If you want to create your own E-Book it can be a very fun and rewarding process, however there are a few things that you need to know before you get started. E-books are not a one stop shop like a print book, you will need to create books that can be viewed and read over a wide variety of formats. The technology associated with E-books is constantly changing but the basic principles outlined here will remain the same.

Is Digital Publishing for you?

You want to ask yourself a few questions before you decide to publish an e-book. One of the most important is whether or not your audience prefers print or digital books. You want to cater to your ideal audience, so if you plan to create an E-book make sure you know how to reach your audience online. Is your work illustrated? Right now E-books are limited in their ability to be full of pictures and vivid color, so print publishing might still be the best option for this format.

How E-Publishing Works

When you look into e-publishing services you need to keep in mind that these services are just to distribute and sell the book. They are not there to publish your work, so they do not care about the quality or rights to the finished product.

Cost: You can choose between two types of services. The first will distribute and sell your book for free, but they will take a percentage of your profits. The other will charge you and upfront fee but the profits are entirely yours.

Control: You have the ability to put your book up whenever you want and you can also take it down whenever you want. Since the distributor has no rights over your book, you still get to control how it is sold.

NonTechnical – You really don’t have to have a great deal of technical know how to publish your book. Just a little patience and willingness to learn and you are ready to go.

 

Types of E-Pub Services

When it comes to publishing E-books there are two different options. The first is through single-channel distribution. What this means is that these retailers will only sell your book through one device, such as the kindle. They will not offer any help or conversion services, so you will need to make sure your book is ready for the device they use.

The second is multiple channel distribution. These services will take your e-book and place it up with multiple retailers. This reduces the amount of work on your end as they will prepare your book and make sure it gets to many single channel distributors. This is much easier on you but it does cost either an upfront fee or sales percentage.

Formatting and Preparing Your Book

When you have finished writing your book you will need to prepare it for the number of different devices that you hope to sell it to. Each distributor will ask that you upload a correctly formatted file which they will then sell. Since distributors use different formats, you will end up reformatting your book several times in order to reach all of the distributors. The different types of formats that you may encounter include EPUB, iBooks, PDF, and mobipocket.

Creating the Cover

When you create a cover there are a lot of different design aspects and elements that you need to consider, such as how the book will look as an icon and how it will translate across multiple formats.

Unless you have design experience, it is probably best to hire someone to create the cover. You can also use custom cover makers and online tools that allow you to create your own custom 3D covers for your ebook.

Boosting Sales

There are few things that you need to keep in mind to make sure you get the best sales for your book, mainly knowing how to price your book. For independent authors who are not well known most e-books sell for around $.99 to $2.99.

This probably does not seem like much but there is less overhead with e-books and most people are skeptical about independent authors and are not willing to pay as much. Amazon is likely going to be the biggest seller of your e-book and therefore spending time creating an author page and an Amazon presence is a good idea.

You should also keep in mind that the percentage of list price that Amazon will pay you depends on how you price your book. They may pay 70% of books priced $2.99 to $9.99 but only 35% of books priced $.99. So many authors will often change the price of their books back and forth to boost visibility and profits.

Looking Ahead

The options are endless for those who are looking to publish their own E-books and there are limitless resources for helping you get through the entire process.