How open source is helping the book business
Sourcefabric believes open code means free speech. It also means smart business. Open source solutions give businesses total ownership of their content and code with no licensing fees. More and more enterprises are discovering that the cost of open source development is a fraction of the cost of building from scratch, even when they need a custom solution.
A new publishing tool from Books on Demand (BoD) is a perfect example. BoD is the leading provider of self-publishing and print-on-demand services in Germany. Earlier this year, BoD launched E-Short, an elegant, intuitive authoring tool powered by Sourcefabric Booktype open source software.
“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for authors to publish short works in digital format quickly and professionally,” BoD CEO Florian Geuppert recently told German publishing industry site Literaturcafe.de.
Seamless publishing
Geuppert went on to explain how the easyEditor environment in E-Short gives authors a simple way to write, edit, format and create covers for their books. What’s more, E-Short offers seamless publishing in EPUB format to all major sellers of e-books.
With E-Short, authors can even change the content and the price of their e-books for no additional charge — even after those books have been published. Such changes are implemented within just 48 hours, Geuppert said. (Here’s a link to the complete Literaturecafe.de interview with Florian Geuppert in German).
Literaturcafe.de tested E-Short, with positive results: “[E]asy Editor is a clever solution and that makes sure the author doesn’t run into any nasty surprises when formatting.” (Read the complete Literaturcafe.de test of E-Short in German).
More to come
Sourcefabric will soon release a Booktype 2.0, with a WYSIWYG editor that lets author write and design their books at the same time. Plus, the new ePub generator lets them produce eBooks compatible with all major platforms.
Want to know how Sourcefabric can help you with your publishing business? Contact us. Open source is open for business.