Phyllis Moorman's Blog, page 2

Amazon Textbook Creator

Thrilled isn’t the half of it!

Having created a book full of tables, charts, graphs, and step-by-step lists, I was concerned it could never be an e-book at a reasonable price.  I was greatly surprised how easy it was to create an e-book format that maintained all my formatting and displayed all the visuals I had designed.

When I discovered Amazon® Textbook Creator, I knew I had found the answer.  Amazon Textbook Creator is a small program downloaded to your computer, and as with most of Amazon’s publishing tools, is free.  It converts a PDF file to a readable e-book format for Kindle fire tablets and for their app’s on most other tablets and phones.  This program made creating my book quick and efficient.

As a first step, I saved my file as an Adobe® PDF in Microsoft® Word, which maintained my headings as a separate Table of Contents.  I then opened the file in Adobe PDF, inserted my cover page, and resaved the file.  The final steps were so easy:

I opened the PDF in Amazon’s Textbook Creator,
saved it in their format,
then “packaged” it for uploading.  Packaging is their term for saving it in the readable Kindle file format.

An upload to my Kindle account, and voilà …the e-book was done and ready.

I would see two limitations to this type of e-book.

The viewer (reader)  is not able to resize the font.  Since I wanted my content to remain intact, I did not consider this an issue.
The second limitation is the clickable Table of Contents does not seem to be extensive on devices other than the Kindle fire tablets.  Again, not a deal stopper for me.  I left my Microsoft Word Table of Contents in the document so all headings are available in one place and easy to get to from there.

If you’d like to see what it looks like, check out the preview at Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Sharing-Secrets-Phyllis-Moorman-ebook/dp/B01H42FOG6/

Wishing you success.

♥pm

P.S.  Join my e-mail list on the home page and learn even more about self-publishing.

It’s Ready!

The book, Self-Publishing: Sharing the Secrets, is now available from Amazon.com, both as an e-book and a print book.  It is fully indexed, complete with a glossary and checklists you can copy to use when you are submitting your book for copyright, ISBN, publishing, or marketing.

Print:  https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Sharing-Secrets-Phyllis-Moorman/dp/0996399054/

E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Sharing-Secrets-Phyllis-Moorman-ebook/dp/B01H42FOG6/

To give you an idea what you can get from this book, here’s a copy of the Table of Contents.

Self-Publishing Sharing the Secrets

Table of Contents

Introduction

Is Self-Publishing for You?

Benefits
Challenges
Hybrid Publishing

Choosing Your Format: Print or E-Book

Potential Buyer
Royalties
General Costs of Self-Publishing
Time Required
What Else Do I Need to Know?

Putting the Pieces Together

Fine-tuning Your Content
Front Matter
Body of the Book
Back Matter
E-Book

Titling Your Book

What Makes a Good Title?

Choosing a Printer

Printer Choices
Quality
Process
Printer Costs
Royalties: How Distribution Channels Relate to Your Profit
Pricing Your Print Book
Time Required
What Else Do I Need to Know?
Printer Choices Compared

Choosing Your Inside Look

Similar Books
Quality of Paper
Design and Style
Character Styles: Fonts
White Space
E-Book Design

Basic Formatting Techniques

Templates
Page Setup
Paragraph and Line Breaks
Section Breaks
Table of Contents
Styles

Formatting Tricks of the Pros

Using Symbols
Controlling Lines of Text
Specialty Formatting
Tightening Up the Codes
Quotation Marks
E-book Formatting
What Else Should I Know?

Choosing a Cover Creator

Hybrid Designs
Graphic Designers
Be Your Own Designer

Creating Your Cover From Scratch

Using Color Psychology
Using Artistic Design
Design Tips
Content on the Back Cover
Designing Within the Cover Template
Saving Your Cover File
What Else Do I Need to Know?
E-Book Covers

Proofing

Software and Online Proofing
The Human Touch
Proofreading for Details

  Choosing an E-Book Format

E-Book Formats
How Do You Create an E-Book?
E-Book Costs
Distribution Channels and Royalties for E-Books
Pricing Your E-Book
What Else Do I Need to Know?
E-Book Choices Compared

Copyright

What is a Registered Copyright?
How Do I Apply?
Copyright Cost
Time Required
Do I Need to Wait to Publish?
Who Can Access Copyrights?
What Else Do I Need to Know?

