Writing and Producing an Ebook

Not Every Book or Body of Text Should Become an Ebook!

Creating an ebook for the sole purpose of "making money" on the Internet can lead you down the path of disappointment and frustration. Likewise, attempting to sell or give away an ebook that simply masks a sales pitch for a product or service without giving true value is only going to tick off your reader. And it won't get your ebook shared or recommended. (You should want your ebook to be shared and recommended, as it can be the 24-hour sales staff that faithfully promotes you.)

What Kind of Ebook Can You Legitimately Present?

• Write about a problem or challenge - and show how to solve it!
• Create an instruction manual for something
• Share an experience and how it changed a life

An ebook should be a thing of value presented by an expert on the topic. Perhaps you're the expert!

Make Your Ebook More Than a Word Processed PDF!

Thousands of ebooks are created in Microsoft Word, then converted to PDF documents. They're just words, perhaps a few lines or borders, maybe a table or a chart or two.

Ebooks deserve better treatment! Readers enjoy them more when they are "pretty." Hey, that means designed. Professionally. And when they sport a great design, they get more attention and are recommended more frequently and downloaded more often. And that's the real goal.

Invest in the services of a professional graphic artist and get a great design for your ebook.

PDF is Not the Only Ebook Format - But It's Usually the Best!

Joshua Tallent, of eBookArchitects, recently published an insightful article in the newsletter of the Independent Book Publishers Association, about the preferred formats for today's ebooks. Some of his top points:

• Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is the most popular format, and most computer users have a PDF reader software. Documents containing a lot of graphics, or large graphics or design elements, work best in PDF format.

• An open ebook formatting standard, which is growing in popularity, "ePub" is based on technologies like XML and HTML. It's maintained by a trade and standards association for the digital publishing field. It is fast becoming the standard for ebooks and being used by major publishers. The ePub format can be read on Macs, PCs, iPhones, and many handheld devices and book readers. But ePub does have limitations with some devices.

• Mobipocket has been in use since the early days of ebooks and is popular on handheld devices. Amazon bought Mobipocket and based its Kindle software on Mobipocket. While it's still important, it does have limitations, including the inability to show color.

• There's a long list of other formats used by various publishers that are now losing ground.

Examples, Tutorials and Ebook Producers - Worth a Couple Minutes of Your Time!

Jonathan Kranz has created a gorgeous ebook (PDF) called the Ebook Ebook. It's beautifully designed (he's a graphic artist with a prominent client list, so you know it's good). It's a fantastic tutorial on ebooks. Download the Ebook Ebook now.

Wordpix designed photographer Julie Diebolt Price's ebook (on DVD), Babyboomers' Guide to Digital Photography. Take a look at the spectacular book and DVD cover - http://www.babyboomersdigitalphoto.com/ and then let us know how we can work with you to create your ebook.

Another popular ebook publisher is Smashwords, a free service that helps you publish, promote, distribute and sell your masterpiece as a multi-format ebook, for sale online at a price you determine.