You may have known for a long time that you are carrying around the germ or the complete outline of a good book in you. How about some pre-natal care to bring it to birth?
Oh, you wish you could deliver a popular ebook to the world too? You conceive by brainstorming for ideas.
Once you are sure you have a book growing inside you, and you'll know by the leap of enthusiasm in your spirit. Now it's time to prepare for its arrival and introduction to the world.
Before you write it, decide on a niche market and research it so your book will be slanted for them.
Let's say you have some personal experiences to relate. Your immediate family and friends will lap it up, looking for references to themselves. Some others, or women who love vicarious trips, and confessions, will be curious enough, but after that interest will dwindle.
People are generally very self-focused. Rather find a group who could identify with your experiences, and slant your writing as helpful information for THEM. Tell your stories to illustrate what you mean in your advice. You'll end up with a much wider readership.
Supposing you escaped a Communist country and have made a new life for yourself in the free world. If only those who know you read it, how many books will you sell or give away? But if you slant it to people who have also escaped and are bewildered about adjusting in the free world, and you give them solid examples of how you have settled in, then the book will be seen as a help book and recommended to far more people.
Work out the slant and research what your book ought to include to be effective in that niche. Do this BEFORE you write it. Otherwise, you'll be re-writing it until you are quite sick of it.
The publishing world is in a great transition stage. Just in the last couple of years, electronic, or e-books have become very popular, and they are free to create and almost free to sell. In the past 6 to 7 years print-on-demand has arisen and every month more publishers are setting up to use this much more efficient and quicker way to get books to market.
The dust hasn't settled yet on this! But one thing is certain, self-publishing is coming into its time in the sun. A lot of mediocre stuff is being published and accepted because of the novelty of it all, but the opportunities are ripe for those who are pregnant with a book and bursting to share it with the world - even though on a shoestring budget!
After writing your book out in a word processing program, and getting it proof-read by someone else, you polish and edit and arrange it nicely. Then do it again. And another time to be sure.
At present I see three ways to publish, and you can get your book out in all three.
1. e-book as .exe (can only be read on PCs)
This is where you find a nice web page template, and copy and paste each page or chapter, into it, name it as a file in a special folder, and do the next. Put links into the pages to tie them all together, so it is possible to jump to the next page with a click. Add some banner ads if you are going to give it away and hope to get traffic through the advertising. Then download an e-book compiler software, fill in some blanks, and zap - in minutes your book is an .exe file and can be uploaded and downloaded like any software on the internet. It's ready for sale or give away.
The compilers for give-away e-books are free. If you plan to sell your e-book, it will cost a bit. I found the most affordable compiler for creating a book to sell is Activ-Ebook Compiler at $35 US at eBookCompiler.com (Now that was current when I first wrote this article; but I have not seen or heard of Ebook compiler software in years! Must be obsolete!)
2. e-book as .pdf (the reader needs Acrobat Reader, or another PDF reading software program, to see it).
These e-books can be read on PC (Windows), Mac, or Linux computers. These PDF readers are free software programs. Your pages can look exactly as they do in your wordprocessing program. It used to be that you needed Adobe's special Acrobat software which cost $250 to convert your MS Word document into .pdf format. However, now for more than 15 years it is quite easy to simply export or "save" our book documents as PDF files. I do it all the time in LibreOffice, and I understand other programs do it too now. At no charge!
Both the .pdf and the .exe (or html) style ebooks can be uploaded to your website, sold or given away, and downloaded in seconds or minutes, depending on the size of the book.
A cover design is not necessary to the e-book, however, most people find they can sell their e-book better if they do have an attractive cover graphic that looks like a book. Gradually, I've been learning more and more about making my own cover graphics and book illustrations.
3. Print-on-Demand.
Now, there are still plenty of people who would rather read from a paper volume in their hands. They're also easier for reading in the bathtub or hiding under the covers in your bed when you should be... you know what.
In 1998 I got four quotes on printing my novel, and the best one called for $15,000 dollars to get 5,000 paperback copies. Committed to not getting into debt, I had to put that plan on hold. Now I see God's goodness in that delay.
In 2002 I got a print-on-demand contract with Booklocker.com for $199 US for a set up fee to a POD capable printer. They download my manuscript into their printer-computer, and set it up to take customer credit card payments on their website. That printer can spit out a copy of my book within 8 minutes of getting an order, a soft cover on it and all! They urged me to build a website of my own to draw traffic for sales. (Now in 2022 I know all this can be done for even less!)
You send potential customers there, who pay for your softcover book. The printer prints out just the one book if need be, and binds it, and sends it on the way to that customer the next day, or in 48 hours. The printer deducts their percentage fee, and once a month sends you your profits. You have no costs for stocking, shipping, etc., because no cases of your books have to be kept in a warehouse. They are printed only after a paid order comes in.
Instead of getting a royalty of say 8 - 10% from a traditional printer, you can now get 50 - 70% profit because the printer's expenses are lower. Places to start your search; https://www.booklocker.com/getpublished/published.html
When this is all set up, of course, you are wise to put up a nice website of your own, to introduce your book to the world, complete with order page, so they can pay you for the e-book of choice. Or, they may click a link over to your POD's website, and pay for the hard or softcover.
That alone doesn't sell books. Now you have to write press releases, and advertise both the book and website everywhere. Doggedly, persistently.
You could spend the rest of your days promoting your book, and enjoying the profits. Oh-h-but wait! :) - You'll soon be pregnant with another great book idea!
Back to Writing/Publishing (index).
Ruth Marlene Friesen
The Responsible One
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Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada