Few historians have tried to publish electronic books (e-books) although many foreign policy journals have used internet sites to provide articles that are free or with subscription costs. After finding colleagues at my university knew little or nothing about e-book publishing, I thought SHAFR members may be interested in learning about my experience in publishing Kosovo Intervention and United States Policy in 2000.

When I was completing my manuscript in October 1999, I was attracted by articles on e-books in the New York Review of Books and Time magazine. In these articles and others I checked on, I discovered the advantages of e-book publications. E-books drastically reduce the cost of books to readers, students and libraries and make them directly available to the new generation of electronic world-wide internet and computer users. They also allow authors to quickly transfer their material from a computer to a disc to an e-book publisher and have them on the electronic internet in about sixty days.

Without knowing if these articles exaggerated e-books value, I decided to contact Ingram publishers in Tennessee, the company cited in the articles as having invented “print-on demand (POD)” technology to immediately copy from one to 1,000 or more books ordered on a company’s internet site. In response, Ingram gave me the address of six companies that prepared e-books for Ingram to download for POD printing. The six companies were located around the U.S. and I chose 1stBooks of Bloomington, Indiana, because it was close to my home.

1stBooks responded promptly with a package of full information, including its e-mail and fax addresses. After considering 1stBooks options, I selected the e-book download plus POD and 1stBooks publicity services. These options cost about $1,100, but I would receive royalties of the entire book price until my $1,100 is repaid. After that, I will receive 40 percent of each download and POD book order, more than the 5 to 15 percent my previous publications earned. Higher royalties are affordable because e-book or POD books do not require publishers to pay for the costly steps of printing, binding, packaging, shipping, warehousing, inventories, percentages for distributors and bookstores, and return of damaged books. This is estimated to cost a minimum of $8,000 before any books are sold.

I could have, but did not, take time to contact each of the five e-book publishers. Since January 2000 many other e-book publishers are available to authors including a Random House affiliate (Xlibris) and Barnes and Noble. Each has various options and services for authors to consider.

As for my Kosovo Intervention book, I completed it in mid-January, including footnotes and bibliography, and sent a printed copy plus floppy disc to 1stBooks. Within a month, 1stBooks faxed me an edited copy to make a final check with time to prepare a subject index. I returned it before March 1 and three weeks later it could be downloaded at 1stbooks.com website for $3.95 including a free adobe software to read the text in varied sizes. This download cannot be printed out but must be read on the computer screen. It took longer to make the book available as POD, but by June 1, it could be ordered in paperback form at 1stbooks.com for $9.95 plus postage. The POD version is also available on websites at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

Historians should also be aware that there are many other options envisioned for future electronic publishing. Possibilities include adding many documents in a book appendix or providing complete citations from documents or speeches old-style publishers found excessive. Imaginative scholars will probably find other ways to adapt electronic publishing to fill their needs.

Persons interested in more details about electronic publishing might try the following websites — all of them usually beginning with http://www (1) u-publish.com (2) e-mail for 1stbooks@1stbooks.com (3) info@exlibris.com (4) iuniverse.com/publishyourbook (this is the Barnes and Noble publishing site, you may also want to visit the Barnes and Noble website).

For other possibilities contact me at: lhb@hilltop.bradley.edu