This was an article previously published on francinecraft.com as a guestblog.
eBooks are the fastest growing segment of the book market. And self-published authors are finding an audience of readers for their titles due to the low cost of setting up a title on an ePublishing website such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Pubit!, Apple’s itunes or Smashwords.
eBooks are the fastest growing segment of the book market. And self-published authors are finding an audience of readers for their titles due to the low cost of setting up a title on an ePublishing website such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Pubit!, Apple’s itunes or Smashwords.
Self-publishing
eBooks isn’t expensive nor is it difficult. All an author needs to create an
eBook is Microsoft Word, some photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop
Elements for their covers, an e-mail address and a bank account to deposit
royalty payments in. Most e-Publishing websites such as Amazon or Pubit! will
convert the Word Files to ePub or Mobi, the two leading formats used by the
marketplace.
However,
before an author self an author needs to understand that the formatting of an
eBook is different from a traditional paperback or Hardcover. eBooks don’t have
front matter. So they don’t require title pages or blank pages in between like
paperbacks or hardcovers have.
Nor
do they need multiple returns to create “white space” Since text shifts from
device to device in an eBook, keep the formatting of an eBook simple. Small
indentations, (0.3”) works best along two returns on the first page when a
chapter starts and no spaces between the lines of a paragraph.
A
PDF eBook like the Smashwords Style Guide will help an author format eBooks
that will look great on any e-reader. (Available for free on Smashwords.com)
After
formatting their eBooks an author has several venues they can self-publish and
sell eBooks from. An author can take their work to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes
& Noble’s Pubit! or Smashwords.
An
author should use as many venues as possible to sell their work. Using all the
eBook venues possible ensures an author can have maximum exposure for their
titles. Plus venues like Smashwords allow an author access to popular eBook
sites like Sony and Apple’s ibookstore.
The
more venues a title is available at mean more places for readers to discover an
author’s work at. And each eBookstore has its own niche audience and some
titles in certain genres will sell better in some venues than others.
An
author may think after self-publishing an eBook their work is done. It’s just
started Formatting and publishing an eBook is only the first part of reaching
the reading audience. In order for readers to find an author’s eBooks authors
have to promote them. I'll share some tips on promotion in Part 2 of this blog.
One of the secret to selling self-published eBooks (or any kind of eBook or print book, for that matter) is to get your link on as many websites as you can. You have to remember, you have an electronic book. You can't go on book signings, so you have to rely on the Internet to get the word out.
ReplyDelete