Latest Trend Custom Dictionaries in eBooks

The latest trend in eBook publishing is highly popular and gaining steam. Authors have been supplying custom dictionaries with their eBooks to help their readers. These new dictionaries are tailored for the subject matter contained within the book and function as a kind of index for the book itself. While this idea is nothing new in the non-fiction world, it is more groundbreaking for fiction eBooks. These dictionaries are proving to be quite popular with readers, especially. Most of these dictionaries are rich media enabled to allow authors to add media, images and more to elaborate on their points and ideas. These are particularly useful for detailed fantasy and science fiction stories that have plots set in alternate universes or realities. Indie authors have been making use of these dictionaries in large numbers. By allowing authors to define and explain their own worlds and ideas, readers are given a more clear idea of the setting and more. These features have been in use by nonfiction authors already, especially in technological and scientific areas where easy reference to complex content is always helpful. With the growing trend in the fiction arena now too, readers will be expecting more features with their fiction books as well as their nonfiction...

Future of Amazon’s WriteOn Looks Bleak

Last month, Amazon released a new platform called WriteOn for authors to post their works in progress and solicit feedback from readers. The platform was developed to compete with Wattpad. The platform was struggling from the start and Amazon has had a harder and harder time with generating interest in the platform itself. The service went public last month after several months of struggling through beta testing. Unfortunately the platform hasn’t taken off since going public either. Most of the conversations are taking place between authors because readers just aren’t using the platform. This is partially attributed to the fact that Amazon tried to get Kindle readers to shift to the platform and left a bad impression with a lot of those readers. Unfortunately for the authors that are posting books, readers just aren’t getting involved with the platform. Wattpad has already engaged most of the readers that are interested in such a platform. They are engaged with the platform that they want to be on and are not branching out to WriteOn. Whether or not the platform will ever catch on remains to be seen. However, it looks like Amazon is already shifting its focus elsewhere. WriteOn may be left to slowly dwindle at this...