So You Want to Make an eBook – THE EBOOK

You might have noticed it off to the right – “So You Want to Make an eBook?” is now itself an eBook. Thanks again to you all who have donated and offered comments.

The eBook is retailing for $9.99. You can currently get it from Amazon and Barnes & Noble – Kobo and the iBookstore will be coming soon. However, if you buy it from me, you’ll get the Kindle, ePub, and PDF versions all bundled together (and help support me a little bit more).

You’ll often hear people talk about using an automated program to convert to eBooks, and say it’s good enough. Heck, I thought that too. What I – and so many others – have found, is that no automated converter is perfect. We’ve found that knowing how to make an eBook by hand gives us control when the programs don’t co-operate.

Whether you use another converter or an automated system (like Smashwords), I think it’s vital that authors have a reference in order to maintain control over their own work.

It’s like having the manual for doing an oil change on your car. Even if you always go to SpeedyWombatLube, having that choice – and the knowledge on how to fix your car if they screw up or go out of business – is real power.

I wrote this book to be accessible to a computer-literate (but not guru, wizard, or sysadmin) level. I don’t go into lots of details, but walk you through the steps to do a basic conversion – and show you where references are to find out more yourself.

I’ll also be posting updates intermittently here – the information changes quickly, and I keep running into new things. For example, did you know you can get horizontal rules to render in ePub? I didn’t until yesterday. Or that Barnes & Noble now wants a minimum of 700 pixels on a side for your cover image?

Even if you’ve only read the blog version, I’d appreciate an honest review on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. That makes a big difference in helping others find the book.

And yes, I want people to find the book… but not just to make me money. I’ll tell you why tomorrow.

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