You have two separate business concepts here: A conversion service, and an ebooks store.
Conversion service is a viable business. Ebook store is basically not--you're competing with Amazon, B&N, Smashwords & Lulu, and hundreds of smaller stores, including Backlist Ebooks.
If you require authors to sell exclusively through your store, you'll kill your ability to get conversion jobs. If you don't, they'll sell at other places and your store will be yet-another-tiny-ebook-store in the big big web--and you'd have to spend resources supporting it in addition to conversion, which could be a full-time digital job on its own.
Conversion of paper backlist to digital: plenty of opportunity. Plenty of authors who have regained their copyrights would love ebook versions, and would pay for them to be made.
Product: Offer proofreading & basic HTML versions for one price (that's the most convertible to other formats), and a premium package with Smashwords-formatted Word doc, and Calibre-friendly XML and potentially nifty CSS. From those, it's a minor jump to actual sellable ebooks; Premium-plus can include those, and a set of formats: epub, mobi/prc, lit, eReader pdb (for the six of us who still like it), fb2, lrf, doc & rtf, PDF in 2-3 sizes (letter, half-letter/mmpb, and 6" screen optimized) and plaintext pdb & txt. If you want to be extra-nice, you can make two versions of text files: one stripped directly from the HTML, and one with _underscores_ around the italics and *asterisks* around the bold words. (Maybe a script can create that version?)
Setup: You'd need book-formatting skills. I'm mediocre at best; amalthia is better; some of the crowd at Mobileread are excellent, and give out tutorials & hints, which I'm too lazy to bother with. If you're doing PDF, especially optimized for small screens, you need real typography skills to make decisions; those are different from markup skills.
You'd need OCR software, because the reason a lot of authors don't sell ebooks is because they don't have digital versions of their books. Finereader's the best; Omnipage is good; the free Windows OCR thing I've heard is tolerable, especially for good scans of printed books. If you don't have practice with proofreading OCR, you'll have to price much lower than a decent hourly rate while you're learning.
You'd need image software & skills for diagrams, maps, pictures etc. [Assume insertion of thousand-word lecture on digital imaging technical details.]
You'd need a contract establishing that you have the right to make copies during processing, and something that establishes whether/when you need to delete that info. (Do you keep the final digital version/s forever? For a year? Delete two weeks after delivery?) It'd have to establish how subcontractors/employees deal with copies as well.
You'd need a secure file-transfer system. For a small business, password-locked zip files in emails is fine.
You'd need to write up descriptions of your services that make sense to authors who know nothing about ebook creation, and more-or-less assumed it was "feed book into scanner, *poof* instant ebook." (After all, that's what "scan to PDF means, right?)
You'd need a contingency plan in case some big-name publisher with lawyers from hell decides that that author *doesn't* have his rights back, and comes after you. (This wouldn't need to be a solid plan; you'd just need to keep in mind that, at any point, you *could* be getting a C&D or notice of a copyright infringement lawsuit out of nowhere.) At the very least, you'll need to decide what kinds of verification of reversion of rights you'll accept.
You'd need to decide what starting materials you work with, and how to address those costs. Do you tell authors, "send me a paperback and in a month I'll send you an ebook?" Do you tell them you're willing to track down a physical copy yourself, and put a price tag on that? Do you deal with paper originals that can't be destroyed? Will you deal with scans someone else made? (On the one hand: less time/hassle involved. On the other: if they're low-quality scans, you might as well be just typing in the content.)
Would you work with *any* kinds of books, or have content limits? Only already-published books? New books only by previously-pro-published authors? Formatting services for new authors who just want to write--and aren't aware that they need an editor? Magazine articles, either from indiv freelance authors, or from small-press magazines that want their backlist converted? Adult/erotica books? (The only reason that's an issue is things like PayPal: if they decide you're doing an adult business, they won't allow you to use them.)
----- And that's all in addition to the standard business stuff: a tax ID number, payment terms (I'd be creative & sneaky and put something in the contract about "if payment is not rendered in X time, I have the right to start selling these books myself at Y price, until such time as I receive payment."), scheduling around internet problems and RL situations, tracking expenses, etc.
