Unlocking the Secrets: A 5-Step Guide to Writing and Publishing Your First eBook

5 Steps to Create Your Own eBook

Posted by Ada Wang on 12/3/2018 5:03:23 PM.

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If you come here for this article, you may be interested in creating your own ebook for a while or for a long time. Maybe you have the idea to make your own ebooks but don’t know how to start it or don’t have enough courage yet. Then you can get something (little or much) helpful from this article. Or you have already created an ebook before and you got your own steps to create your ebook. That’s OK. You can just read this article as it is and perhaps you can find something you didn’t notice before or something you need now.

Step 1. Get Prepared

1. Come up with an idea/topic.

eBooks is the same as any other types of books except their medium of publication. So the first step to create your own ebook is to decide and develop an good idea. Select a topic, one that you are passionate and knowledgeable about may be good. Only in this way you will have enough contents to write about and have a better chance to write it well. Think about the experiences in your life where you learned something and how you can share them with others. Find your own special points. Try to make your work creative. Think about your talents and skills and what you can teach others. How-to eBooks are very popular now. For example, a teacher may want to write an eBook named “How To Help the Kids Learn Things Quickly.” Of course other types of ebooks are also nice. It depends on yourself to select a topic. If you like writing things and now want to create an ebook just for keeping it for yourself instead of getting published, of course you can choose whatever topics you like.

People who aim at creating a fiction or novel will need to spend much more time coming up with more clever ideas and plot points.

2. Make an outline.

Start with the topic you wrote down to think about the different aspects or different degrees or others of it. A lot of information about the core topic needs to be written down. Then draw an outline to help make your clue more clear and easier for you to write the ebook later.

Step 2. Write Your eBook

Writing a book even a short book takes time. The most important thing is to persevere. Don’t give up easily if you get stuck in the way of writing. For writing, you could write with Microsoft Word (most people are familiar with) or other word processing softwares. When you’re sitting there typing the words on your keyboard, just focus on writing the actual text. Type what in your mind out word by word. Don’t worry about the font, margin or any other stylistic element of the book yet. Why You need to focus on writing the book instead of being disturbed by those things now and then. If you have to do some formatting job at this time, just keep it as simple as possible. You may like the feeling of writing straight through. Use whatever writing techniques you need to complete your book well.

As for formatting of your ebook, you can just use Microsoft Word or Open Office. InDesign is also OK. (Of course you can choose some paid softwares to do it if you have enough money to invest and want to earn money by this book later). At this stage the thing required is supporting styles. The tool should support styles. Simply copy and paste your original document into a new document. Once you’ve finished the whole text editing work in the word processing software, you can begin to add styles. A novel is usually more complex in terms of formatting and structures. Don’t pay too much attention to the colors, font-sizes, margins and typefaces. And you can add some photos to your ebook properly. It’s best to use your own photos and pictures if possible.

#Helpful tips for you:

If you want to directly create ibooks, you can choose iBooks Author to do the job. See how to make an ebook with iBooks Author.

If you want to directly create kindle books, you can take this article as a reference. How to create your own kindle ebook step by step.

Step 3. Review and Revise

When your book is finished, leave it alone for a couple of days or so, and then come back to it with a critical eye. Like writing, revising also takes time. You can make a plan to review and revise a certain number of words or chapters each day. Check the order of the chapters and sections in the book first. Sometimes you’ll find that some pieces seem to make more sense in a different spot than where you’ve originally placed them. After you revise it and are satisfied with the order and structure of the whole book, read the chapters and sections one by one to edit and revise. You can add some details in certain sections if it’s needed. Beautify your words and language properly.

After you finish the revising job yourself, you can ask your friends, families and co-workers to proofread your eBook. Ask for honest input and accept their practical suggestions that can help to improve your book. Correct any mistake and make some improvement.

Step 4. Add a Proper Cover

Like physical books, a very improtant part for an eBook is its cover. Even though it’s not a paper cover which you can touch. It’s what potential readers and buyers notice first. A good book cover will draw the readers’s attention more easily. And a nice book cover will make readers feel delight and comfortable. You can consider to spring for a professionally-designed cover, or do it alone by yourself if you think you can make something that looks good and will attract others. And be sure to get permission before you want to use any copyrighted images. Herekillercovers and 99designs are recommended to you if you want to find a website to search for a professional cover. Of course there are many methods in which you can get a good cover. So you can make your own choice.

Step 5. Converting the Manuscript to eBook Formats

Here I recommend Calibre to you. It allows you to convert a number of different text formats to a number of different ebook formats. For example ou can use it to convert the word manuscript to ebook formats like epub, pdf, mobi, azw3 and so on. It’s very easy and convenient. Click the “Add” icon to add your ebook to it, and click the “Convert” icon to choose the output format you want to have the conversion done. When your ebook is completed, just preview it on an e-reader, tablet, smart phone or simply e-reading software. If you’re aiming for Amazon, the Kindle Previewer is a cool tool. Then for the EPUB files, a wonderful tool for previewing them is Sigil . And it can help you fix things and solve certain troublesome problems. Finally you can get your own ebook.


Ada Wang works for Epubor and writes articles for a collection of blogs such as ebookconverter.blogspot.com.

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