Ignite talk - October 28th - San Francisco at Books in Browsers 2011

1. How creating an eBook on BiblioCrunch is easier
than baking cupcakes
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11
By Miral Sattar
@miralsattar | @bibliocrunch
BiblioCrunch.com
miral@bibliocrunch.com

2. My Quest
Left my full-time job at TIME to create my own
digital publishing platform
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11

3. eBook Trends
Royal Wedding vs. Osama Bin Laden
Readers were buying eBooks as huge news events unraveled
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11

4. Why not TIME? Leverage existing content
We have the archive content & the staff
Why not publish in a new medium?
TIME Inc Digital Editions
EBOOKS!

5. Experimented with prototypes
Ate a lot of cupcakes
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11
Magnolia
Bakery
is
right
across
the
street!

6. Manually created eBooks & ate $4 cupcakes
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11
I created travel books (Dubai Travel Guide, Foursquare, Launch a map,
launch Trip Advisor & read reviews, and read a little bit of history right
from the ebook

7. Pitched the ideas to my bosses
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11
They loved the idea we started working on a few more prototypes

8. Complacency
$$$ It’s All About the Money $$$$
We
didn’t
have
a
budget
for
eBooks
S6ll
focused
on
adver6sing
(the
old
way)
TIME Inc Digital Editions
Taking TIME & LIFE Topical Content and
Publishing in a New Medium
3/9/11

9. There are as many ways to create an eBook as
there are to bake a cupcake
TIME Inc Digital Editions
eBook Publishing Tools Cupcake Baking Tools

10. It’s a messy process
eBooks Cupcakes

11. Getting to the final product: Painful!
Conversion Baking
Epub export
Add cover, Kindle
TOC Export

12. Getting to a final product involves
Editing & Designing Decorating
Epub export Add cover, Kindle
TOC Export

13. There HAD to be an easier way
It can’t be this complicated to create an eBook!
So I set out to make publishing an eBook easier than baking cupcakes
I wanted to have my cake and eat it too

14. Pitched to Time Inc executives
Time Travel
City Guides
 In the meantime, I pitched to
the Time Inc executives where
we'd sit around in meetings
 Theory, theory, yeah yeah,
problem problem, resources,
resources

15. Publishing smoothly: DISASTER!
• I couldn’t find anything that met my needs
• No one click easy way that existed
• Tried to bake more cupcakes

16. So I developed a set of tools
• Write once, publish anywhere
• Into any format, any eReader
• In the clouds
• Incorporate community

17. I said goodbye to TIME
And goodbye to the Magnolia across the street
Baking good cupcakes can take hours
You can create a BiblioCrunch.com ebook within minutes

18. Writing eBooks is super easy
Go online, write chapters or create a virtual storefront

19. Commission a designer or editor
Need editing? Need a cover? Go to our
community and commission a designer
or an editor
Voila! Publish!

20. Try it! Create an eBook on the fly
• 100’s of authors, designers, editors on the platform and growing
• All you need is your brain, your laptop, and a WiFi connection
• Still can’t make a good batch of cupcakes