The D-I-Y route to e-books

This article is re-printed by kind permission of  Writers' Forum Magazine

Join the e-book Revolution,. . . 10,000 sales in four months, scream the ads from almost any writing magazine you care to open or e-publishing website that you happen to hit upon.

To many writers whose bottom drawer is bulging with unpublished novels adverts like these must seem like the answer to a prayer, but what exactly is this e-book buzz word that everyone keeps droning on about and can it really help the average writer realise a publishing dream?

Well, publishing your manuscript as an e-book is surprisingly Easy peasy! With a little effort and willingness to learn, almost anyone can do it as you'll see later in this article.

The books are published in several different formats, but all have one thing in common, the information, be it a novel, short story, poem or sales catalogue, is distributed electronically, usually via the Internet and sometimes on compact discs.

It's quite obvious that this has enormous savings over conventional print publications, but don't let's get carried away just yet! Like the vanity press print publishers there are plenty of rip-off merchants prowling the web ready to bedazzle and snare the unwary with sensational claims.

So if you're set on e-publishing, how can you avoid falling prey to a con artist? Well you've two choices. Get some recommendations on suitable publishers from writers who are already signed, study all paperwork and contracts carefully before you part with any cash and ask plenty of questions about what if any marketing they are going to do and how much you are expected to do.

Alternatively, as we're doing in this article, you can go it alone.

No doubt you've heard a lot about e-readers and hand-held devices such as the Palm Pilot. These are specialist pieces of hardware that allow the reader to view the e-book. At the moment these are still very expensive and not widespread which is why they are not really suitable for the average electronic self-publisher.

An alternative method and very popular with electronic publishers is the self-executing e-book. Quite simply this is made from HTML files and compiled into an e-book with a piece of software called a compiler. If you can design web pages then you should have no trouble with this kind of e-book. If you can't, then don't worry, there's always more than one way to skin a rabbit!

Ok you say, but my book is in a word processing document. No problem! If you know HTML coding you don't need me to tell you what to do. For those that don't and I'm one of them you'll have to skin your rabbit a different way!

All you need is a web design package. These come in all shapes, sizes and prices, depending on how many whistles and bells you want. I use NetObjects Fusion which is a professional package designed for building business sites. It's rather expensive but so simple to use. It works very much like desktop publishing software, comes with a good manual and has excellent support.

You don't need this kind of sophistication though and there are lots of cheaper alternatives with many of them allowing you a free trial period (NOF gives you 30 days' free trial).

Once you've found your way around your web design software you can then copy and paste you text from your word processing document. Obviously you need to know a little about formatting and setting up your pages etc. but you can check out the resources at the end of this article for help with that.

It's also a good idea to study someone else's attempt. Request a free copy of my first e-book, The WriteLink to Promoting & Selling Your Book, by either e-mailing: [email protected] or from www.writelink.co.uk and you'll see how I did it.

Once you are satisfied with the look of your book in the web design software then you need to convert this to HTML. Don't look so alarmed. The program will do it for you at the click of a mouse. NOF tells you to "publish" your site and depending on where you told it to publish, that is where you'll find the HTML files.

One thing to bear in mind at this stage is that it is vitally important that you publish the site in "flat" site structure. This is because all your HTML files must be in the same directory when you come to compile your e-book. Whatever web design package you use do make sure that it allows this option, otherwise you will be faced with doing this manually, not an easy task as I know to my cost!

On to the next step. This is where you will actually make your e-book. You'll need a small software program called a compiler to do this. There are several around, but the one I use is called E-book Compiler. It costs just under $30 which is roughly �20 and is simple to use.

This compiler allows you to password-protect some or all of your pages, creates a time expiry limit and supports a search facility. It has a friendly user interface and excellent support facilities, both via e-mail and a useful discussion group which you can join even if you choose to buy a different compiler.

The password protection facility is one of its biggest assets as you can allow readers to download the whole of your book but only let them read so much before asking them to purchase a password.

Well that is just about it! If you've done everything the way that you should have you will have been prompted to save your book to disc. Go to Windows Explorer and locate where you saved it and you'll see that there is .exe after the file name. This means it is an executable and if you click on its icon it will open up and run.

You can copy this file to disc, send it as an e-mail attachment or upload it to the web. As long as the reciprocant has Internet Explorer installed it will run.

One word of warning! Don't forget to save your web design file and your e-book compiler file - you'll soon discover another advantage of e-books, they are so easy to update at no extra cost!

See, I told you it was Easy Peasy!

Sue Kendrick is a freelance writer and graphic designer who writes regularly for her local newspaper and has just published an e-book on writing for local newspapers. She also runs www.writelink.co.uk a writers' resource site which specialises in carrying a high UK content of writing competition and market information.