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Weekly News Digest

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Sony Store to Offer Ebook Self-Publishing Tool

Sony announced relationships with ebook distributors Author Solutions (www.authorsolutions.com) and Smashwords (www.smashwords.com) to offer a self-publishing tool for the Sony online store. Established publishers as well as independent authors and smaller publishers can access Sony's newly relaunched Publisher Portal (http://ebookstore.sony.com/publishers). This portal serves as an easy way for larger publishers who may not already have a relationship with Sony to get in touch; it also provides a way for individual authors or publishers with just a handful of titles to work with market-proven solution providers to publish books and make them available on Sony's eBook store.

New authors can select a self-publishing path to get their work published and ready for sale on Sony's eBook Store in as little as 10 days. As Sony completes the conversion of its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format, Smashwords and Authors Solution will expand the offer to all existing Author Solutions and Smashwords authors to get their titles up on the Sony site.

Author Solutions and Smashwords will offer authors the option to publish content in the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum's (IDPF) XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications. EPUB has gained acceptance among major trade book publishers with dozens of publishers already producing the majority of their ebooks using the standard.

Source: Sony