I think it's a great business idea. I haven't done it because I don't want to run a business; I want to do doc conversion & OCR correction work.
no subject
Conversion service is a viable business. Ebook store is basically not--you're competing with Amazon, B&N, Smashwords & Lulu, and hundreds of smaller stores, including Backlist Ebooks.
If you require authors to sell exclusively through your store, you'll kill your ability to get conversion jobs. If you don't, they'll sell at other places and your store will be yet-another-tiny-ebook-store in the big big web--and you'd have to spend resources supporting it in addition to conversion, which could be a full-time digital job on its own.
Conversion of paper backlist to digital: plenty of opportunity. Plenty of authors who have regained their copyrights would love ebook versions, and would pay for them to be made.
Product:
Offer proofreading & basic HTML versions for one price (that's the most convertible to other formats), and a premium package with Smashwords-formatted Word doc, and Calibre-friendly XML and potentially nifty CSS. From those, it's a minor jump to actual sellable ebooks; Premium-plus can include those, and a set of formats: epub, mobi/prc, lit, eReader pdb (for the six of us who still like it), fb2, lrf, doc & rtf, PDF in 2-3 sizes (letter, half-letter/mmpb, and 6" screen optimized) and plaintext pdb & txt. If you want to be extra-nice, you can make two versions of text files: one stripped directly from the HTML, and one with _underscores_ around the italics and *asterisks* around the bold words. (Maybe a script can create that version?)
Setup:
You'd need book-formatting skills. I'm mediocre at best;
You'd need OCR software, because the reason a lot of authors don't sell ebooks is because they don't have digital versions of their books. Finereader's the best; Omnipage is good; the free Windows OCR thing I've heard is tolerable, especially for good scans of printed books. If you don't have practice with proofreading OCR, you'll have to price much lower than a decent hourly rate while you're learning.
You'd need image software & skills for diagrams, maps, pictures etc. [Assume insertion of thousand-word lecture on digital imaging technical details.]
You'd need a contract establishing that you have the right to make copies during processing, and something that establishes whether/when you need to delete that info. (Do you keep the final digital version/s forever? For a year? Delete two weeks after delivery?) It'd have to establish how subcontractors/employees deal with copies as well.
You'd need a secure file-transfer system. For a small business, password-locked zip files in emails is fine.
You'd need to write up descriptions of your services that make sense to authors who know nothing about ebook creation, and more-or-less assumed it was "feed book into scanner, *poof* instant ebook." (After all, that's what "scan to PDF means, right?)
You'd need a contingency plan in case some big-name publisher with lawyers from hell decides that that author *doesn't* have his rights back, and comes after you. (This wouldn't need to be a solid plan; you'd just need to keep in mind that, at any point, you *could* be getting a C&D or notice of a copyright infringement lawsuit out of nowhere.) At the very least, you'll need to decide what kinds of verification of reversion of rights you'll accept.
You'd need to decide what starting materials you work with, and how to address those costs. Do you tell authors, "send me a paperback and in a month I'll send you an ebook?" Do you tell them you're willing to track down a physical copy yourself, and put a price tag on that? Do you deal with paper originals that can't be destroyed? Will you deal with scans someone else made? (On the one hand: less time/hassle involved. On the other: if they're low-quality scans, you might as well be just typing in the content.)
Would you work with *any* kinds of books, or have content limits? Only already-published books? New books only by previously-pro-published authors? Formatting services for new authors who just want to write--and aren't aware that they need an editor? Magazine articles, either from indiv freelance authors, or from small-press magazines that want their backlist converted? Adult/erotica books? (The only reason that's an issue is things like PayPal: if they decide you're doing an adult business, they won't allow you to use them.)
-----
And that's all in addition to the standard business stuff: a tax ID number, payment terms (I'd be creative & sneaky and put something in the contract about "if payment is not rendered in X time, I have the right to start selling these books myself at Y price, until such time as I receive payment."), scheduling around internet problems and RL situations, tracking expenses, etc.
I think it's a great business idea. I haven't done it because I don't want to run a business; I want to do doc conversion & OCR correction work.