Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 4: Choose Your Path
• Method 2 of 4: Before posting
• Method 3 of 4: Formatting
• Method 4 of 4: Post-issue
• Tips
• Warnings

So you've written a book and now want to make it available to the world electronically? This article will walk you through everything you need to do, from preparing your manuscript to formatting the finished file. In addition, this article will be useful for anyone who wants to self-publish their book. Enjoy reading.

Steps

Method 1 of 4: Choose Your Path

1. 1 Samizdat. The old-fashioned way of getting the most out of your sales without reporting to anyone or facing the sharks of the publishing world.
   • And this is a difficult path. You will have to do everything yourself. Everything. Even chat with sellers. Yes, you will have more control over the flow of the process, but you will also have to work a lot more.
   • A Creative Commons license is good for those seriously considering self-publishing. It's like a template with which you can protect your rights to a book, etc.
2. 2 Publisher. Another old-fashioned way, suitable for those who want to write, not deal with all your publishing fuss. By choosing this path, you will not be engaged in any promotion of the book, nor its layout, nor design. And that's okay! In the end, if self-publishing does not suit you in some way, then publishers are ready to help.
   • Help-help, but not for “thanks”. Publishers will take their interest, and the book may need to be changed.
   • In addition, publishers are not very enthusiastic about the prospect of working with a new author. Alternatively, you can hire a literary agent to represent your interests in front of the publishing house ... at your own interest, of course.

Method 2 of 4: Before posting

1. 1 Edit your book. This stage is one of the most important aspects of working on a book. A book with errors will not appeal to readers or publishers. But what is really there, the edited book even looks more solid and detailed.
   • All mistakes must be corrected. Everything, absolutely everything. To do this, use the spelling checkers of text editors, although do not rely on them completely - they do not see all errors.
   • Read the book. Cover to cover, take your time. This will help you find those errors that the computer did not notice, plus you will see where you could rewrite a not very good fragment. The more you read the book, the more coherent the narrative will be, the more elaborate the characters will be and the clearer the logic of their actions will be.
   • Read aloud. This is one of the best ways to identify places that need editorial revision. If you read aloud, the brain simply won't have time to automatically correct mistakes. In addition, reading aloud will help bring out artificial-sounding and awkward dialogues.
2. 2 Give someone your manuscript to check. Have a competent companion read your book and look for weaknesses in it. It is advisable to choose for this role those people who do not hesitate to poke your nose into mistakes.
   • It is also advisable that your first reader read many books in the same genre in which you created. A reader with sufficient knowledge of the genre will point out weak points, cliches and clichés from which it is desirable to move away, etc.
3. 3 Hire an editor. If you do not have the opportunity to edit your book, you can entrust it to a specialist, since with this in our time, thanks to freelance, there are no problems. Hire a reliable, experienced editor. If you have a modest budget, you will have to look ... by the way, if you are thinking about hiring a student for these tasks, remember: they may work well, or they may not.
4. 4 Use an e-book aggregator. If you don't want to get your hands dirty with editing and publishing, then use the e-book aggregation service - but at your own risk. This is not only expensive but also not always reliable. Decided on this option, so look for reliable services.
5. 5 Think about what platform you are preparing the book for. Which reader should open your book immediately, without unnecessary actions? For example, you can choose a universal format, or you can choose a format that will be available only to owners of Amazon readers.
6. 6 Select a distributor. So, with everything else you have already identified, this question remains. Maybe Barnes & Noble? Google Play? Amazon? Or something lesser known? You decide.
   • You can sell the book from your own website. The profit is higher, but the audience is smaller, and it will be more difficult with advertising.
   • Read the concluded contracts carefully.
   • Kindle Direct Publishing is Amazon's book distribution service.
   • Smashwords is a service for publishing books on the platforms of major book sellers (besides Amazon).
   • Nook Press is a similar service from Barnes & Noble.
   • Lulu is the way to get to the Apple Store.

