as "digital rights management"). This further alienated the few potential readers left. The opposite model of "viral" or "buzz" marketing (by encouraging the dissemination of free copies of the promoted book) was only marginally more successful.

Moreover, e-publishing's delivery platform, the Internet, has been transformed beyond recognition since March 2000.

From an open, somewhat anarchic, web of networked computers - it has evolved into a territorial, commercial, corporate extension of "brick and mortar" giants, subject to government regulation. It is less friendly towards independent (small) publishers, the backbone of e-publishing. Increasingly, it is expropriated by publishing and media behemoths. It is treated as a medium for cross promotion, supply chain management, and customer relations management. It offers only some minor synergies with non-cyberspace, real world, franchises and media properties. The likes of Disney and Bertelsmann have swung a full circle from considering the Internet to be the next big thing in New Media delivery - to frantic efforts to contain the red ink it oozed all over their otherwise impeccable balance sheets.

But were the now silent pundits right all the same? Is the future of publishing (and other media industries) inextricably intertwined with the Internet?

The answer depends on whether an old habit dies hard. Internet surfers are used to free content. They are very reluctant to pay for information (with precious few exceptions, like the "Wall Street Journal"'s electronic edition). Moreover, the Internet, with 3 billion pages listed in the Google search engine (and another 15 billion in "invisible" databases), provides many free substitutes to every information product, no matter how superior. Web based media companies (such as Salon and Britannica.com) have been experimenting with payment and pricing models. But this is besides the point. Whether in the form of subscription (Britannica), pay per view (Questia), pay to print (Fathom), sample and pay to buy the physical product (RealRead), or micropayments (Amazon) - the public refuses to cough up.

Moreover, the advertising-subsidized free content Web site has died together with Web advertising. Geocities - a community of free hosted, ad-supported, Web sites purchased by Yahoo! - is now selectively shutting down Web sites (when they exceed a certain level of traffic) to convince their owners to revert to a monthly hosting fee model. With Lycos in trouble in Europe, Tripod may well follow suit shortly. Earlier this year, Microsoft has shut down ListBot (a host of discussion lists). Suite101 has stopped paying its editors (content authors) effective January 15th. About.com fired hundreds of category editors. With the ugly demise of Themestream, WebSeed is the only content aggregator which tries to buck the trend by relying (partly) on advertising revenue.

Paradoxically, e-publishing's main hope may lie with its ostensible adversary: the library. Unbelievably, e-publishers actually tried to limit the access of library patrons to e-books (i.e., the lending of e-books to multiple patrons). But, libraries are not only repositories of knowledge and community centres. They are also dominant promoters of new knowledge technologies. They are already the largest buyers of e-books. Together with schools and other educational institutions, libraries can serve as decisive socialization agents and introduce generations of pupils, students, and readers to the possibilities and riches of e-publishing. Government use of e-books (e.g., by the military) may have the same beneficial effect.

As standards converge (Adobe's Portable Document Format and Microsoft's MS Reader LIT format are likely to be the winners), as hardware improves and becomes ubiquitous (within multi-purpose devices or as standalone higher quality units), as content becomes more attractive (already many new titles are published in both print and electronic formats), as more versatile information taxonomies (like the Digital Object Identifier) are introduced, as the Internet becomes more gender-neutral, polyglot, and cosmopolitan - e-publishing is likely to recover and flourish.

This renaissance will probably be aided by the gradual decline of print magazines and by a strengthening movement for free open source scholarly publishing. The publishing of periodical content and academic research (including, gradually, peer reviewed research) may be already shifting to the Web. Non-fiction and textbooks will follow. Alternative models of pricing are already in evidence (author pays to publish, author pays to obtain peer review, publisher pays to publish, buy a physical product and gain access to enhanced online content, and so on). Web site rating agencies will help to discriminate between the credible and the in-credible. Publishing is moving - albeit kicking and screaming - online.

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com.

Newsletter Publisher Packaging Value Content Verse

A Newsletter Publisher's Main Task: Packaging Value Content

The main task of a newsletter publisher is to select and package quality content of direct, practical relevance to its specific readership audience.

This might sound quick and easy, but it is not.

Publishing a quality newsletter is more than just cutting and pasting quality content into your newsletter. A quality newsletter is more than just the sum of its parts. The more the different sections in a newsletter support each other, the more benefits subscribers can get from it.

A quality newsletter makes sense out of the Internet chaos. A good newsletter editor understands the Internet big picture and is able to pick out relevant information which is packaged into one newsletter issue in a way that makes sense for its readers.

A poor quality newsletter is easily produced in less than 15 minutes of cutting and pasting quality content text. One issue of a good quality newsletter takes one day to produce - it might also select from the same content pool as the poor quality newsletter - but it takes more time in selecting the right combination of available free content for each issue.

