eBook Lab


	Web site of Biff Mitchell, author, humorist, smartass and not-poet.


	The Total Immersion Tour of the eBook World

		This page was used in conjunction with a computer lab presented at the Fredericton Public Library during Read an eBook Book Week 2005.

					Sponsored by





	ePublishers There’s probably several hundred online publishers around the world. These are companies that either publish primarily on the Internet or publish a significant number of their titles online. Traditional print publishers like Simon & Shuster have started publishing ebooks, but the digital books are a small chunk of their business. One thing all epublishers do is sell their books directly through their web sites in addition to using other online distributors. Broken Jaw Press http://www.brokenjaw.com/ Double Dragon Publishing www.double-dragon-ebooks.com Echelon Press www.echelonpress.com Dead End Street Publishing http://www.deadendstreet.com/ DiskUs Publishing http://www.diskuspublishing.com/ eBooksOnThe.Net http://www.ebooksonthe.net/ HardShell Word Factory http://www.hardshell.com LTDBooks http://www.ltdbooks.com/ Awe-Struck eBooks http://www.awe-struck.net/ eBookstores These are virtual bookstores. They’re very much like normal bookstores where you can browse for books and buy them, except in these ones, you view the books on your computer screen. You can’t pick up the book and thumb through it like you can in a bookstore, but most of these sites offer free chapters so that you can get a feel for whether or not you like the author’s writing. When you decide you want to buy a book, you generally pay for it by credit card or through an online transaction service like PayPal. Once you’ve paid for the book, it will be emailed to you along with a code for opening the file containing the book. Most online bookstores allow you to order books in a variety of formats such as PDF, MS Reader, HieBook, dedicated reader formats, and PDA formats. Fictionwise.com http://www.fictionwise.com eReader.com http://www.ereader.com/welcome Amazon.com www.amazon.com lulu www.lulu.com CyberRead www.cyberread.com eBookMall (the 100 best-selling ebooks) http://www.ebookmall.com/best-sellers/top-100-betsellers.htm eBooks.com http://www.ebooks.com/ And for an injection of Canadian literary e-talent http://www.ceauthors.com/ebooks_for_sale.htm Reading Devices There are a number of devices, besides desktop computers, for reading ebooks. These range from PDAs that run a growing number of PDA formats to devices dedicated specifically to ebooks. These dedicated readers are compact, ergonomically designed for reading, and come with a variety features such as bookmarking, backlit screens designed for extended viewing, and the ability to make notes. Device evaluations at Canadian eAuthors http://ceauthors.com/ereaders.htm Information on a variety of reading devices at ebooksonthe.net http://www.ebooksonthe.net/resources2.html eBook Forums and Directories and Other eBook Sites There are thousands of sites devoted to discussing ebooks, setting standards for ebooks, and listing ebooks and ebook authors. These are a few of those sites. Web searches such as “ebook forums”, “ebook communities”, and “ebook directories” will lead you to other sites. Open eBook Forum http://www.openebook.org/ OpenBERG Project http://openberg.sourceforge.net/ eBook-Community http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/?yguid=80095326 eBook Directory http://www23.brinkster.com/lkarczmarz/EbookDir1.html Internet Book List http://www.iblist.com/list.php?type=book&by=genre&genre=330 eBooks ‘n Bytes http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/ ewritersplace.com http://ewritersplace.com/ Free eBooks A growing number of ebook sites offer free downloads of ebooks as a means of introducing readers to their authors and to build interest in ebooks. Some of this free material is high quality. You might also check out the web sites of your favorite authors. Many authors give free downloads of their older works and their short fiction. Memoware.com - Free ebooks in PDA format (includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction) www.memoware.com Project Gutenberg (making public domain books available in etext) http://www.gutenberg.org/ Baen Free Library (for Science Fiction fans) http://www.baen.com/library/ Create, Distribute and Market Your Own eBook Some Reasons for Making an eBook Something to sell for profit Class project Family history that you can place online for all family members to download Money raiser for charitable groups To give out free as a marketing tool (i.e., with links to things you sell, or your web site) An additional resource for teachers to hand out to students To find a publisher (positive reviews, sales track record, etc.) The Process In a Nutshell There are simple ways and difficult ways to create ebooks. The process we’ll be looking at outlines the simple ways. We won’t be looking at things such as creating PDA-ready ebooks with covers and hyperlinked tables of contents. Once you’ve created a simple ebook, you can move onto more complex projects. This is the process you follow if you want to self-publish your book. If you plan to approach an ebook publisher, steps 4 - 7 would be replaced by Submit to eBook Publishers. You can start with the epublishers in the links, above. Take a writing class, if needed Write your book Have it critiqued/edited Make a cover for your book Obtain an ISBN for your book (if you plan to sell) Use an ebook creation tool to convert your manuscript to an ebook Post your book at one of the online distributors Start marketing your book Writing Classes If you’re a new writer, you should take some courses on writing. If you can not afford courses, then you should read all you can about writing. My favorite book on writing is The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray. You