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Beginner’s Guide To Publishing Your Own Ebook Stay Updated

By Nels Dzyre in Internet. Updated on November 19, 2017. Get daily articles in your inbox for free.

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If you are reading this then you probably already have a manuscript or a book Restore Your Faith In
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you can become an ebook author. Self-publishing is easier now than it has ever
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The topic aside, writing and publishing an ebook run along a few important Fahad Khan

matters that you can’t escape from.

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We’ll look into those matters brie y in this post, from cover design to which Leanne Tan

format to publish your book in. If you have published an ebook before and
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1. Front Matter
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Title Page: In print publishing this title page contains the title of the book, the
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author’s name, the place and year of publication, the publisher, and sometimes
illustrations.
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Copyright Page: This page contains information about your copyright notice, Azzief Khaliq
edition of the book (if there is more than one version), the ISBN, and illustrator’s
name (if necessary). At times the title page and copyright page are combined into
a single page.
Introduction: The introduction lets the author give an overview of the topic the
book is about. In print publishing, this section can be broken down into several
other sections, each with their own purpose:

A dedication page records the author’s wish to dedicate the book

(sometimes in a few lines, sometimes in a poem or prose) that was written
to loved ones.

A preface page – written by the author – explains how the idea for the book
was perceived.

The foreword, is a written introduction usually done by someone who is not

the author but who is related to the author, topic or book version.

The acknowledgements is where the author expresses his thanks and

gratitude to informers, editors, publishers, friends and family for helping
them start or nish writing the book – in novels this is sometimes placed at
the end of the book.

For ebooks, there isn’t a need to provide all of the above, just the pages that you
want for your book or which you nd suitable.

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Table Of Contents: This page is where you list all your chapters and the
relevant page number. Consider it the oor map for your book. The good thing
with ebooks is that you can hyperlink the chapters so that when users tap or click
on the chapter link, they are taken straight to the corresponding page.
(Image Source: Content Strategy)

2. Back matter (End Matter)

Things are not as clearcut when it comes to the back matter. If you are writing a
work of ction then you might put your Epilogue (it’s like an extra chapter which
tie up loose ends) here. For any other book, generally, an Afterword (it’s like an
extended Conclusion section) will do.

All ebooks should contain a Bibliography or Reference section where all other
books or contents that were cited or used for reference in the writing of the book
are recorded. The details provided – author, title, publisher, year of publication,
web url etc – should be able to lead readers to the listed reference, one way or
another.

3. Body Matters
This is the part where most authors don’t generally have a problem with – if they
do, then they shouldn’t be publishing a book in the rst place. The plan is to
start… with a plan. Or a topic, or issue or a general plot.

Breaking down content: Since writing a book is important both to the author
and to the reader, it is essential to separate your book into sections – we usually
know this as Chapters. It is also easier for readers to keep track of how far they
have gone in the book.

Images: In many ebooks, images and illustrations are also as important as the
written content. Ensure you use high-quality images when creating your ebook.
While it doesn’t make much of a difference when viewed on screen, if a reader
decides to print your ebook, high-quality images will make sure the book come
out in tip-top shape. Be sure to clear copyright issues related to images and
permission to use before the book is out.

Read Also: 10 Tips To Turn Your Ebook Into A Print Book

Writing deadline: Some authors can churn out a book per year, others take a
decade just to get the characters right. Unless you work with a publisher, there
really isn’t a deadline to adhere to.

4. Editing And Proofreading

This exercise needs a separate section because so many authors ignore its
importance once too often. While an author can sit and churn out paragraph
after paragraph and page after page, in the process they miss out on spelling
errors, missing hyphens, inconsistency in writing, inconsistency in formatting,
broken hyperlinks, wrongly captioned images, etc.

Errors like these will disrupt the reading process, and many readers who have
read edited work from print publishers will have low tolerance to these
mistakes. More importantly, these mistakes will turn up with ebook reviews
that these readers provide, and will affect the views of potential readers who may
or may not give your book a chance.

There are varying degrees of editing, some light, others substantive, but the trick
is to nd an editor who respects your work, rather than one who always has to
have the nal say. If you are lucky, you might nd an editor who can give you
constructive criticism that will help you further improve your book.
At the very least, have a friend read through your book for you – anyone can
proofread.

5. Cover Design & Title

The biggest problem a budding author has if he/she takes the self-publishing
route is that there isn’t a dedicated marketing team with all the right
connections to help publicize the book. Discoverability being a issue that
plagues new authors, you need all the help you can get to get your book out
there.

Provided you have a budget for it, there are many freelance cover designers who
can churn out a really striking and attractive cover design. There are many
factors that go into determining the right cover design for your book, for
example, a lot of work go into illustrating colorful and amazing-looking book
covers for children, even those catered for the iPad.

Read Also: 15 (Really) Beautiful & Creative Book Covers

If you prefer to do the cover design yourself, there are plenty of tips and advice
available all over the Internet on how you can go about designing your own
ebook cover. Also available are tools, tutorials and Photoshop actions to help you
speed up cover design.

(Image Source: Hol Art Books)

Also as important is the title of your book. Unless you are a popular author,
most readers looking for a new book to accompany them on their ight won’t
give your name a second look. However, with a good cover and a catchy title with
the right keywords, you might just get lucky.

Read Also: Beginner’s Guide To Book Cover Design

6. eBook Format
Print publishing turn raw manuscripts – handwritten or typed – into an actual
printed book, and that’s it. When it comes to ebooks, however, the nal format
your ebook is in will determine how accessible your book is.

The safest route is to export it to a PDF format. Most web browsers can open a
PDF le without third-party apps and you can publish your ebook on multiple
platforms. However, the PDF format keeps the text static and you need to do a
lot of zooming to get the best reading view (based on the screen size you are
on).

(Image Source: Covert PDF To Epub)

An alternative is the EPUB format which lets you re ow the text to suit your
device’s screen size. You can produce an ebook in EPUB format if you know
XHTML but if you don’t, there are plenty of software that can convert content
from various formats like PDF, MOBI, LIT, LRF, DOC, HTML into EPUB.

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This means that you can use Microsoft Word or Open Of ce to create your work
then convert it to EPUB when it is nished. Alternatively you can work on free
software like Sigil which lets you write your book in EPUB format, even if you
don’t know XHTML. This gives you more control over your content and makes
your last-minute changes easier to manage.

Read Also: Publishing A Book – 7 Cost-Effective Self-Publishing Services

7. Getting Your Book Out There

The online publishing landscape is changing every day. It is easier now more
than ever to make your book more accessible to readers out there. You can try
with an online publisher like Amazon.com or with any of these 10 online services
to sell digital wares. Note that they take a cut from the sales of your book for
featuring your ebook in their online store.

Recommended Reading: 20 Websites To Sell Your EBook

Alternatively, you can create a website that is dedicated to your book, like what
these book authors have done for their book. If the costs spent to create your
ebook is not too great, you can also consider giving your book away for free, or as
a way to generate more traf c to your blog. Once you have established yourself as
an established author, you can start pricing your subsequent books.
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