List of ePublishing Services and Platforms
This article tries to list these platforms without in depth analysis, I hope to keep this up to date, perhaps add the DRM stuff once I understand it all.
If you are looking for e-Book readers Mobileread has an impressive matrix.
Amazon Digital Text Platform (DTP)
The big thing here is that Amazon is to online retail what Google is to online search. Amazon have rarely missed a trick and their Kindle reader is one of the better known readers out there. But is your content limited if you are publishing to Amazon only? Your Amazon ebook will only be available on Amazon, so is there some way of publishing to Amazon and other platforms too?
| Costs / Commission | 35% commission on each ebook. You can suggest a retail price, but Amazon can change this. |
| DRM | They retain the right to use DRM, but by their T&Cs they are not obliged to use it. |
Lulu Self Publishing
I just love Lulu’s name, not sure why, but it is friendly. That asside they also provide an amazing platform with a lot of options. You can make calendars, corporate brochures, CDs, DVDs etc using Lulu, but we are looking only at book publishing here.
| Costs / Commission | At the time of writing Lulu charges a 25% commission on each ebook download. |
| DRM | Lulu does not offer DRM, copy protection is up to you. Puts DRM out of reach of the average Jo. |
An additional consideration with Lulu is that they handle both book and eBook publishing through one interface, and adding ePublishing on an already published book is a breeze.
Smashwords – Ebooks from Independent Authors and Publishers
Smashwords has a really appealing offering with broad distribution. On the standard feed level you get Stanza on the iPhone and Aldiko on Google Android phone, but what you really want is their premium list. Having a premium listing is good as it will filter a lot of rubbish out, you have to comply with a reasonable list of requirements to attain premium listing.
What comes with premium listing? The online stores of Barnes and Noble (B&N) and Sony, with others to follow. You also have the option to remove your books from specific stores if you like.
| Costs / Commission | At the time of writing Smashwords charges a 15% commission. But purchases through a third party platform like B&N will incur that storefront’s commission in addition.
There is also a billing fee of 3-6% (higher price this fee falls to 3%) Additionally any sales from visitors who clicked on affiliate links, you lose a further 11% to the affiliate. |
| DRM | No DRM, but puts forward a strong argument against DRM. |
So the costs in the table above are meant to be simple, but essentially for a $1 book you keep 58% (48% if an affiliate sold it), and for a $10 book you get 80% (66% if an affiliate sold it). You can opt out of the affiliate program, or if you like it you can juice your affiliate rates so they get a higher %.
Scribd Store
The Scribd Store is only available to people in the US, which is a loss for them as the rest of the world is quite capable of getting used to another platform in the mean time. On the other hand a friend of mine set up a partnership with a friend of his in New York just so that he could publish in the Scribd Store.
I would really appreciate any comments you might have on the above article, as it is really in its infancy.
WordPress: Webform / Contact form Plugins Compared
As with most WordPress plugins, it is a bit of a nightmare trying to find the right one. Something I really struggled with is getting a form plugin that works. First prize would be if the core of WP contained form handling as is now happening with Drupal 7, but…
Contact Form 7
I started off here after reading extensive review of various plugins in the WP directory I thought this was the best one.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
On the plus side; it is pretty simple and easy to configure, you define your form on the back-end and then call your form using some comment text.
Where I ran into issues was the following:
- It is built as a contact us form and that is all
- No saving to database
- No way of inserting custom variables
My last point was the straw that broke the camel’s back; I needed a select dropdown which I wanted to select the user’s country. To be clever I was determining their country using their IP number (More Here). But there was no way to A. dynamically populate the field or B. dynamically preselect a value.
cForms II
This plugin is GPL but for some reason it is not in the WP repository, but it is EXCELLENT!
http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin/
Not only could I achieve the above things I could not using CF7, but there are some awesome features in addition, which I have since started using. It really is a forms plugin rather than just a contact us form.
- Can enhance the standard comments fields
- Allows you to define a cForms form in PHP by setting arrays and calling a function.
- Still simple to configure a simple form if that is all you need.
- Refer a friend form field types.
- Form fill in autoresponders with an optional attachment (HTML and Text)
What really sold it to me? I asked a question on the forum and I got help the next day. (search the forum first else he might bite your head off for asking silly questions 
)
Any other experiences folks is there a better WP forms plugin out there?