I’m a bit bleary-eyed, but my efforts to get an ePub version of Kill Well has succeeded, and that success is mainly due (besides my being a stubborn son of a…) to Draft2Digital, and, well, a bit of homework.

First, let me explain why ePub is an ebook format I want to have, and that is to make Kill Well available on other ebook platforms in addition to Kindle. At first my main interest was to have a general ebook format that I could send out to reviewers and I knew that if I only sent out the Kindle version, some potential reviewers would be SOL. Now, the funny thing is that Amazon’s Kindle has recently moved to ePub-only ebook format, finally throwing over their MOBI format for the industry standard ePub. The other funny thing, though, is that there is still a lot of proprietary requirements that limit its ePub format to Kindle devices and thus limit Kindle ePub format as a generally accessible ebook platform. This is hardly the first time Amazon has used its market position to its own advantage, and, yes, even when it comes to standards.

The second reason for having an ePub format ebook is that the version can be sold (i.e., distributed) through many non-Amazon channels, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobi, and many others, including library distributors. Even in this area Draft2Digital makes it easy for its publishers to choose any number of ebook distributors (and thus sellers), including Kindle. I have my book in Amazon’s Kindle already in pre-release, and I don’t wish to confuse Mr. Amazon, so I avoided this sort of double-dipping and didn’t include Amazon distribution through Draft2Digital.

I started this whole ePub endeavor with a couple of false starts exploring PDF-to-ePub conversion software and ePub-to-PDF software, and these offered lousy user interfaces. There were several of such conversion platforms that I played with, and one I took a monthly subscription on—remind me to cancel! The online articles I found for this software category listed many well-regarded ones as free, but this turns out to be bait and switch, and rather aggravatingly so. After plugging in all the called-for files and filling out metadata fields and then pressing the “go” button, only then did I learn that this was only for a three-page “trial” document and if I wanted an all-the-pages in-the-manuscript ebook, there was a price to pay. That was annoying enough, but, hey, a guy’s got to make a living, right? Unfortunately, the next rub was that all the set-up work that I had done was gone once I paid up, forcing me to repeat the earlier steps. I wish that I could claim that this poorly mannered software is an exception, but as I reviewed alternatives I found more often than not this ill-behavior is something of an industry standard.

I decided to scrap that angle and explore Word-to-ebook production platforms that are offered by ebook and POD (print on demand of paperbacks) distribution companies, and Draft2Digital kept coming up with strong plusses as I narrowed down my choices. The Word-to-ePub process went smoothly enough, although that may be because I did my homework, finding guidance that mostly consisted of specific ways to prepare the Word manuscript file.

The release of the ePub version of Kill Well is scheduled for next week and after more time has passed and enough sales have been made, I’ll get to see how well the Draft2Digital sales reports go and how well—and how quickly—“royalty” payments get to me. I’ve placed “royalty” is quotes because the business arrangement is something different than a traditional publishing royalty arrangement. There are the typical discounts to sellers and with Draft2Digital takes a small percent of each sale, but the ebook industry seems fond of the term even if it isn’t accurate.

I’ll post an updating list of other ebook channels as distributors choose to accept Kill Well, but even after just a day of setting the book up through Draft2Digital, I’m up—still pre-order for August 18—on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Tolino, and Vivlio.