Is it possible to create a high-quality Ebook on a budget?

Write it yourself in either a newer version of Word or Open Office and export as a PDF That should solve formatting

Get your cover design at fiverr

I would just hire an editor for professionalism and readability, you can go to fiverr or any of the other freelance sites like odesk or elance. The longer the ebook the more it will cost

But, all said, you can probably do it for less than $100.00. If you have good writing skills even cheaper

al

I would recommend that you research and map out your project...thoroughly. Then decide if you can write it. If not, you can outsource sections at freelance sites. The clearer your directions for any outsourcing job, the better result you'll get. Do some small test projects and then pick the best writer for the rest of the work. You may find that you'll still need to tweak the material to give it your voice, but that's easier than writing from scratch.

Next comes formatting. My best advice is to find something that you really like and then use OpenOffice to create a similar style.

For the cover, you can use Powerpoint or Keynote to do your own pretty easily. If you decide to go to Fiverr, I strongly recommend that you choose and purchase your own stock images. That way you'll know you have the proper rights for use.

Depending on your word count and topic...yes, you can create a great ebook for ~$100. Put in the upfront effort to do good research and planning for the best outcome.

Hey Bud, I am on my third e-book and I can tell you this. DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF. You know better than any one else what your vision is. Map out your story and take it one page at a time. Do the cover yourself. Watch some video's on youtube with regards to creating an e-book cover. Make sure you give specifics as far as the re sell and user rights. If you need help with this, download a couple of free e-books and refer to their rights. When you have what you think the finished product is, give a couple away to trusted friends and have them do a review for your press release. Youtube is an invaluable tool for the process. There are resources for every step of the process.

i've created, and have outsourced the creation of, several ebooks. in terms of the covers, i'm just not good enough at graphic design (even w the ebook cover creators) to get them to look as nice/professional as i would like. nor do i want to spend the extra time i really don't have to become proficient in this area. for me, outsourcing yields much better results. there are lots of excellent designers out there that can almost certainly do a much better job than u (assuming you're not an expert yourself), and u can often hire them very inexpensively. it can be a little tricky finding good ones however. for example, out of 150 or so various jobs i've outsourced over the years i've found maybe a dozen contractors that offer the quality for the price i'm looking for...contractors which i routinely hire again and again. if u do hire someone for cover design, try and find one that offers free revisions, preferably unlimited revisions. perhaps find a cover design u like (ideally from an ebook in an unrelated niche) and instruct them u want something very similar with the following xyz changes. that's typically how i've been able to most effectively relay exactly what i want. early on when i just asked them to come up w something, i often wasn't happy. i did of course pay them for it and give them a good review (because they did what i asked), but i typically ended up hiring either them again or someone else and giving more specific instructions.

in terms of the content itself, i’ve never really had any luck w outsourcing. only u know exactly what u want to say, and how u want to say it, and asking someone else to do that has never worked for me. the amount of revisions i would have to do was far too much…it’s really easier just writing it myself, plus it feels more genuine. this is particularly true if you're an expert in the area of interest. i guess if you're creating a book on a topic u don't know much about, and assuming u find someone who's a very proficient writer, outsourcing may not be a bad option. as for me, i'm just not comfortable w it.

the following are a few very inexpensive ebook related services i’ve used…i’ve hired each of these people at least a few times, they do good work. the last guy (philmore) was on fiverr but apparently is no longer, he had a ton of excellent reviews, last time i hired him was back in 2011. having an audio version can make for a pretty cool bonus, just a thought.

design a professional high quality EBOOK cover - fiverr
proofread anything, up to 1500 words, for spelling, grammar, and punctu
Voice-Overs | Phil Elmore Dot Com

If you want to take high quality of work, you must make high budget, such as One are making a cover for $5 on the other hand One expert is making a high quality cover for $50 even $100, Formatting Charge may will depends on how many page & is there in artwork on the page? You may complete this kinds of work in Total $10 medium quality.

1) Write it up in MS Word (free)

2) Convert it to PDF format at pdfonline .com (free)

3) Get cover photo for it at Fiverr ($5)

4) Done

Regarding covers: if you're not good with graphic design, have someone do it for you. I found an awesome cover designer on Fiverr. She can be charging a lot more than $5 for her work.

But don't do it yourself unless you're good at graphic design. Otherwise it'll look amateur-ish and could hurt sales. Like it or not, people really do judge books by their covers.

I wouldn't recommend fiverr for too many things, but you actually can get a decent cover graphic from there..

Or if you think you can do one yourself eBook Cover Creator | Free Online eCover Design might be good option for you (non affiliate link)

I know a few bloggers out there who make plenty of money selling eBooks that don't have fancy formatting or covers.

Don't think about it too much and focus on creating the content. Once the content is done its time to worry about the formatting. Remember, even if your book is not formatted to perfection, it can still sell like hot-cakes. Formatting and design is not the most important thing when it comes to writing a eBook.

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I agree with one of the replies above.....create killer content with a simple format. Nothing fancy...just make it really readable and easy to digest. That part can be done for free by yourself.

Yes, hire someone to do your book cover, because it is TITLE and BOOK COVER that sell books. You want to give an excellent first impression.