ISBNs

What Is an ISBN?
Do I Really Need an ISBN?
Are There Restrictions?
Where Can I Purchase ISBNs?
ISBN Cost
How Does My ISBN Arrive?
Assigning/Registering Your ISBN
What Do I Do with an ISBN?
Time Required
What Else Do I Need to Know?

Barcodes

Do I Really Need a Barcode?
Barcode Cost
Are There Any Restrictions?
Where Do I Place the Barcode?
What Else Do I Need to Know?

Submitting Your Book

Account Setups
Submitting to CreateSpace
Submitting to IngramSpark
Submitting to KDP
Promotions and Marketing
Sharing the Secrets
What Else Do I Need to Know?

To Tell The Truth

Sales Potential
Estimated Costs of Self-Publishing
Minimum Time Required for Self-Publishing

Appendix A Checklists

Proofreading List
Checklist for Copyright
Checklist for ISBN Information
Checklist for Book Submissions: KDP E-Book
Checklist for Book Submissions: CreateSpace
Checklist for Book Submissions: IngramSpark
Checklist for Sell Sheets

Appendix B HTML Tags Supported for Amazon Book Descriptions

Appendix C Guidelines for Writing  Online Book Reviews

Why Write Online Book Reviews?
How to Write an Online Book Review: General Guidelines
How to Write an Online Book Review: Fiction
How to Write an Online Book Review: Non-Fiction
How to Write an Online Book Review: Poetry

Endnotes

Glossary

Resources

Acknowledgements

Index

Author Bio

♥pm

P.S.  Join my e-mail list on the home page and learn even more about self-publishing.

Book Coming Soon!

due to be released first part of June.

It’s always a little nerve-racking to know you can push a button, and several hundreds miles away you have set a motion into play. It seems even more white-knuckly when it’s the book you have cradled for the last few months: feeding it bits of information every day, massaging it until it feels right, and tucking it in at night (I’ll try to forget about the nights I lost sleep over it! lol).

It’s been dressed in the finest cover, and I anxiously await the proof next week. I’m looking forward to offering the 224-page compilation of over 20 years of experience in one, nicely bound book. Facts and resources are current as of May 2016. Tips are dispersed throughout the book, and I will be sharing some of them on this blog and in my newsletters. To sign up for the newsletter, please visit the Home page.

Today’s tip is something I will be doing soon.

♦ Timely Tip ♦

When you are finished with your proof copy, if it only has minor errors in it, mark it as a proof copy and offer it as a review copy. Reviews are so important today that the quicker we can get people to review our books, the better for informing readers of the quality of your book. This could place a book in the hands of a reviewer sooner by at least a week. ♦

♥pm

 

The Secrets I Wish I Knew Then

Welcome to Self-Publishing Secrets.

Over the last 20 years, I have helped create textbooks, novels, poetry books, and artistic books. The learning curve was gradual in the beginning.  Then things changed, and it was often difficult to get enough information about how to use the new ways to self-publish.  As technology evolved, it brought a rush of even newer and better options. Now, there is way too much information in way too many places.  Sorting out just what is needed to self-publish and who the best companies are was a much steeper learning curve.

As I began using the new self-publishing companies, I jotted down things on slips of paper, stuck some things in notebooks, and started adding sticky notes–and they were everywhere!  As I was looking at the information one day, I started thinking about what else was in my head. It was overwhelming! I decided I better write it all down in a more organized fashion.

There was so much once I saw it all together: facts, tips, resources. My head was spinning as I realized it looked like a book!  I thought, “Why not make all these tips and resources available for others.” All the secrets I wish I had known sooner are now available as a book, Self-Publishing: Sharing the Secrets, to be released in May 2016.

Sign up for our email list to learn when and where you can get your copy of the book.   Then follow along with this blog as I post tips and track changes in the industry that may affect you.