Writing eBooks: The Technology A How To Get Started Guide

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Students can make their own ebooks. Have them write their stories in .html, .pdf, ppt, or .doc files. They can illustrate the stories using downloaded images. References become cut and pasted url's. Turning in the assignment is a breeze: upload it, email it or hand it in on a thumbdrive or cdrom/dvd-r. Broderbund.com and Microsoft Store sell programs perfect for getting the young child technologically literate. Check out this list of software for kids of all ages.

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Articles and Lessons >> Writing Lessons>> Writing eBooks...Tech >>
How to Get Started Guides

What Tech?

EBooks are more than presentations, websites, or long documents. With the modern ereaders, the software used to make an ebook is now crucial to the budding author. This article is written by a lady that authored an ebook-writer software. Here she explains the special operations that a software must perform to produce an ebook and the special techniques an author will find useful in creating the ebook. Learn how to write an ebook.

The article and title are the words of S. Lowery. Emphasis and headings are mine. As always, images, eccept for the ads, are ©VCCTI. Read and enjoy!--Val

Self-Publishing Your Way to Internet Success

By Shelley Lowery

What are ebooks?

Ebooks or Electronic books are self-contained "executable" files of HTML. This HTML may be a web site you've created or HTML you've specifically prepared to be compiled into a downloadable .exe file for distribution. When downloaded, this file will self install on your clients desktop.

Ebooks are completely interactive with the Internet and can contain live links, graphics, forms, JavaScript, embedded video; can be protected via password/userid, search capabilities; and more. This self-contained executable file can be distributed in a number of ways, including CD, floppy disk, download, etc.

Why Write an eBook?

With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is absolutely no better time than right now to develop your own informational product. Not only is there no better time, but it has never been any easier for anyone to develop and sell their own products.

Information is the number one best-selling product on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs quietly making a fortune simply by selling information.

Sidney Offits Memoir Writing Secrets. Write Your Life Story Now!
This Audio-ebook Info Pak Featuring Writer-professor Sidney Offit Is Filled With Tips And Tools That Will Put You On The Right Road To Producing A Successful Memoir. Another example of a self-published product from Clickbank.com -- Val

Why are ebooks so popular? Internet users have a sincere desire to learn and want the information right now. They don't want to wait a week or two for the information to arrive. Ebooks provide your potential customers with instant gratification. As soon as they pay for their order, they can have immediate access to the information they desire.

Getting Started on your eBook

The first step in creating your product is to decide upon a subject. Select a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge. The knowledge you have within your own mind is extremely valuable. Simply write about what you know and teach others how to do the same thing. It's that simple.

Creating an Outline & Table of Contents

The easiest way to begin writing is to create an outline. Begin your outline with an opening statement or Introduction followed by a Foreword. Your opening statement might tell your readers a little bit about what they are going to learn or may be a statement in regard to the subject matter. Your Foreword might include information in regard to who you are, your credentials, copyrights, and what you want your readers to learn.

Your next step will be to either create a Table of Contents or go directly into creating your Chapter Titles. If you're writing your information in the form of a how-to manual, you may want to use a Table of Contents. This will enable your readers to quickly locate important information. If you're writing your information in the form of a book, then you can leave out the Table of Contents and simply use Chapter Titles.

Whether you're using a Table of Contents or Chapter Titles, write your titles so that when they're read, they tell the story. In other words, when you scan your titles they will give you a step by step description of what your information is all about.

Finally, at the bottom of your outline, wrap everything up by including a closing statement.

Once you've completed your outline you can begin filling in the spaces. Write your text in small blocks and leave a space between your paragraphs. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a white background. In addition, write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.

Designing Your Interface

Your ebook interface MUST look professional. No matter how good your information is, if your ebook doesn't look professional, it's perceived value will be low, ultimately costing you sales.

Design your ebook to be easily navigated and make sure you include navigational graphics within each page. In addition, your ebook should include all of the following:

Introduction
Table of Contents
Foreword
Copyrights
About page

Get Shelly Lowery's eBook Starter

If you're not confident in your ability to create a professional looking ebook, I highly recommend eBook Starter. It is the first and only ebook software that is an actual WYSIWYG ebook editor. It will enable you to give your ebooks the look and feel of a real book, notebook, manual or report. If you can use a simple word processing program, you can create ebooks with eBook Starter -- it's that simple.

Your first step in designing your ebook will be to turn your text into HTML. Simply divide your text into sections such as, Introduction, Table of Contents, Chapters, etc., and create a web page for each.

Delivering Your Information

In order to deliver your information to your customers, you'll need to compress it into a downloadable file, better known as an ebook. There are different types of compilation methods however, for this example we will focus on HTML compiled ebooks.

Selecting a Compiler

Although there are many ebook compilers available on the Internet, please keep in mind, they are just that -- HTML compilers. What this means is that they will only compile files that you've already created within another program, such as an HTML editor. This will involve creating your pages within an HTML editor and then importing your files into an HTML compiler to create your ebook.

However, there is one software program that will enable you to create your entire ebook -- from start to finish and that's eBook Starter: http://ClickBankNickname.wsnet.hop.clickbank.net/

Taking Orders

In order for you to begin taking orders for your ebook, you'll need to have the ability to accept credit cards. Unless you'd like to get your own merchant account, the best way to accept credit cards is to use an online service. The best service I've found is ClickBank. This company will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, and Novus cards. There are no monthly fees; however they charge a small fee for each sale you make.

The great thing about this company is that over 60,000 affiliates can choose to sell your products for you. ClickBank enables any web seller to automatically pay sales commissions to affiliates. Clickbank will bill your customers, pay you, and pay your affiliates a commission. In other words, they'll run your entire affiliate program for you.

http://www.clickbank.com

There is absolutely no reason why you can't create your own informational product. Think about it... Think about some special talent you may have or knowledge you could share and write about. Creating your own product will be one of the best business decisions you'll ever make.

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of eBook Starter. Create your ebooks quickly and easily with the first and only ebook software that is an actual WYSIWYG ebook editor. Give your ebooks the look and feel of a real book, notebook, manual or report in just a few simple steps.

Visit eBook Starter to download your free demo today...

Let me know if you try the product and whether you liked it. I personally found the information about writing ebooks to be informative. There is a second article by S. Lowery. Also, you can get lots of books from the Clickbank.com authors at the eBook Library. --Valerie

This page first posted 10/27/09.