Different types of ebooks

The ebook will only open in Kotobee Reader. Any attempts to open the ebook in other e-readers will fail. They can be opened and read on computers and mobile devices, running the Kindle app, and of course, on Kindle devices. As for interactive content, MOBI only supports multimedia files for now.

All the information is summarized in the table below. Ebook Apps all provide the highest level of interactive content, Kotobee DRM in our case , and the same branding and customization options.

Because they run in the browser, they can be viewed on any computer or mobile device. You will need to have a website to host the web app. If you want your readers to run your ebook app on their computers, this is the option for you. Kotobee provides desktop apps for iOS, Windows, and Chromebooks. So you can create one ebook and export versions for each of the major operating systems.

If you want your ebook app to be downloaded from the Appstore for iPhones, or the Play Store for Androids or the Windows Phone Store , then export mobile apps. Sounds like a big step?

All that applies to ebook apps above also applies to ebook libraries as well. You first create your library, then add ebooks to your library. You can add books as a whole, or chapter by chapter. Then export your ebook library as web, desktop, and mobile apps.

The final formats of your ebook will determine the kinds and extent of interactive content you can incorporate in your ebook, as well as the layout of the pages. Your ebook creation software will also affect your layout and format options. Most platforms support limited layout options and export formats.

Some, like iBooks Author discontinued in , require you to pick your format and layout style before you begin. So, you will want to know which format to use before you begin. Or create a design rich fixed layout, that Kindle does not support.

Before you begin creating your ebook or ebook app, spend a little time deciding how you want to distribute your ebook. The marketability and sales potential of your ebook can be drastically affected by the formats you select, not to mention your profit margin.

Standard ebook file formats and ebook apps have the potential to serve multiple, yet different purposes. Kotobee is the complete end-to-end ebook solution for you and your business. There are exceptions, and this doesn't generally apply to books without DRM. Apple does this with iTunes and the iCloud. Amazon has the Kindle Cloud, and so on.

How you do that will be a future article in this series. Knowing that you may end up being tied to eBooks that are copy protected and able to be read on only one kind of device, you will have some choices to make. Do you want to engage in only non-copy protected eBooks? There are many to chose from, both public domain eBooks, some technical books, self-published eBooks on Amazon. Here's a fairly comprehensive resource for DRM-free books. The advantage of acquiring DRM-free books from the various sources linked to above is that you own the book.

Worse, electronic measures, kill switches, can remove the eBook from your reader at the copyright holder's discretion. Also, if you commit to protected books, you may want to take into account the the financial health, commitment and customer service of the various ecosystems. As we know, even very large companies will surge into a product area and then conclude it wasn't for them in the long run. So whether you restrict yourself to books that are not copy protected with DRM or mix and match both kinds, as you see fit, with the various ecosystems, you need to have a feel for the various file formats so you know how to read them and which eReaders will work.

The full page type looks small and is almost unreadable. If you zoom in, you can't digest the whole page. A full-page PDF is virtually unreadable on this Kindle 4. This Wikipedia entry discusses some of the other minor eBook formats and also has a chart that explains the features of many of the eBook formats.

It can read just about any eBook format known to man, and it's free. However, the file must not be copy protected. If your starting point is to build an eBook library on a PC or Mac and only dabble in the eReaders and ecosystems, then this app is a must-have. However, tagged PDFs are still not well supported by ebook readers. On the positive side, it's only the second format on the list that's open standard; it became ISO back in They were proprietary formats that Sony created for use on its own range of ebook readers.

It is common among ebook collectors thanks to its ability to store metadata within the ebook file itself. It also heavily used as a storage format due to the ease with which it can be converted into other formats. DJVU is popular in the scientific community. It boasts a compression that's approximately 10 times better than PDF; it can store more than black and white scans in less than a megabyte. Note: You can reduce the size of a PDF with a few compression tricks.

LIT was Microsoft's proprietary ebook format. The Rich Text Format is compatible with every e-reader on the market. It has an advantage over TXT because of its ability to retain special characters and its support for reflowing and text formatting. If you plan on building a sizeable ebook library on your computer that's supported on most readers, stick with EPUB. It doesn't have quite as many features as AZW but more devices can read it.

If you'd like to learn more, check out our introduction to ebooks too. Got an old PC knocking about and don't want to throw it away?

Here are some amazing ways to repurpose and reuse an old computer. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant. Share Share Tweet Email. Dan Price Articles Published.