Main image-greenbooks
 A Type of Magic

10 reasons to GO GREEN

The advantages of e-publishing over traditional paper publishing are many.

Here is our top 10 list:

  1. It costs less. With e-publishing, you don't need to spend on paper, printing, binding, trim, shipping and mailing. That's a pretty big chunk of change in savings!
  2. It's easy to distribute. Forget pleading for shelf space in bookstores and being horrified by 60% distributor margins. E-books can be marketed online inexpensively, sent out via email, or copied onto CDs, DVDs or USB keys.
  3. It gets to market faster. Traditional paper books can take months, even years, to get from first draft to the actual printing. E-books can have turnaround times of weeks or days.
  4. Making changes is simple. Make an error with a printed book, and the costs to correct it can be huge. Not so with e-books.
  5. Going full-colour won't increase costs. A book printed in full colour typically costs three to four times what a B&W version would cost. With e-books, opting for full-colour may not affect costs at all.
  6. It's a global market. High shipping and distribution costs mean the market for printed books is limited. With e-books, your market is as wide as you want it to be.
  7. It can be interactive. Paper books are great to hold, but they can't compare with e-books which can have audio clips or video embedded right in the document.
  8. Easy to search, zoom in and out, navigate. Ever get frustrated trying to find something specific in a printed document? Sometimes find text too small? No such worries with e-books which have excellent search, zoom and navigation functionalities.
  9. Size doesn't matter quite as much. With print publications, adding even a few pages can significantly drive up costs. With e-books, a few extra pages will barely impact production costs.
  10. It's the right thing to do. Not a single tree is harmed in the making of an e-book.

Greenbooks

E-publishing with oomph

GreenbooksLogo{For Greenbooks samples, click here}


E-publishing has been enjoying exponential growth over the last few years, and it's not hard to see why.

After all, costs of paper and printing have been soaring, and as we become more environmentally aware, the idea of having to kill a tree to spread your message will start to lose public acceptance. (See '10 reasons to go green' at right).

However, for the most part, e-publishing has been seen as the poor cousin of traditional paper-based publishing.

There's a reason for this: Most of the e-books available today are poorly designed or are merely PDF versions of books created for print. Even worse, a significant percentage of e-books appear to have been created from standard templates that might not even be a good fit for the nature of the publication.

Greenbooks, a division of A Type of Magic, is set to change all that.

Our e-books are designed with the medium in mind. Unlike traditional books and magazines, which generally use a portrait (vertical) page format, we use a landscape (horizontal) format which allows a page to fill the screen for easy reading.

If you must print, it's easy. All greenbooks are set up on standard size documents (either US Letter or A4, depending on the market it's intended for). That means that unlike with other e-books, if someone chooses to print a particular page, it will fit perfectly on a sheet, at the correct size, with nothing cut off.

Greenbooks are custom designed. We don't work from templates. Every book, every catalog, every magazine is custom designed. From typography to layout, we create a design that perfectly fits the subject of the publication.

Navigation is as simple as clicking on buttons. Greenbooks are set up so readers can simply click on links or buttons to navigate between pages or sections. Every entry on an Index page, for example, is hyperlinked to the relevant section or chapter. All pages also come with Previous, Next and Contents buttons that make navigation simple.

Websites and email links are hyperlinked. It's not just internal links in the document that can be linked. All websites and email addresses can also be made clickable, with the links opening in the user's choice of web browser or email program.

Add movies and sound. Greenbooks can have movies or sound files embedded in the document, and can even be linked to streaming video files on the Internet.

It doesn't require special hardware. Unlike costly, proprietary solutions provided through e-book viewers like Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader, most of our greenbooks can be opened in Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat Reader comes pre-installed on virtually every computer today and is also available as a free download. Our alternative greenbook options, offered in conjunction with industry-leading software partners, are Flash-based. Flash plugins are also available as free downloads.

Greenbooks are cross-platform. Greenbooks can be read on all computers - PC, Mac and Linux.

Greenbooks are searchable. Unlike print versions, greenbooks make it easy for readers to search for specific words or terms. With Acrobat-based greenbooks, readers can simply hit Control-F (on a PC) or Command-F (Mac) to access the search functionality. Even our Flash-based solutions have Search options.

If you have more questions about greenbooks, you can read our FAQs; or to discuss a specific project, get in touch via our Contact form.

 

View Greenbooks Options