can buy it at most bookstores that have sections for writers, or at www.amazon.ca A used copy costs less than ten bucks. Here are links to two reputable online writing schools: http://www.writers.com/ http://www.writersweekly.com/ Critiques On Your Writing If you are planning to sell your book, then you should have it edited professionally. You can find a listing of editing services (along with recommendations and warnings) at: http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/peesla.htm If you can’t afford editing services, then have friends read your work “critically”, join a writer’s group or join one of the many online writer’s communities like the Zoetrope Writer’s Community (it’s FREE): http://www.zoetrope.com/ How to Create Your eBook Your manuscript will be the foundation for your ebook. When it’s finished, you’ll add a cover, title page, intro page, the body of the text, and acknowledgments. Then, you’ll use this file to create the actual ebook. *Word Processors, Graphics and Other Things You’ll Need* You can use Microsoft Word for your word processing. If you don’t have it, you can buy it cheap at eBay. You can also use an open source word processor that works exactly the same as Word. It comes with a suite of programs called Open Office and it’s FREE: http://www.openoffice.org/ If you don’t have an artist friend who can design a cover for you, don’t worry. You can use just about any graphics program to create covers. I generally use photos I’ve taken myself. I bring them into Paint Shop Pro and add text, then save as a JPEG. You import the cover art into the first page of your manuscript (create a blank page for this) and resize it to fill as much of the page as possible. Examples of covers I’ve created: http://www.biffmitchell.com/Free_Books/free_books.html If you plan on selling your ebook, you should obtain an ISBN for it. ISBNs are free in Canada, but you have to apply for them at: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/isbn/index-e.html You post your ISBN at the beginning of your book. Some ebook clearing houses won’t allow you to post your book unless it has an ISBN. Some reviewers won’t review it unless it has an ISBN. How to Publish Your eBook Once your manuscript is finished, edited, and the cover art and ISBN (if you’ll be selling it) are in place, you’re ready to publish your manuscript as an ebook. There are a variety of tools for turning your book into various formats. PDF is the simplest way to generate an ebook. MS Reader and Hiebooks are simple as well, but you’ll need to generate the file and examine it closely to find formating errors that will have to be corrected. It could take five or six tries before you generate a properly formatted ebook. Generating an ebook for PDAs is complicated if you want to include things like cover art, photos and graphics, and hyperlinked tables of contents. These will generally require software that runs from moderately priced to expensive. The PDA ebook converter listed below is free, but it has limited functionality. You’ll need to drop the graphics and hyperlinks, and import your manuscript into Notepad. *PDF Creators* Open Source (free) http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator Adobe Acrobat Professional http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/main.html (or search for a copy on eBay) *Hiebook, MS Reader, PDA Converters* Adobe for Palms http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html MS Reader (free converter) http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/pc.asp HieBook (free reader and free converter) http://www.ebookad.com/software.php3 pdaConverter (free) http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/pdaconverter.shtml Online Bookstores Where You Can Sell Your Books or Give Them Away The links below lead to online bookstores where you can post your books for free or for a minimal fee (as at Amazon’s Advantage program). If your book is a short story, novella, or short collection of poems and is available in PDA format, you can offer it as a free download at Memoware .com. lulu.com (post and sell your books here in ebook or paperack free) www.lulu.com CyberRead (post your books here free) www.cyberread.com Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/partners/direct/direct-application.html/ref=b_bh_b_ ad/104-8926745-3327146 Also, you can sell books directly through your own web site. You can set up a PayPal account to handle the transaction. https://www.paypal.com/ Memoware.com http://www.memoware.com How to Market Your eBook No matter where you post your book for sale, and no matter how good it is, unless you let the world know that it’s available, you won’t be selling any copies. Do web searches on marketing for writers. There’s an ocean of information available and most of it is free. You will need a web site. If you don’t have one and can’t afford to pay for one, you can create a web site free of charge at Geocities (http://geocities.yahoo.com ). Your site will contain ads, but later, when you can afford it, you can upgrade to an ad-free site. Biff’s Other Bistro (I use this as a portal to biffmitchell.com) http://www.geocities.com/biffmitchell/BiffsOtherBistro.html Another great way to set up an author web site where you can market your book, provide biographical information, give out free samples, create a newsletter, post media releases and a zillion other things, is to create a site at Authorsden. Annual membership fees are about $25 US, but a site a Authorsden will put you high in search engine ratings and provide a wide variety of services for a low price. It’s also a great way to create an effective marketing site for those with little or no web site experience. Authorsden.com http://www.authorsden.com/ Biff Mitchell at Authorsden http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?AuthorID=8425