Is creating an Ebook a tech thing?

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   sid_candidposted 13 years ago

   Do you need to have good technical skills to create your own eBook? How can we create a profitable eBook?

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      WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I haven't done one yet (on my to do list).
      
      But it's meant to be pretty basic. Simply write the book in word and turn into a PDF then have two pages - a "squeeze" page to convince people to sign up for a free sample and then a "buy page" where they can buy the book after reading the sample.
      
      For ideas on setting out your ebook, check out some of the free ones online.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It depends how you do it.
      
      If you just want to sell a basic ebook, do what Wry says.
      
      However, if you want to publish a book that's readable on electronic readers like Kindle, they all use different formats and .pdf is probably the least popular, apparently. 
      
      That's where companies like Smashwords come in.

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      Nathan_Uposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You can use Open Office and create normal document with headers and footers and page numbers, then turn it into PDF - that's classic e-book.
      
      If you want other formats, you can use free software Calibre to create EPUB or MOBI files that can be read on mobile devices and Kindle.
      
      If you want, you can enroll in Amazon authors program, yes, or you can use Lulu.com for self-publishing.

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         angel Grahamposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I forgot about Calibre when I wrote my post a moment ago. Yes, it's very good for converting and for reading. Highly recommend it.

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   Uninvited Writerposted 13 years ago

   Amazon also has a publishing program

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   asiemensposted 13 years ago

   There's some awesome ebook self-publishing sites out there. Like Univited Writer said, amazon has a pretty good one. I think Chapters/Indigo has one too. Try looking it up on Google. From what I've seen they're pretty easy to use and give nice results. Haven't used them yet, but I was looking into after I finished my last novel.

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   Pierre Savoieposted 13 years ago

   OpenOffice is great; it will force Windows Office to respond in kind, and we may end up getting amazing free word-processing and spreadsheet functionalities off of web-pages.

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   angel Grahamposted 13 years ago

   It depends on where you wish to publish it.
   
   If you want to publish through Amazon Kindle, you need to find out what their specific formatting requirements are. Same with Barnes & Noble.  You can try Smashwords which has a free formatting guide for how to publish on their website, and they distribute to other 3rd-party vendors.  It's been suggested by authors I know that you upload to Smashwords for all but All Romance Ebooks, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Those three they highly recommend that you submit directly to get your formatting correctly for them, and because they get your book up quicker that way than allowing Smashwords to do so.
   
   You need to find out what the formatting guides are in general for most places and specific also.  How they want it set up, spaced, what font and more.  You can use OpenOffice for doing your formatting. Just learn how it works.  You also can convert it to PDF pretty easily as there are free PDF converters/creators out there.

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   zampanoposted 13 years ago

   you may even think about old copyright obsolete material and adapt its contents to actual context.
   There are tons of ideas lying in your public library.

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