Apple has sold over 4 million iPhones. The number of iPod Touch devices sold is not known, but if we think of a number around 2 million we should not be far off the mark. That’s 6 million devices capable of downloading, displaying, and sharing ebooks in the PDF format. But that’s not all. Apple has announced its plans to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008. Add to that a very conservative estimate of 4 million iPod Touch devices and we are talking about a market of approximately 14 million devices. None of those devices are more than a year old. That’s a huge market waiting for content.

Always test your ebooks on the target devices. To make your life easier, make sure you get a device with the Bluetooth connectivity option and a computer that supports it. I use a MacBook, which has it built in, a lot of PC laptops have it too. But if you computer doesn’t have it, use a USB Bluetooth dongle. Make sure you buy one that comes with the drives for the operating system you are using and you’re set.

For phones/PDAs that do not come with Bluetooth, there is always infrared (IrDA) or a direct connection via a USB cable. Make sure you get the one with the matching plugs or use the one that came with the phone. You may have to install a piece of software that will let you communicate with the phone, but some phones can work in USB storage device mode, that does not require additional software.

If all of that fails, you can always use a memory card and move the card between your computer and the phone/PDA.

Personally, I prefer to use Bluetooth. No wires, no cards. Just remember to keep your phone/PDA on a charger if you do a lot of transfers as they will drain the battery.

If you aim for the widest possible distribution of your ebooks in PDF format, only use the standard PDF fonts. They are: Helvetica, Courier, Times, Symbol, Zapf Dingbats. You do not have to buy them, they come pre-installed on your computer. They are also pre-installed on every PDF reader.

This Cory’s talk is a few years old, but still so true. While giving your books away for free is something a lot of authors are not very comfortable with and Cory’s approach to publishing cannot be replicated on a mass scale, it is one of the best talks on what ebooks are and how they benefit both the reader and the writer. It’s a classic.

I spotted this story when I was reading Sherman Young’s post on Nick Hornby’s comments about ebooks. Think about it, if people are already lining up for iPhones, are you ready to deliver your ebooks to the iPhone? How do you do it? Read my book to find out how.

When you scan the technical specification sheets of all mobile phones introduced in over the last two years you will notice great improvements in talk time. (Forget standby time.) My own investigations show that typical talk time varies between 4 and 6 hours and MP3 playback is usually around 8-12 hours.

This is plenty enough to afford to spend some time reading an ebook and not worry about discharging the phone’s battery and loosing contact with clients, family, friends, and the boss. The fear of draining the battery is lessened even further by widespread availability of car phone chargers and the number of public places that offer free phone charging for their customers, such as restaurants, bars, railway stations, etc.

As battery life increases, people find other uses for their phones. Reading your ebooks could be one of them.

Write what you love, they say, but if you want to find a lot of readers, you need to write about the things your readers want to read. That doesn’t mean there is no room for new ideas, new authors, or new forms of artistic expression, it only means that you need to go actively looking for your audience, not just wait to be discovered. If you sit and wait, the world might pass you by.

What you need to understand is that mobile device users have both very little and plenty of time to read. What they read and when depends on where they are and what they are busy with at any given moment. If you market your ebooks to the right audience, you will find both plenty of readers and financial satisfaction. In order to do that, you need to find out what they do and when and how having a book on a mobile device could help them. Once you know that, then you can start thinking how you could reach them to help them get your content when they want it, how they want it.

Let’s think of a typical mobile device user, someone who travels a lot domestically and, occasionally, abroad. Obviously, she (or he) is very busy when she’s working in her office, but that does not mean that she is not reading anything. On the contrary, her work usually involves plenty of reading. She consumes a lot of information related to her job. Would she like to read some of that on a device that she always carries with her wherever she goes? If you make it convenient for her––yes! Take a look at NewsNow, the site that helps users quickly get to the news they are interested in. People go there, because they want to get to the news quickly. How does that relate to ebooks on mobile devices? If you can provide your readers with the information they are looking for in a portable format in a way that is convenient for them, they will read what you write.

And don’t forget that a job does not mean just your typical 9-5 shift in the office. Being a mother, or a caretaker qualifies as a job too. If you provide relevant, useful information, you will have plenty of readers.

What about the time out of office? Our jobs don’t end the minute we leave our office, so it is likely that the same person will be interested in reading an interesting ebook on a subject relevant to her or his job or career. Business books, discussions of new trends, how-to books etc. all make excellent candidates for ebooks for mobile devices. Such books will most likely be read on planes, trains, in airports, and other places, most likely out of office.

Does it mean that there is no place for literature or entertainment on mobile devices? Wrong. Such ebooks will most likely be read out of office, just like the business and educational ebooks, but that rule is not set in stone. If you write something that generates a lot of buzz, your ebook will be very popular and read and discussed at all times. You want it.

Does that exhaust the list of possible subject? Not at all, travel books and travel stories, to name just a few, all make excellent candidates for ebooks. There really is no limit to what you can write about and publish it as an ebook for mobile devices, as long as you fit it into the limits of the device and get the attention of the right audience.

This is a companion site for the eBooks for Mobile Devices book and electronic course. Welcome to the revolution!

The last five years brought us significant increase in the number of ebooks published both for profit and for free. They are no longer a dusty corner niche, but a viable alternative to the paper editions. While there is a lot of experimentation going on in this field of publishing, most of the efforts seem to focus on delivering ebooks to the desktop and laptop audiences.

However, as the technology advances, there is a growing pool of networked mobile devices, such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers (UMPC), and other sophisticated network-enabled appliances that can be used as a platform for delivery of all kinds of free and commercial content, including ebooks.

In this book I explain why now is the time to seriously consider expanding your ebook publishing efforts to include the leading mobile platforms. I will show you objective estimates of the size of the market, explain what gives me the reason to think that a mobile ebook publisher should enter it now, and how to do it in practice, i.e. how to format your content, how to deliver it, and how to make money selling ebooks for mobile devices.

I don’t want this book to be set in stone. Let’s continue the conversation at

http://www.ebooksformobiledevices.com

– Jacek Artymiak