I have finished writing my book. Now What?

[igorhelpsyousucceed]

Hey Warriors,

I turn to the self-published authors out there for help.

I have finished writing my ebook. It is in .doc format
and I would like to know what do I need to do next.

Thanks in Advance Guys.

Igor

P.S: please refer to proof reading, publishing, cover making, etc.

[powertoberecon]

Hi Igor

How about launching it or have u done a website for it?

Pat ??

[igorhelpsyousucceed]

Website and promotion is something I've got
covered. I am talking about how do I go about
creating a .pdf ebook from .doc document?

Igor

[Mickm]

Try this free tool Convert MS Word (doc) files to Adobe Acrobat files (pdf) for free. No login required.

[Craig Fenton]

Hi Igor:

Hope all is well. I may be able to give some advice as an author/writer/speaker. It seems that the common way E-Books are being sold are as a PDF file. You want to have everything 100 percent accurate. Make a check list and go through everything such as:
Do you have all the information you wish?
Is grammar and spelling good?
Do you have a Table Of Contents?
Did you Copyright the contents?
Did you make it known in the E-Book the contents are copyrighted?
If there are links in the E-Book are they clickable?

Once you are comfortable you can use a myriad of conversion tools to make the file a PDF (for no cost).

You then have to decide are you going to sell it as a download where the second somebody pays for the book they get to download it or will you take payments and then email the book to the customer?

Work out all details first.

A very nice site (I am a member) where authors root for each other is htttp://www.authornation.com
No cost to join or post. Please if you join make a few comments first before you plug the project.

Hope you make a million!

[dave147]

use openoffice to convert word to pdf

[igorhelpsyousucceed]

Thanks everybody for the advice.

Craig, I will sign up for the site, sounds cool.

Igor

[pdguyonus]

Igor,

I agree with Craig, he gives some good advice. I recently learned a valuable lesson about
which format to use.


I created a cookbook to raise money for a local food rescue program that feeds the hungry.

I was planning on selling the cookbook as a .pdf. Big Mistake! I discovered most people want a hardcopy book they can lay on their counter top to use while cooking.

Fortunately I learned this very early and created a hard copy version.

98% of my customers buy the hard copy. Plus most of them do not have a clue about buying and reading ebooks or how to use the internet.

If your book appeals to people without internet skills you might consider a hard copy book. Heck, you might want to offer the book in hard copy as an upsell. If you need a source I have a printer who will print them on-demand.

Good luck with your book project.

Paul D. Guyon

[ecoverartist]

Hi Igor,

I published my book through Amazon a couple of months ago. I'd recommend going to the CreateSpace forum, even if you don't publish through there because there's a great amount of info on getting noticed on Amazon as well as related sites.

[ac3spad3s]

Definitely convert it to .pdf. Try putting it on ClickBank. If you offer a high enough sales percentage, you will have several people trying to promote your product.

[Tracy Yates]

Igor,

I can help you if you need it with conversion. Just send me a PM and we can discuss it further.


Tracy

[igorhelpsyousucceed]

Hey Paul, thanks for the advice, I will definitely give it a thought.

Tracy, I am sending you a pm now.

Igor

[kkrueger]

My two bits...I recommend ejunkie for your download/payment processor. That is if you want to do the promotion yourself and not use Clickbank. ejunkie is 5.00 a month for several books...and it's 49.00 to register it with clickbank.

One other think I recommend is make sure you have a header and a footer with your website address that is clickbable so that people know where the book came from. And the other is to make sure you have page numbers.

When people print the book out, it's a hassle trying to figure out page order in case they drop it (that's happened to me)

Good luck on your book...I have one ebook that is doing really really well...but it took me a long time and a lot of hassle trying to figure out how people can buy the book and get an instant download without me having to constantly email it to them.

Karen

[AdamISN]

Originally Posted by dave147

use openoffice to convert word to pdf

Agree...i convert all my reports using open office...u can even password protect so readers cant edit or copy the text in your report

[Teli]

You've already received some great advice, so I'll try to keep this short.

One thing I notice missing from *a lot* of self-published books is the page numbers. It's a small, but important, especially if your Table of Contents (you do have one of those, don't you?) makes references to specific page numbers. It's difficult to reference if someone prints off the book and, heaven forbid, some of the pages should be shuffled out of order.

Also, whether to publish a hard copy or digital version, I believe, depends on the nature of the book you're publishing. Yes, when given a choice, I prefer having a hard copy of a book, but not if that book is under 50 pages. For a 50 page book I can easily print it off on my laser printer using FinePrint with no sweat. Longer than that, definitely start looking at avenues to print hard copies (i.e. Lulu.com, Amazon.com, etc.).

As for getting the .doc to .pdf format, that's simple enough. There are plenty of free tools, even an add-in to MS Office (if you're using the 2007 version, if not, try PDF995 or OpenOffice Writer).

Good luck!