Since a few readers have expressed an interest in writing and selling e-books recently, here’s a free course on e-book marketing you may be interested in:
The course is an eight-part opt-in email course, offered by Writer2Writer.com.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I royally screwed up the marketing of my first e-book and learned a lot from the process. If you’re considering writing an e-book, don’t make the mistakes I made. Learn as much as you can about e-book marketing up front.
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All Freelance Writing | 12 Days of Christmas - 2007
I’ll give it a try ;)
This is probably a dumb question, but how do you go about writing an e-book? Do you use a particular program? I keep thinking I’d like to do one but I am not sure how to start.
(I feel like such a dunce around all of you so I appreciate everyone’s patience with me)
It’s just like an article, just a electronic version of a book — can be any length :) — Not as complicated as it sounds.
Don’t feel like a dunce. We all had to start with our first, we all make mistakes, we all have questions, and we all grow along the way. :)
I just use Word to write it, and then convert it to PDF personally.
I do the same. Write the whole thing on Word and then use pdf995 (a free program) to convert to pdf. If you’re not sure what an e-book is supposed to look like (in terms of content), I suggest downloading a few (try the free ones Jenn is offering here) and study them regarding length, topics covered, etc.
Here’s the link to the program: http://www.pdf995.com
PDFONLINE.COM — is my baby :)
There are actually many programs you can use to convert to pdf, so a quick search would give you a lot of options. That should be the least of your worries! Once you have the e-book ready to sell, you can then convert in a matter of seconds.
Well, that sounds pretty simple. :) I have several e-books that pertain to writing in general so I have an idea of the layout and such. I was thinking I’d like to do a garden related e-book since that is one of the topics that I frequently write on.
Hmm. Maybe now I have something to put on my goals list. :)
Thanks everyone!
I know some of the free options don’t allow you to include links or other features. What about the ones you’re mentioning? Do they have any limitations? I’ve always used Acrobat directly, so I’m not familiar with these ones, but they’d be good to include in an article series for conversions if they’re full-featured.
PDFONLINE you can have ANYTHING on it — I have URLs on the files I convert and they send them almost instant to your email. It’s my love.
No limitations with pdf995. The only thing is that every time you use it, you see an advertising page (this is only for you, when you start the program –people who open the final pdf see nothing like this).
I will definitely try that one too to see if it’s better.
PDF online requires an internet connection at all times, right? PDF995 is something you download to your computer and works through your printer driver (you don’t actually need a printer). Very cool system.
Oh ok, yes it’s online —- interesting…