Lesson Eight: Publishing

You've spent the last few weeks, months, or even years developing the plot, writing the story, checking the facts, and figuring how much to charge.  Now its time to look at publishing your book.

If you have written an e-book, there are nearly limitless ways that you can publish it yourself.

PDF format - Is always near the top.  It can be read on every e-reader and some mobile applications.  You have the option of adding information and locking your file with software such as Primo PDF.

Amazon.com - is another good choice, although once they have it, it's theirs and only theirs to sell.  Visit the Kindle website for more information.

Smashwords.com - can publish your e-book in every available format and issue you a ISBN at no cost to you.  You must read their style guide and format you e-book to their standards.

If you want to publish your book, in-print, for free, there are also options available to you.

Publish America - will publish your book (print on demand) at no cost to you.  Additional services are available at cost.

Wordclay - will also publish your book print on demand.

If you don't have a literary agent, you can almost forget being published by a big, big named publishing house, unless you sell a million copies, that is.  Big publish houses don't normally accept unsolicited manuscripts (no literary agent), but if you have the time and money you can submit to them, you just might get lucky.

 

Since there are hundreds of book publishers all around the world, an excellent website to visit for addresses and more information is www.bookmarket.com

P.S.: Next week we cover Lesson Nine: Marketing

http://www.manuspublishing.com

 

 

 

Lesson Seven: Setting the Price

Pricing an e-book can be easy or hard, depending on how you look at it.  The purpose of this lesson is to help you find the right price to sell your e-book.  There are three important factors when considering pricing:

¨      First is the length - how long is the book.  Any typed document of 5 pages or more can be considered an ebook, because those 5 pages might compress to 10 depending on the e-reader it is read on.  You wouldn't price a 300-page e-book for $0.99, would you?

¨      Secondly the topic - what is your book about, the subject matter also effects the pricing of the e-book.

¨      Lastly what do you feel that it is worth?  You have put your time, heart, and soul into this project, shouldn't that account for something.  Isn't time money?

I have created the quiz below to help you find the 'right' price for any e-book.  You will choose A, B, C, or D.  Keep track of the number of a's, b's, c's, and d's you receive, as this will tell you which price to choose.

Choose the statement below that best reflects your actions:

A.   It took me a month to write this e-book.

B.   I finished this e-book in one day!

C.   It took me a week to finish this book.

D.   It took me a few weeks, but less than a month to finish the book.

 

A.   This book is a masterpiece.

B.   I put a few brain cells into this work.

C.   I put my heart into this work

D.   I did a lot of soul searching.

 

A.   My book is over 150 pages.

B.   My friends don't even call it a book!

C.   This is the longest thing I've ever written!

D.   My book is under 120 pages.

A.   Is your book an autobiography or novel

B.   Is your book a short story -or- not a story at all

C.   Is your book a story of some sorts

D.   Is your book a desk reference, such as a dictionary

 

How much money would you pay for your work?

A.   $7.00 or more

B.   $0.99 or less

C.   $1.00 up to $3.00

D.   $3.00 up to $6.99

If you select mostly ___,

A's = you should price your book in between $9.99 up to $15.99.  You take much pride in your creation, as you should.  Your pride probably reflects in the quality of your work.

 

B's = you should price your book for $0.99 or less.  Yes, I'm sure you are proud of the work you have created, but is it your best work? 

 

C's = you should price your book for $1.00 up to $4.99 or less.  C's are generally not better than B's but in this case, I feel you have spent more time developing your story line to create a better flow for the overall story

 

D's = you should price your book for $5.00 up to $9.89 or less.  You spent a lot of time researching the material for your book, checking the facts, and developing the flow, but did it come from your heart?

I hope this short quiz helped you to select a price for your e-book.

P.S.: Next week, we will cover where you can go to get your e-book published.

 

Lesson Six: Creating a 1-D ebook Cover

Lesson Six:

Creating a 1-D E-book Cover

easy as 1,2,3

I know what you are thinking, I can't possibly build an e-book cover?  My answer is you are wrong.  I've been in your shoes, and not very long ago.  I searched the internet high and wide looking for a program, preferably free to build e-book covers, but I didn't want to pay the price.  I was fortunate enough to cross of a forum site that mentioned GIMP.

I did some research and downloaded the GNU Freeware program GIMP 2 / http://www.gimp.org   It was truly one of the best decisions I could have ever made.  Yes, it took me a couple of weeks to get use to the new software, but that is to be expected.

I can now build perfect 1-D e-book covers in any size, and drop in pictures and clip art.  In today's lesson, I will show you how to build a 1-D solid color e-book cover for Amazon or Smashwords.  Lets get started.

Opening the Program & Creating the Cover:

1.           After you have downloaded the program, go ahead and open it.

2.           Click on the file tab to open the dialog box.

3.           Then click on the new tab, this will open the "Create A New Image" box.  For a ebook cover on Amazon, you will click on the portrait tab, then for the Width type 600 px and for the Height type 900 px. Then click "ok".  For a ebook cover on Smashwords,  you will click on the portrait tab, then for the Width type 1600 px and for the Height type 2400 px.  Then click "ok".

4.           Your image field will open in a new window.

5.           Save the 'untitled' image (.xcf), you can still edit the image.  Be sure to save the image often.

6.           Then click on the maximize page tab (the square box upper right).

7.           Click on the GIMP tab to place the tools where you can access them.

8.           Click on the Bucket Fill tool (the paint bucket symbol), then select a background color or pattern.

9.           Move your pointer over the white field & double left click to fill the area.

10.       Click on the GIMP tab again to place the tools where you can access them.

11.       Then click on the text tool icon 'A', this pulls up the text tools.

12.       Choose your Font, font color, and Size (minimum of 90) to be seen.

13.       Move your mouse over the colored background, where you want to place the title of your book, and left click once.

14.       This opens the Gimp Text Editor field.  Type the text into the editor, it will also appear in the main field.

15.       NOW is the time to adjust the font size, color, and font type.

16.       Click on the close tab.

17.       Click in the main field where you would like to type the 'by line'

18.       Just like before, select the font size, color, and font type.

19.       Move your mouse over the colored background, where you want to place the title of your book, and left click once.

20.       This opens the Gimp Text Editor field.  Type the text into the editor, it will also appear in the main field.

21.       NOW is the time to adjust the font size, color, and font type.

22.       Click on the close tab.

This complete your first 1-D ebook cover, so how'd you do?  Now I will go over how to save and transform the image to a JPEG image.

 

Saving the Cover As A Picture --

1.   In the field that contains your ebook image, click on the file tab.

2.   Click on the save as tab.

3.   Then save as _________(name).jpg & click save.

4.   Then the Export File field will open.  You are going to click on the export tab.

5.   Then another 'save as' field will open, you will click save as jpeg.

Congrats, you did it!  As with anything, practice makes perfect, so practice.  This is also a great way to earn extra cash on the side, once you prefect your skills.

P.S.:  I'm hard at work developing even more ebook titles.  Currently, I have 17 e-books currently for sale on both Amazon and Smashwords in both Spanish and English.  To view or purchase visit:

http://www.amazon.com/author/bdmanus

 

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bdmanus

 

http://www.manuspublishing.com

 

 

Next week lesson '7' Pricing.