meBooks provides services for New Zealand authors

meBooks provides services for New Zealand authors wanting to sell ebooks online

9:00 am 9 December 2010

meBooks, New Zealand's only dedicated ebook conversion and retail service, is pleased to announce the launch of a service allowing authors and self-publishers to have their work converted and made available online for sale in ebook format.

Authors can submit their works for conversion in practically any format, from previously-printed books to Word documents, PDF, and layout files. meBooks is able to convert the author's work into ebooks which work on most modern ebook readers, including the Kobo Reader, Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle.

The author can choose to make the converted ebooks available for sale on mebooks.co.nz, as well as uploading them to other online retail services such as the newly-launched Google eBooks, and the Amazon online store. The meBooks conversion service makes it easy for New Zealand authors to turn their work into a digital form and have it available to an international audience.

Ebook technology promises to be beneficial for New Zealand authors and publishers in two ways. The work is easily made available to an international audience via the online retail efforts of ebook aggregators such as Amazon and Google, and secondly, because it is digital, the work is effectively always in print meaning that authors and publishers don't have to face the significant costs involved in undertaking a reprint once an initial print run is sold out.

Google's new ebook service joins a growing field of online retail services providing a means for authors and publishers to sell ebooks to the public. Significantly, the Google eBook service provides an inbuilt ebook reader, allowing the consumer to read and access their purchases online, as well as downloading them to read on the ebook reading device.

Although Amazon has long allowed consumers to purchase ebooks for Kindle devices and applications via their online store, the customer is not able to read their purchases online using a standard web browser. Amazon has stated that it will be releasing a cloud-based ebook reading service similar to Google's in the next few months, and with a number of other cloud-based ebook reading services such as ibisreader.com having being unveiled over that last few months, the choice for ebook-reading consumers is becoming substantial.

Although Google's retail ebook commericial offerings are only available to consumers in certain territories, it is expected that the service will be available to Australian and New Zealand consumers by mid-2011.

ENDS

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