April 07, 2004

By: Mary Rodgers
Website: http://www.1st-in-ebooks.com

Palm Digital Media licenses tools for independent eBook publishing

Palm Digital Media today announced the Palm eBook Studio authoring tool and licensing options, which allow individuals, businesses, publishing companies and online retailers to create, distribute and sell Palm Reader eBooks. Palm Digital Media, the leading publisher and distributor of eBooks for handheld computers, is a business unit of PalmSource, Inc., the Palm OS subsidiary of Palm, Inc.

"The eBook industry has reached the point where it can support multiple channels of distribution for Palm Reader," said Mike Segroves, director of business development for Palm Digital Media. "Palm Digital Media is taking a leading role in expanding the industry beyond reading eBooks on handhelds to giving consumers, businesses and publishing companies what they need to create and distribute their own eBook products."

Palm eBook Studio

The Palm eBook Studio authoring tool is easy to use and lets users either create eBooks from scratch, or cut and paste information from existing documents -- such as Microsoft Word or any application that supports Rich Text Format -- into the Palm eBook Studio. It is available for Windows and Macintosh computers and supports the use of graphics and images. In addition, the application offers a choice of font styles, type sizes and formatting options for customizing eBooks.

Once the Palm Reader eBook is created on the desktop, a touch of a button saves it to a file ready to synchronize with either a Palm Powered handheld or Pocket PC device. Palm eBook Studio is available today for purchase and download from http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com at a special introductory price of $29.95 through Aug. 19, and $39.95 after that.

Licensing Options

Palm Digital Media offers three options for creating, distributing or selling Palm Reader eBooks:

The standard version of Palm eBook Studio is for personal use only and gives consumers and small businesses a way to create materials such as family newsletters and internal company documents. The eBooks are not encrypted, a process that locks the eBooks and protects against unauthorized distribution. The eBooks can be distributed without charge to family, friends and colleagues via email, beaming or file sharing.

Palm eBook Studio Commerce Pak is scheduled to be available in June and is aimed at small publishers and those businesses that want to distribute and sell unencrypted eBooks to the general public or throughout a large company. Palm eBook Studio Commerce Pak will sell for $129.95.

Also scheduled for availability in June is Palm Retail Encryption Server Software. The software provides publishers and online retailers with the components they need to sell encrypted Palm Reader eBooks on their commerce-enabled websites. PRESS will be available for use on Windows NT and Unix/Linux servers.

About The Author:

Mary Rodgers is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.1st-in-ebooks.com.  A source of information on creating, writing and publishing an e-book.