Also, send your manuscript out to a few native-English-speakers to review it, so that they can pick up on any mistakes or grammar errors BEFORE you publish. You can also use any positive reviews in your book description.

I hope that that helps....have a brilliant day,

Jerry Kuzma
Perissos Media
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I have a best seller published on lulu.com (actually I have several books there). I used the pre-set format templates they provide as they work directly with open office. It cost you TIME more than anything. The great thing about lulu is that your book can be sold on istore, amazon, and even barnes and noble (which mine are). As for graphics I create my own as I am a website developer / graphic designer.

First of all, you can't get quality work for cheap. It's poor work for cheap, quality work for a decent payment. Now if you want to write and eBook, it shouldn't be hard to write it yourself, as long as you have the expertise or the right sources. And with eBooks even though the cover matters, it's the attention-grabbing headline and the value of information you provide that matter most than anything else.
If you are planning to have someone else write the text, do the copy and the cover for you and you are planning to get it for cheap, I'm not sure what chances you have...

It all depends what you call a quality, For me as a consumer quality means good content that is useful, not a pretty picture or professional layout and design. If you have good information the book will sell its self. And that goes for webdesign as well.

Yes It Is Totally Possible!!

All you really need for yourself is a Word Processor. If you have Microsoft Word then by all means go for it. But, if you're PC does not have that software.. Open Office is a GREAT substitute. I use it myself since my Windows8 Laptop did not come with Microsoft Word and I love it just the same.

I also suggest you getting a nice sleek e-cover designed on Fiverr for only $5. Can't beat that!

Good luck my friend!

Hi James,
Have a go yourself it will be a great learning experience if you have word thats a geat start.There are also free online pdf sites.

If you are interested I have a short book on it,if you pm me I'll send it too you.
Graeme

if you want the best book, you have to write it yourself, if its on a subject im not familiar with i pay someone else. but those books are mostly for money only

Well, generally speaking, design doesn't come cheap. Neither does quality writing. You can get lucky on Fiverr, but it will never be reliable. The person is only getting $4 per gig.

One thing you could do is use Odesk/Elance and commission the work as you can afford it, on an hourly basis.

Anyone have experience / tested about how well high quality designed ebooks convert vs, plain text in white blackground ebooks?

Because many times in email marketing & squeeze page the simpler ones convert better.

I highly recommend Scrivener for writing the ebook--it will automatically compile your files as any of the popular ebook formats, and you can set separate styles for different headings, paragraphs, etc in the compiler. It is not a WYSIWYG program, which can be frustrating at times, and doesn't handle images well, but overall is the best method I have found for creating well formatted ebooks. The program costs $40.

For quality content you need to edit. Hiring an editor is usually the most expensive part of a DIY ebook, because it is nearly impossible to do a good job of editing your own work. If you do want to edit yourself to save money, use Autocrit.com (free to analyze up to 1500 words a day, yearly subscription to do more) to catch some of the most common problems with your words and sentence structure. Print out the entire thing and edit w/ pen and pencil AND use a text to speech program to listen to how it sounds and catch areas that don't sound right. Having a good friend who is a grammar nazi and a group of beta readers also helps.

For cover design, you can do a lot with images licensed for commercial use if you use a free program like GIMP or paint.net. Take some time to experiment with the programs to learn their features. Paint.net and GIMP have some different features, so for my last cover I spent a lot of time moving back and forth between them to get the look I wanted.

As someone who has been hired to write ebooks for other people, and gotten consistently good reviews for my work, yes you can get good quality content by outsourcing. Still, unless you for some reason want an ebook on a topic your, yourself, are not familiar with, you are better writing the book yourself and hiring a good editor polish your writing.

Good thread here Definitely write it yourself, so it has your feel. You can go with Fiverr, or make buddies with developers and they'll hook you up, especially if you hooked them up along the way

Yes, it's totally possible. As others have said it's the content that matters. As long as you have something to say, which other people want to know, that's all that matters.

If you're worried about how to format your e-book or the writing process, I recommend you get a copy of Jim Edwards 7 day e-book: How to Write an Ebook | How to Write And Publish an Ebook (not an affiliate link). I bought a copy when it first came out, and it's a goldmine for newbie e-book writers.

I think you know to to write in computer. just write in the MS Office & save it. then you can convert the Office file to Adobe PDF. If you have no Idea about the Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop, you can take help from any designer. In the Freelancing Market you will find many categories designer. Even you may found the cover designer at 5 dollar only, or less than this amount.

I would write the ebook myself. If you want a good looking graphic, hire someone (or even a few people) to create some graphics/ebook images for your product. Pick the one that you like the most. As far as content goes, put your heart and soul into it and make sure the info is good, and you will be good to go.

You can get a cover designed on fiverr and the rest you can do yourself. I know some people that don't even design a cover and they're still able to sell their ebooks because the content is of high value.

You can make your own ebook cover by your self. Today many software or website that provides ebook cover templates with free. You just make your own design ebook cover. Try to find "how to make a simple and great ebook cover" through youtube or googling it. So you should'nt throw your $5 for just make an ebook cover.

Right it up by yourself using MS word
Convert it with PDF file
Hire a freelancer to build your Ebook cover later at cheep rate.

Hi, I can make you an ebook at low cost with quality, and yes it is possible