Finetuning: Encoding

There are a lot of characters that you normally don’t even think about when writing your book that may be very difficult to preserve in your ebook. Take for instance the lowly quote marks in the following phrase:

Workflow: Match Dreamweaver styles to Word Styles

In the previous installment, I urged you to use style sheets to format your Word document and the argument I used is that it makes it easy to format and reformat your document. And I also mentioned that if the Word style sheets are named identically to Dreamweaver stylesheets, then life will be one sweet song, but perhaps you are wondering:

Workflow: Start with Microsoft Word / Stylesheets

How do I create an ebook?
Well, like most people, I write in Microsoft Word, which despite being an incredibly bloated piece of software, is still very good as a word processor, once you can hide enough toolbars and palettes to focus on your work.

Tools of the trade

NOTE: I proudly work on an Apple Macintosh, but almost everything I say here will apply to both Mac and PCs. (I also use Parallels Virtualization to run Windows on my Mac.)

My proof reader

Editing and re-editing your own work can make you hate it with a passion you reserve for spammers and people who kick dogs. And after a while you just start glossing over the text, not noticing that a question ended with a period or that a word is repeated.

Quickly publishing on Amazon

It’s not that difficult to publish a book on Amazon, but of course I did it the hard way, submitting an actual MOBI file rather than a more straightforward Word document or PDF. In fact, if you just created a book  using a Word template, creating a table of content by using Word’s hyperlinks to Word bookmarks, you could probably be publishing in a jiffy.

To buy or not to buy an ISBN

First, what is it. Well, it’s the 10- to 13-digit number you find on the copyright page of that Harry Potter or Twilight novel you just bought. The International Standard Book Number identifies your book so that bookstores know that they just ordered the large-print, paperback version of your book published in 2007 versus the audiobook released in 2009. In other words, it’s necessary if you want to get your book sold in bookstores because they order based on the ISBN.

Kindle with Special Offers

It’s in my best interest to promote the $114 Kindle with Special Offers. After all, the more Kindles out there, the more likely you’ll buy Good Cop, Dead Cop. But I have to suggest caution until a little more is known about the new model.

Applying for a copyright

There are many who complain about government bureaucracy, but you’ll find little about which to complain when you apply for a electronic copyright at the U.S. Copyright Office. It only costs $35 to file a copyright for an ebook and the process happens very quickly, although there are a number of forms to fill out. And I suspect the application process would work during a government shutdown.

How to publish your ebook

I’d been busy writing My Particular Friend, a book that combines Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes, when my friend Lee asked why I didn’t publish my first novel, Good Cop, Dead Cop, on the Kindle.

It was a sore subject because I’d put a lot of hard work into GCDC, only to fail to find an agent or publisher. The whole experience was so painful I locked it all away and devoted my time to other pursuits. But when Lee asked her question, I thought, sure, why not sell the book through Amazon? And while I’m at it, I could sell it through Barnes & Noble and even Apple’s iBookstore. How hard could it be?

Good Cop, Dead Cop available at Lulu

Good Cop, Dead Cop is now available at Lulu for $4.99.

Good Cop, Dead Cop available at Barnes & Noble

Good Cop, Dead Cop is now available at Barnes & Noble for the Nook reader for $4.99.

Good Cop, Dead Cop available at Amazon

Good Cop, Dead Cop is now available at Amazon for the Kindle reader for $4.99.