Extremely high quality content, randomly aggregated into a newsletter makes a poor quality newsletter. Somewhat lower quality content, expertly packaged and organized make a high quality newsletter. Your editorial note (that introduces each newsletter issue), shows how much understanding and effort you put into this critically important step.

Publishing a quality newsletter is a creative process. It does not involve following three easy steps. Good editors will find this article packed with value, others will consider this article as utterly useless.

Quality newsletters gets edited by the most senior, experienced people in an organization, not on a rotational basis by anyone with some free time on their hands.

The following are some concepts that help a good newsletter editor in his or her task:

Integration: combine the value content of several experts in their fields into one newsletter issue. Each of these experts can only contribute expertise on their topics. However, when these standalone expert contributions are combined into one newsletter issue, all their contributions grow in value because it is part of a larger solution. Your newsletter subscribers can possibly get all your newsletter content easily elsewhere, but come to you because of the way you package and present it to them.

Position: by publishing a newsletter, you position yourself as the central point where they go to get quality Internet content, nicely packaged to address their exact needs.

Team: your newsletter will be more valuable if its content is produced by a team of people. This team of people consists of: guest article authors, contributors of tips, subscribers that provide questions and software products authors that ask you to review their software.

Benefits: your newsletter is only about providing benefits to its subscribers. The more value content you have the more benefits your subscribers get from you. Value content like: feature articles, guest articles, questions and answers, link to value resources, product reviews, your editorial comments, tips.

To summarize: you, as newsletter editor and publisher, use your newsletter to combine the content of your team of contributors into a logically-arranged, benefit-rich newsletter for your subscribers.

Your newsletter is benefit-rich when it is packed with useful, practical content that is directly relevant to the needs of your readers.

A newsletter is not benefit-rich only if it contains detailed, step-by-step articles.

A newsletter that helps its readers understand the bigger-picture meanings and implications of the Internet on a more philosophical level also has benefits. Such a newsletter should focus on educating its readership on how to apply their insight practically and on a daily basis to their business.

A newsletter that focus exclusively on step-by-step articles makes its readers work harder.

A newsletter that focus exclusively on philosophical, Internet bigger-picture visions make its readers think harder.

In my opinion, a combination of these approaches is best. Such a combination will make your readers work hard - smarter.

There are two main (opposite) approaches to packaging a quality content newsletter:

Your write all the content yourself ... very time-consuming.

You select and package content created by others ... the more practical and realistic approach.

Most editors choose a middle road where they contribute some original content and get the remainder of their content from other contributors.

If a good newsletter editor's main task is packaging value content, a good newsletter subscriber's task is to read, understand and ACT based on the insight the gain from this content. A good newsletter is your personalized to-do list for the week.

Alwyn Botha, the author of this article, is also the author of a free, 10-day autoresponder course ... Your Beginner's Guide to Maximum Internet Success, available from http://www.leveragedsuccess.com.

OverDrive e-Publishing Serenade

Jamaican OverDrive - LCD's in LDC's

OverDrive - an e-commerce, software conversion and e-publishing applications leader - has just expanded an e-book technology centre by adding 200 e-book editors. This happened in Montego Bay, Jamaica - one of the less privileged spots on earth. The centre now provides a vertical e-publishing service - from manuscript editing to conversion to Quark (for POD), Adobe, and MS Reader ebook formats. Thus, it is not confined to the classic sweatshop cum production centre so common in Less Developed Countries (LDC's). It is a full fledged operation with access to cutting edge technology.

The Jamaican OverDrive is the harbinger of things to come and the outcome of a confluence of a few trends.

First, there is the insatiable appetite big publishers (such as McGraw-Hill, Random House, and Harper Collins) have developed to converting their hitherto inertial backlists into e-books. Gone are the days when e-books were perceived as merely a novel form of packaging. Publishers understood the cash potential this new distribution channel offers and the value added to stale print tomes in the conversion process. This epiphany is especially manifest in education and textbook publishing.

Then there is the maturation of industry standards, readers and audiences. Both the supply side (title lists) and the demand side (readership) have increased. Giants like Microsoft have successfully entered the fray with new e-book reader applications, clearer fonts, and massive marketing. Retailers - such as Barnes and Noble - opened their gates to e-books. A host of independent publishers make good use of the negligible-cost distribution channel that the Internet is. Competition and positioning are already fierce - a good sign.

The Internet used to be an English, affluent middle-class, white collar, male phenomenon. It has long lost these attributes. The digital divides that opened up with the early adoption of the Net by academe and business - are narrowing. Already there are more women than men users and English is the language of less than half of all web sites. The wireless Net will grant developing countries the chance to catch up.

Astute entrepreneurs are bound to take advantage of the business-friendly profile of the manpower and investment-hungry governments of some developing countries. It is not uncommon to find a mastery of English, a college degree in the sciences, readiness to work outlandish hours at a fraction of wages in Germany or the USA - all combined in one employee in these deprived countries. India has sprouted a whole industry based on these competitive endowments.

