Why Budding Authors Should Go Digital

You've put hours and hours of research, writing, revisions, editing, proofreading - and really, your heart and soul - into writing the best how-to book you can imagine. The text is interesting and informative, the diagrams and schematics precise, and overall, you have a piece of work in which you can take pride. You're well on your way to becoming an author of note at your local book store, except for one small detail: no one wants to publish your masterpiece. Thanks to the burgeoning industry of internet publishing, however, you have another option: ebook publishing. An ebook is to the literary world what email is to the postal system. Ebooks are books that have been formatted for electronic presentation, and nearly anyone can publish an ebook with minimal effort and more importantly, minimal resources. Ebooks do not rely on publishing houses to come to fruition. Most ebooks are designed and formatted either by the author, or if you're really serious, by a qualified designer so that the pages conform to printing and aesthetic standards. The pages are then either saved as PDF, html or common word processing files. PDF files are generally the best way to present your ebook material, but depending on how you intend to promote your ebook publication, the other formats may be more appropriate. Once your ebook is in the works, it is time to launch an ebook promotion and marketing plan. Traditional marketing strategies such as advertising in the newspaper may be a good idea if your ebook addresses a topic of wide appeal, but the electronic nature of ebooks begs for a similar style of promotion. The first step in marketing and promoting an ebook should be to ensure you have great content. A lot of would-be authors mistake the simplicity of publishing an ebook as an invitation to present low-quality work. Beware: readers will abandon shoddy writing whether it is on paper or on screen so make sure you have well-written, well-formatted prose that has been checked and rechecked for errors. The next step to effective internet marketing of an ebook is to create a dynamite website that will grab the attention of potential ebook buyers and move them to act. Again, if you're not super web friendly, invest in the services of a professional web designer to help you achieve a polished website that allows buyers to learn about your ebook, about you and, of course, to order your ebook. From a consumer perspective, one of the benefits of buying an ebook is that you can do so from the comfort of your own home. Keeping that in mind, make sure your website has instant payment and downloading features. It is also important to have a website that will show up in search engine queries. Talk to your web master about techniques such as publishing fresh content, meta information, keywords, links and RSS feeds to maintain a high search engine ranking. Email is another super medium to spread the word about your new ebook. Create mailing lists (or buy them online), so that you can send mass messages heralding the arrival of your latest work. Some ebook authors find it helpful to have an email notification opt-in feature on their websites so that interested readers can receive automatic notification of news concerning your ebook or future work. So how does one profit from writing an ebook? Just as with traditional books, ebook material is copyrighted and therefore belongs to the author. The ebook author can sell individual copies of his or her ebook; can sell resell rights or reprint rights to a prospective buyer; or even set up a club or subscription-type system in which readers pay an annual or monthly fee for access to material that is protected from the public internet community. Ebooks are a fantastic way to tap into the publishing world. While not yet considered mainstream, ebooks are quickly becoming more popular. In fact, for some often-changing non-fiction subjects, ebooks are preferable to print books that rapidly fall out of date. With an ebook, information can be quickly and easily updated with the latest information.