When I published my first ebook at the start of this year I knew enough about writing but didn't know quite where to start the transformation from Word manuscript to finished ebook. The final presentation had to be 100% professional but I didn't want to spend money on additional software. I made many mistakes and wasted a lot of time but eventually succeeded in self-publishing an ebook - now selling on Amazon Digital, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and more plus a cheap website I set up for less than including domain name for a year. The site has an instant, downloadable shop and you can set the whole thing up with a couple of clicks (check out MR SITE, which sells in both UK and USA). It was a steep learning curve.
These were some of my main questions and how I got round them:
BARNES AND NOBLE
Q: WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU NEED TO MAKE THE ACTUAL BOOK?
A: Professional designers use Adobe InDesign which retails at around 00. You don't need that. You don't need Adobe Pro either. All you need is the free version of Adobe PDF. If you're publishing straight to the ebookstores like Amazon Digital, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks etc you don't need a PDF, after formatting to their guidelines you just transfer Word or HTML straight through. Lulu takes PDF.
Q: HOW DO YOU MAKE AN EBOOK COVER?
A: One of the most taxing problems I had. I didn't want one of those 3D things, all I wanted was a flat image with big writing on the top, like the book covers you see on Amazon and all the booksellers' sites. After Googling and downloading lots of useless free software (nothing more than 3D boxes most of them) I found the best way was to make a cover image on Word (I used one of my photographs) and use Word Art graphics to make the titles. It took a while to work out how to get the letters over the picture:
Once you've clicked Word Art and got the box up on your screen, click the 2nd window in on the 'Edit' box (Format Word Art). The window looks like a rectangle with 3 colours next to a square.
Then a new box will appear.
Click Layout and a series of window images will appear with a dog image and lines.
Select 'Wrapping Style, In front of Text', the dog on the far right.
Remember what you have is a 'document' not a 'picture'. To turn it into an image that is recognised as an image which can be downloaded onto websites, Amazon Digital etc, take a screenshot:
Press COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 all at the same time. Your cursor turns into a cross. Place that at top left corner of your image and drag it to bottom right. Release the buttons. You'll now find an image file on your desktop. Before you can upload it anywhere it needs to be labelled with a dot and the letters.jpg like that. To relabel click on the description box until it goes blank & type in a title eg budgie.jpg.)
Q: HOW DO YOU INSERT PHOTOS?
Click Insert > Picture > From File
make sure it's labelled with a.jpg.
Use only LOW QUALITY photos. When transferring your document to PDF make sure you check the 72DPI box or your ebook will take a long time to download and clog up people's IN boxes.
Q: MY OLD VERSION OF WORD DOESN'T HAVE A FACILITY TO TURN MY TEXT INTO ADOBE PDF?
Download Open Office (free). Making covers on Open Office is a little trickier as it's more advanced technically than Word. I found it easier to make my covers on Word and transfer them to Open Office.
Q: WHAT ABOUT ISBNS? YOU HAVE TO BUY IN BULK, THAT'S EXPENSIVE!
Every print book that's sold in a shop and/or stored in a public library has to have an ISBN number and bar code. ISBN stands for the International Standard Book Number. The ISBN registration agency run by Nielsen reaches out to over 100 countries around the world. You can purchase your own ISBN if you want to give your book an identity but you have to buy them in batches of 10 which costs £111.86/3.00. The good news is ebooks don't need them. There are advantages, but you don't have to have one.
Q: HOW DO I BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND ALL THE DIFFERENT FORMATS - EPUB ETC?.
You don't need to. Upload your work to Mark Coker's excellent Smashwords and, as long as you've followed all the layout guidelines in the (free) Smashwords Style Guide your ebook will gain Premium Status. They'll then ship it (free) to many different outlets including Barnes & Noble, US iBooks, Kindle etc.
Q: I'M A UK AUTHOR BUT ALL THESE SITES ARE AMERICAN
UK authors can sell on the sites mentioned above. Worth doing as ebooks haven't taken off in the UK yet. The new Amazon Kindle 70% royalty however is only for US authors, authors outside the USA are still on 35%. Smashwords pays you via PayPal, Amazon sends cheques in the post. At Smashwords there are tax issues for non-US sellers which can be avoided, all is explained on the Smashwords website. Conversely, Lulu is UK based but takes authors from everywhere.
How to Publish Your Novel As an Ebook - An Author's Guide BARNES AND NOBLE
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