Method 3 of 4: Formatting

1. 1 Understand how e-book readers work. How they work and how they display text on the screen is a very important point. Once you understand what to expect, you will have an idea of ​​how to format the text.
   • Get yourself a reader and work with it.
   • There are no pages in e-books, the text seems to flow from screen to screen, scaling as needed. In other words, the concept of a “numbered page” is inappropriate here.
2. 2 Learn HTML. Books for readers are formatted using HTML - the same formatting language in which websites are created. With its help, you seem to explain to the device exactly how to reproduce the document. In order for your book to display as it should on all devices, you will have to learn the basics of HTML, in particular - formatting tags.
   • In most cases, tags are paired, the first of which is the opening, the second is the closing. The difference between them is that the second, closing one has a “/” sign. What's between the tags is the content that needs to be formatted. Accordingly, if a sentence needs to be italicized, then it must be placed in the appropriate tags.
   • Some characters in HTML do not display as expected, especially if you have previously worked through Word. In this case, you will have to change the encoding of these special characters by hand. So, in particular, we are talking about quotes, apostrophes and ellipses. So, to make sure that all ellipses are displayed as needed, they need to be changed to "& hellip" encoding.
3. 3 Learn the tags. There are a number of tags that are more important than others for the correct display of text. This is:
   • strong> text / strong> bold.
   • em> text / em> italic.
   • p> text / p> paragraph.
   • Another important tag is the insertion of an image, which is different from all the previously mentioned ones. He does not have a pair, he is single. In addition, such a tag requires a description of the picture or image used in it. The tag looks like this: img src = “adreskartinki.webp” alt = “image description”>.
4. 4 Set the size of the text. The text of e-books, as we said earlier, is scalable. In other words, it will no longer be possible to set its size in pixels. Instead, you need to use a special measurement system used in HTML, whose unit is called “em”.
   • The 1em size is the base size of the text. 2em is the next text size, etc. By setting the text size in em, you can be sure that the text will remain proportional regardless of the reader settings.
   • The structuring of the text will also change.
   • Fractional values ​​can also be specified in em (1.5, 2.2, etc.).
5. 5 Create an HTML page. Once you've finished formatting your text, you need to create an HTML file where you will place your formatted text. The file, accordingly, must be created according to all the rules. Look for more information on how to create simple static HTML pages.
   • You can also insert special code into the page that will control the display style of the entire file at once. This technology is called CSS.
6. 6 Choose a book format. Actually, the choice is small: Epub or Mobi. It is not difficult to translate a book into these formats, just download the free Caliber program.
   • Open the program, click on “Add Books” and open the HTML file you created.
   • Highlight the book, click “Edit metadata”. This will allow you to include the author's name, a description of the book, add a cover, ISBN number, publisher information, etc. click on “OK”, this will save the data you entered.
   • Now convert the book to the selected format. Epub and Mobi open on most readers.
   • The next step is to work on the table of contents. This topic should also be searched separately to familiarize yourself with all of its pitfalls.
   • Then, when the table of contents is ready, go to “Epub Output”. In the menu on the left, look for “Preserve Cover Aspect Ratio” and make sure this option is enabled.
   • Click “OK”. The program will convert your book to the desired format.
7. 7 Formatting via Word. A number of e-book publishing services work directly with Word files - for example, Smashwords. To prepare a Word file for publication, you need to validate it from start to finish, replacing all automatic formatting with manual formatting. This will ensure the correct display of the text when it is converted to HTML.

Method 4 of 4: Post-issue

1. 1 Set a good price. An expensive e-book is rarely sold in large quantities. On the other hand, a cheap e-book will bring only minimal income. The sweet spot in this case is $ 2.99.
2. 2 Promote your book. If you want to make money on it, then you will have to advertise, since it won't be a big problem on the Internet. If you want to be noticed, you have to try.
   • Use blogs and social media. Find popular blogs reviewing books in your genre, share your book on social media, connect with readers, and more.
   • Advertise your book. You can always advertise, it doesn't hurt. The main thing is that it speaks to the target audience.

Tips

• Your book should have a gorgeous cover. Trust me, people still judge books by their covers. A professional cover is a powerful marketing tool! You can draw the cover yourself, you can trust the designer or order the cover directly from the publisher.
• Your book should have a great title. Nobody wants to read a book with a boring title. The headline should grab attention, it should spark people's curiosity! In addition, the title should also overlap with the topic of the book.
• Find your niche. Selling books to your target audience is much easier. Look for what's popular, what's not. Create a unique product that meets the needs of your chosen niche - and sales will not be long in coming!

Warnings

• Beware of scammers. First, as they say, measure seven times, only then cut.
• Don't expect too much. In our time, there is simply wild competition between authors. It is extremely difficult to break through to fame, to become famous quickly and completely almost impossible. But do not take it personally and do not give up - many authors remained unrecognized by the general public during their lifetime ...