Here is how Steve Potash, OverDrive's CEO, explains his daring move in OverDrive's press release dated May 22, 2001:

"Everyone we are partnering with in the US and worldwide has been very excited and delighted by the tremendous success and quality of eBook production from OverDrive Jamaica. Jamaica has tremendous untapped talent in its young people. Jamaica is the largest English-speaking nation in the Caribbean and their educational and technical programs provide us with a wealth of quality candidates for careers in electronic publishing. We could not have had this success without the support and responsiveness of the Jamaican government and its agencies. At every stage the agencies assisted us in opening our technology centre and staffing it with trained and competent eBook professionals. OverDrive Jamaica will be pioneering many of the advances for extending books, reference materials, textbooks, literature and journals into new digital channels - and will shortly become the foremost centre for eBook automation serving both US and international markets".

Druanne Martin, OverDrive's Director of publishing services elaborates:

"With Jamaica and Cleveland, Ohio sharing the same time zone (EST), we have our US and Jamaican production teams in sync. Jamaica provides a beautiful and warm climate, literally, for us to build long-term partnerships and to invite our publishing and content clients to come and visit their books in production".

The Jamaican Minister of Industry, Commerce and Technology, the Hon. Phillip Paulwell reciprocates:

"We are proud that OverDrive has selected Jamaica to extend its leadership in eBook technology. OverDrive is benefiting from the investments Jamaica has made in developing the needed infrastructure for IT companies to locate and build skilled workforces here."

There is nothing new in outsourcing back office work (insurance claims processing, air ticket reservations, medical records maintenance) to third world countries, such as (the notable example) India. Research and Development is routinely farmed out to aspiring first world countries such as Israel and Ireland. But OverDrive's Jamaican facility is an example of something more sophisticated and more durable. Western firms are discovering the immense pools of skills, talent, innovation, and top notch scientific and other education often offered even by the poorest of nations. These multinationals entrust the locals now with more than keyboarding and responding to customer queries using fake names. The Jamaican venture is a business partnership. In a way, it is a topsy-turvy world. Digital animation is produced in India and consumed in the States. The low compensation of scientists attracts the technology and R&D arms of the likes of General Electric to Asia and Intel to Israel. In other words, there are budding signs of a reversing brain drain - from West to East.

E-publishing is at the forefront of software engineering, e-consumerism, intellectual property technologies, payment systems, conversion applications, the mobile Internet, and, basically, every important trend in network and computing and digital content. Its migration to warmer and cheaper climates may be inevitable. OverDrive sounds happy enough.

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com.

E-books Opus

A novel re-definition through experimentation of
The poem that really sucks!
The empty promise of glove
That really need to stop wearing slacks.

E(merging) Books

A novel re-definition through experimentation of the classical format of the book is emerging.

Consider the now defunct BookTailor. It used to sell its book customization software mainly to travel agents - but this technology is likely to conquer other niches (such as the legal and medical professions). It allows users to select bits and pieces from a library of e-books, combine them into a totally new tome and print and bind the latter on demand. The client can also choose to buy the end-product as an e-book. Consider what this simple business model does to entrenched and age old notions such as "original" and "copies", copyright, and book identifiers. What is the "original" in this case? Is it the final, user-customized book - or its sources? And if no customized book is identical to any other - what happens to the intuitive notion of "copies"? Should BookTailor-generated books considered to be unique exemplars of one-copy print runs? If so, should each one receive a unique identifier (for instance, a unique ISBN)? Does the user possess any rights in the final product, composed and selected by him? What about the copyrights of the original authors?

Or take BookCrossing.com. On the face of it, it presents no profound challenge to established publishing practices and to the modern concept of intellectual property. Members register their books, obtain a BCID (BookCrossing ID Number) and then give the book to someone, or simply leave it lying around for a total stranger to find. Henceforth, fate determines the chain of events. Eventual successive owners of the volume are supposed to report to BookCrossing (by e-mail) about the book's and their whereabouts, thereby generating moving plots and mapping the territory of literacy and bibliomania. This innocuous model subversively undermines the concept - legal and moral - of ownership. It also expropriates the book from the realm of passive, inert objects and transforms it into a catalyst of human interactions across time and space. In other words, it returns the book to its origins: a time capsule, a time machine and the embodiment of a historical narrative.

E-books, hitherto, have largely been nothing but an ephemeral rendition of their print predecessors. But e-books are another medium altogether. They can and will provide a different reading experience. Consider "hyperlinks within the e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc., embedded instant shopping and ordering links, divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines, interaction with other e-books (using Bluetooth or another wireless standard), collaborative authoring, gaming and community activities, automatically or periodically updated content, ,multimedia capabilities, database, Favourites and History Maintenance (records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more), automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities, full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities and more".

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com.