More than likely, before you published your book you made a 'Digital Manuscript' when you used a word processor (more power to those of you who do the work with a typewriter!) To publish these days, you have to submit a finished work in digital formats like pdf, doc or other e-publishing formats. The good thing about these formats is; they're inexpensive in time and effort to edit and produce. Once you have a Digital Copy of your book complete with text, cover and any additional interior art or photos you have a product unlike any produced since books were first invented. Your Digital Copy gives you the options of having a hardcopy print  produced in the form of hard or paper back books, publishing as an e-publication/e-book or taking both options 'A and B'.

Now, option A (publishing hardcopies) gets expensive particularly when it comes to buying and distributing your books. Though there are distribution companies which will offer up to 35% in royalties for the sale of your books, all too often there are hidden fees and costs which will cut your end to 25% or less. So though you will have spent the lion's share to develop and produce the book, you'll get the 'jackal's share' of the final take. On the other end, e-publishing has much more potential as a higher return avenue of distribution. Also, with e-publishing you have a flexible distribution model as there are currently far fewer restrictions on who can or cannot distribute your e-book. Also, royalties tend to be anywhere from 50% - 100% depending on who you distribute your e-book with or if you self-distribute.

That said, so why don't we all run out and publish e-books? Good question. First off, most novelists don't know how to set their books up for e-publishing. When you know how and have the capabilities to do so, it's really not that hard. The tricky part comes in when the work is being formatted for a specific e-pub format (pdf, doc and so on) and for the type of devices you wish to cater to. So if you don't know how to do it, you'll have to hire someone who does. If you go with a big outfit, they are going to charge you a lot. If you go the cheapo route, more often than not you'll get someone who doesn't know what they are doing and you end up with an inferior product which will have to be redone. Thus, more money to be spent. The goal is to find an outfit or person experienced with formatting manuscripts into e-books at a price you don't have to open up any veins to fulfill.

Then, there's that whole 'Pirating' thing. The problem with e-books is they are highly vulnerable to Piracy. Now, no one can stop piracy but the goal is to make your money before the Pirates do. If you plan to give your work out free then e-publishing is the way to go without having to spend much money. If you want to sell your work at a price you set, get a decent royalty and hold off the pirates long enough to see a return then you'll have to go with an outfit that provides Digital Rights Management protection (DRM.) Keep in mind that for that added protection three things will happen; 1) you'll get a lower royalty to cover the cost of DRM, 2) you'll turn off some potential buyers. Some folks get bent when they see something is DRM protected. And 3) the pirates will eventually blow through your DRM protection.

In the next discussion we'll take a look at some of the different e-publishing formats, their level of protection and some of the services available for e-publication.

SPC!