I'm about to release a novel with songs in it (my own). Anybody know how I would go about doing this--formatwise? I'm also thinking of doing a book trailer, featuring part of one of the songs. Any ideas on how I could make some money on these songs, like getting people to pay to download them, a la iTunes? Or selling them as part of an album on my website?
e Books and Songs
- Thread starter popmuze
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Do you want to embed the song in the eBook, or just the lyrics?
Just lyrics are easy of course, but embedding the song is harder.
It is feasible to provide enhanced EPUB which can contain music or video - but the file is going to be huge, it won't be supported on most (if not all) eReaders, and I suspect you'd have to hand code it into the title.
Just lyrics are easy of course, but embedding the song is harder.
It is feasible to provide enhanced EPUB which can contain music or video - but the file is going to be huge, it won't be supported on most (if not all) eReaders, and I suspect you'd have to hand code it into the title.
Ideally, it would be like hitting a link in the text and you'd hear the music. Either the whole song or just 30 seconds. I could do just one song or a dozen, depending on how easy it was to do and whether or not it would help the book sell. No sheet music, but all the main character's lyrics will be printed at the end of the book. Maybe that's where I'd direct people to my website to order albums, etc. Just fantasizing here, but I need to know what I'd have to do to make it happen and if it would be very costly.
Having considered the eBook route with similar needs to yours, looking around Amazon at least, it would appear only possible with i devices according to the rectangular box below the cover pic such as in the following examples.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003JH8WFG/?tag=absowrit-21
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003JH8VRA/?tag=absowrit-21
My books have audio tracks which I have on a seperate website (linked in the book) for people to download. Although I know putting it in the synopsis could do wonders for sales I'm strangely paranoid about giving the domain anywhere except inside the actual books, they've only been out just over a month.
For it to be difficult to get eBooks with media seems a bit behind the times, I don't feel you would need to wait that long before it's not.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003JH8WFG/?tag=absowrit-21
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003JH8VRA/?tag=absowrit-21
My books have audio tracks which I have on a seperate website (linked in the book) for people to download. Although I know putting it in the synopsis could do wonders for sales I'm strangely paranoid about giving the domain anywhere except inside the actual books, they've only been out just over a month.
For it to be difficult to get eBooks with media seems a bit behind the times, I don't feel you would need to wait that long before it's not.
Given the Kindle's limitations in terms of formatting, and the variety of readers out there, this seems like the best strategy to me. It also means you can update the site whenever you want without having to worry about republishing the book.
Thanks. Exactly, and when I publish other titles I can ad them to the site in the same way a printed or eBook would have "other stuff available" at the back. I use the site as the source for the audio of 2 books at the moment and can ad more when I write more.
The only "downside" for me at least, is the tracks had to be all free, the copyright public domain with no commercial use (without having some kind of unique security code for each customer, not worth the hassle for me). No problem really seeing as the tracks are fairly pointless without the book, but it can also act as promoting it where people can listen before they buy no matter where (providing I linked the domain in the synopsis), as opposed to only on wholesalers that have that facility such as Amazon or Musicroom dot com.
Here's an example of an Amazon only kindle seller who has done this...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004RIQAK0/?tag=absowrit-21
Providing the audio is integral to the whole product and fairly pointless on it's own without the eBook / book I'd agree that this might be the best option for popmuze with the benifit of no limits for the eBook format.
On the thought of passwords you could include a universal password in all the books that allows access to the portion of the site that allows the user to download tracks, while every other part of the site is promotional and informative available to anyone.
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Actually, freely available but with no commercial use is NOT public domain. Those are your copyright conditions. You DO have full copyright protection (No unauthorized use, or no commercial use as in many of of the Creative Commons licenses) even if you have little or no "DRM" (in this case Security by obscurity, not having the domain and filenames easily available).
Thankyou for the information. Not Public domain. I was thinking there was some kind of term but the descriptive "freely available under copyright conditions" suits fine.