An electronic book (E-book) is a digital version of a conventional printed book which can either be read on a computer or hand-held electronic device such as an E-reader (a device that specialises in reading E-books). The recent surge in popularity of E-books is one which a lot of people particularly bloggers are willing to take advantage of in order to boost Web traffic. While many choose to sell these electronic resources for direct profit, others prefer to distribute them freely for viral exposure or back-end profits. However, there are still a lot of people out there who do not really understand what it takes to create or publish an E-book.
Before you make your first E-book, it is necessary to understand whether or not it will be beneficial to you. Below are some of the characteristics of an E-book.
Features
- E-books are widely available for download on the Internet. While some of these are at a price, many more are free and tens of thousands are downloaded daily as more and more people crave for information.
- Due to the portability and capacity of E-book readers, users can actually download and store as many E-books as possible into a single device. As a result, there is no limit in the number of e-books you can produce as the market is vast.
- Compared to carrying conventional books all over the place, e-readers are relatively light-weight and easy to use. They also encourage user-interaction in terms of the ability to adjust fonts, use text-to-speech programs, dictionaries and search functions.
- E-books can be written in any language which means that distribution is not limited to speakers of your native language only.
- Distributing E-books is relatively easier than printed publishing.
Publishing
Although E-books can be published in many formats, the most widely used format is the PDF. The easiest and quickest way to do this by taking a number of related posts on your blog or some of your most popular articles, and group them together into a smaller group. Once the document has been put together, you will have to read them all over again in order to edit and remove spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Furthermore, the content must also make sense and have a relationship from one chapter to the next. This could mean that you have to re-write some of the text in order to ensure consistency and readability. Finally, you need to come up with an attractive title and aesthetically pleasing front-page design to lure readers.
Distribution
E-book distribution could be harder than you think. The quickest ways to get the word out there is by making the E-book available for download on your Web site/blog and then mentioning it in online forums, Internet chat rooms and paid or unpaid advertising. This will not only ensure that other people can read your publication but could also be a great source of traffic for your site and boost your popularity as more people visit to download your E-book. In addition, there are several E-book distribution services and software that you can take advantage of to market E-books on your behalf.
Talking Point
What other ways can E-books be distributed?
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Mobile Games
May 1, 2010 at 11:01 am
These days E-books have become much popular that every gadget comes up with preloaded E-book reader.
.-= Mobile Games´s last blog ..Need For Speed ProStreet =-.
Business Journey
May 4, 2010 at 3:50 pm
After I read this article, my dream to make an ebook about my Business Journey need to be complete…Thank you, you make me realized, actually it’s no difficult to build ebook….
.-= Business Journey´s last blog ..Endomarketing involves Employees to meet goals =-.
Domain name registration
May 5, 2010 at 9:16 pm
E-books provide an alternate reading choice for lovers of technology and it offer a new dimension to the written word, allowing books to be distributed and enjoyed so much more easily with the use of internet and other technology platform…
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Bingo Fever
October 28, 2010 at 12:28 am
Thanks for the great tips, Atm, I struggle to write a 500 word blog post but I currently getting better. It would be cool to write my own E-book one day.
Janis Gagliardi
June 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Sounds very challenging, a determined person can certainly complete writing a book in 3 hours. I am an avid reader specially of e-books and currently I’m exploring Kindles III but other than reading I never thought of writing an e-book but I do publish articles from time to time and after reading this article I’m feeling all motivated. Maybe I may not start writing right away but I want to take up this 3 hour challenge and examine my capability. Thanks for all the inspiration!!