Writing your own eBook is an effective and an essential tool for establishing credibility. The truth of the matter is whether you are a speaker, writer, teacher, trainer, coach, professor, internet marketer, or whatever your title is...your choices are: "publish" or "perish".
Traditional publishing has changed drastically over the years. Here are the facts:
Traditional publishers are looking for authors who have "already-made platforms", a list, an audience to purchase their books and products; Traditional publishers want evidence of sales and promotion/marketing ability; Traditional publishers take on very few new authors and are only offering large advances to established authors that have demonstrated sales; The old days of writing a manuscript, querying agents and publishers, then waiting for a response and receiving lots of rejection slips are over! The new way of getting a publisher to notice you is to build a large platform online and then they will pay attention to you. Publishing an eBook is very low-cost because there are no printing expenses and the profits are all yours! Online eBook sales are exceeding hardbook cover sales!So now that we agree, to be successful and to gain worldwide exposure, you MUST publish on Amazon's Kindle (which, by the way is "FREE"), then here are the 12 simple steps to get started:
Set up a free account at Amazon. To get to the right link, simple go to Google and type in" KDP Amazon and then click on the appropriate link (usually the first one that comes up); Login to your account; Go to: Bookshelf and then click on "add new title". From here, Amazon, walks you through the process by asking you to complete certain fields, however, I am going to review the fields because there are a few pointers I want to give you. Book Name and Description should have strategically placed "keywords" in them so that people searching for your topic can find your eBook. So make sure you do your keyword research prior to publishing your eBook on Amazon's Kindle. I suggest using Google's free "keyword tool" to analyze appropriate keywords and use them naturally in your title and description. Book contributor; obviously if you are the author, then you list yourself, if you have a co-author then you list that person as well. You do not need a publication date and I don't recommend putting one in nor do you need an ISBN number to publish. If you are self-publishing this, then under publisher, you can use your own name or what I recommend is putting your website address in this field to help drive traffic to your site; Categories; this is very important that you select the right categories for your eBook. Make sure you do your keyword research and that you aren't in a highly competitive category. There are a lot of sub-categories and you should find the right one for your eBook. Upload your cover; I have a graphics designer do all of my covers and she formats them to the right size, but you can create your own or not put anything at all and Amazon will put a placeholder in the image field if you don't have one; Enable or disable DRM is a field you have to complete; DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and has to do with people sharing your eBook with others; click on the "what's this" link for more information on this. I always "enable" the DRM for me and my clients; There are fields you have to complete like verifying your publishing rights, etc. Those are self-explanatory so I am not going over those. Royalties. I recommend choosing 70% vs. 35% for obvious reasons. Kindle Select is a new program that has to do with Amazon's Premiere membership program. Click on the link to read more about it. I do recommend going with the Kindle Select program if your eBook is exclusive to Amazon.There you have the 12 steps to getting your eBook published on Amazon, however, I would be doing you a dis-service if I didn't review formatting as this is a critical piece on how your eBook will look to readers. I create my manuscript in Microsoft's Word, however, here are some of the detailed instructions that can be found on Amazon's site:
File Format: Save your content in DOC (or.doc) format, not RTF (.rtf) or DOCX (.docx) as the latter do not translate well to Kindle. Save your work periodically as you make changes to ensure all changes are recorded.
Layout: Use indentations, bold characters, italics and headings, as they will translate into your Kindle book. However, bullet points, special fonts, headers, and footers will not be transferred, so be sure to avoid those.
Page Breaks: Enter a page break at the end of every chapter to prevent the text from running together. To insert a page break in MS Word, click "Insert" at the top menu bar and select "Page Break."
Image Placement: Images should be inserted in JPEG (or.jpeg) format with center alignment (don't copy and paste from another source). Select "Insert" > "Picture" > then locate and select the file. If your book has a lot of images, it can be viewed in color by readers using our free Kindle apps for PC, MAC, iPad, iPhone, and Android. Otherwise, remember that images on Kindle are displayed in 16 shades of gray for great contrast and clarity.
Spellcheck and Grammar: This tool is always your friend to ensure a professional presentation free of typos. Use this tool, but also manually proofread your file to ensure no errors are missed by the automated checker.
Creating Front Matter: Front matter is the beginning pages of a book, which may include a Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication, Preface, and Prologue. For a stylish and professional presentation, you should add a Title Page at a minimum.
You can find more instructions on the Amazon/Kindle website as you go through this process.
I encourage you to get your eBook published now and start generating new leads and income for your online business!
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