1st August 2010 is significant to me!!! My book got shipped on 30th July 2010 by Smashwords and I have been tabbing on iPad to see if it shows up on the catalog since – and today I found it!!! Check this!!! Type “Jewelry” and you will see me!!! (Click to enlarge the image)
Nothing is cooler than this! Internet publishing has now become THE next thing you going to do, because:
I sincerely thinks that iPAD is changing people’s lifestyle these days – the reading habit is making a come back after a whole good decade. You have no idea how I’ve missed seeing people “read” in train or train station. They have got their earplugs on too long, it’s time to go back to reading. Steve Job had moved the world, IMHO.
Though Amazon just released the 2nd generation of Kindle Reading device
- smaller, lighter, prettier, and CHEAPER. Just that it is black and white. I am not sure how my eBook would look on Kindler though. Mine has lots of colorful pictures!So when my husband got his iPad – the first thing go on to my to-do list was to convert my eBooks into ePUB format. I know I might not have the luxury of converting them all but I would really like to find out how complicated it can get. To be honest since this thing was completely new to me, I have have gone through whole lot of hassle making things work – first trying to convert my book directly from PDF to ePUB format – please, don’t do that, it’s horrible. Then, I tried converting .doc format to ePUB – simply painful. None of them worked, the direct conversion pretty much ruined my eBooks, so I stopped converting and go back to “studying”. And since I am getting a new computer, I figured I might as well get a Mac, and will it be too crazy for you to know that I even bought a MacBook Pro partly for this? Not to mention the cost of using Adobe InDesign and the time I used to learn how to operate it – oh by the way, InDesign produces best ePUB though! You just have to keep trying. Er wait, I made this sound too difficult didn’t I? That’s because I am trying to convert a eBook with loads of PICTURES into ePub!!! It is DIFFERENT from converting plain text document!!! The latter is much much much much much simpler!!!!
Anyway – back to getting my book on iBookstore. There are some pre-requisites you have to fulfill before you can put your book on there, you need to have United States’ tax ID (A-r-r-o-g-a-n-t, tsk tsk tsk.), then, you need an ISBN for your book. Then, convert your book into Microsoft Office Word 2007 format, lastly, upload it to Smashwords. I made a mistake not reading Smashwords’ instruction carefully – they only take .doc, so there is no point for me to learn to convert my book into ePub format, but I am glad I took the hard route, simply because, like I said, InDesign produces best ePUB, and I have got that skill now. The converter on Smashwords is decent, but there are limitations. So today if you are purchasing my books through Smashwords or iBookstore, the ePUB format is decent, readable, with just a slight limitations, whereas if you get it off my official site (I will be adding ePUB format as and when I got them converted), you will be having the version that’s converted using InDesign. They all shares the same content so you are not missing out.
To publish a book to iBookStore, here some tips to help you start – First, all our cover pictures are in landscape layout – you need to make a portrait layout of it, and make sure it look professional and cool - Check the screenshot I took right after downloading the book sample, not too bad huh? I like that clean and steady look very much, and for your information, I have spent 2 weeks gathering feedbacks from people just for the cover design – ranges from IT professional to finance analysts and company CIO, COO, it does look professional doesn’t it? Take care of your cover otherwise it won’t even catch anyone’s eyes, so if you plan to do what I just di - make sure you do the same thing I did – your book can wait, taking 2 weeks to wait for feedback is all worthwhile! Here we go tour around iBookStore, after you found my book on the catalog, touch on the icon and following pop up shown – introducing you my book:
Then, you can totally buy the book right away, or, download the book sample for FREE. Say, let’s touch (I almost said “click”) on the GET SAMPLE button, next thing you know is – my book shows up beautifully on your bookshelves!
Note to take: Apple decides percentage of your book for sampling – the only way to control it is to play around with the number of pages of your whole book, the more pages you have got the more pages will be made into sampling version, I personally think it’s a damn cool idea)I provide following services if you are interested to get your book onto Apple market.
Last but not least – if you would allow me, I am offering following services if you are interested:
Service ONE: Create a professional looking book cover (similar to mine) for your eBook.
- You will be the owner of the created cover’s copyright. All you need to do is send me your original copy of cover image.
- Price: $15 (3 revisions) per cover.
Service TWO: Convert your existing published eBook into an acceptable format by Smashwords convertor.
- Smashword convertor will then convert it into ePUB format for you when you publish your book(s) through them. Please don’t do this if you don’t trust me with your tutorial content. I will provide you instructions on how and where to upload your tutorial(s) in Microsoft Word format together with your images.
- Price: US$5 consultation fee, and then US$20 per hour for actual book conversion task.
- The consultation fee is not refundable – at this stage you send in your existing eBook ONLY, and I will quote you exactly how many hours I will take to convert your book, so that you know what you are getting yourself into.
- If you agreed with the my proposal then I will create a listing for you to check out (with $5 rebate that you have paid for consultation), and then I will send you the instructions on how we should start.
- You own 100% copyright on the book that I have converted (of course), all materials will be sent back to you, and you have my word for destroying whatever raw materials you have sent me. If in the future your book got stolen – it is not me, and if you don’t think you can trust me on that, don’t engage my service.
- BONUS: Your cover get created for FREE.
Service THREE: Convert your existing published eBook into ePUB format
- The ePUB format will be ready for you to distribute right away. Again, Please don’t do this if you don’t trust me with your tutorial content. I will provide you instructions on how and where to upload your tutorial(s) in Microsoft Word format together with your images.
- Price: $5 consultation fee, and then $25 per hour for actual book conversion task.
- The consultation fee is not refundable – at this stage you send in your existing eBook ONLY, and I will quote you exactly how many hours I will take to convert your book, so that you know what you are getting yourself into.
- If you agreed with the my proposal then I will create a listing for you to check out (with $5 rebate that you have paid for consultation), and then I will send you the instructions on how we should start.
- You own 100% copyright on the book that I have converted (of course), all materials will be sent back to you, and you have my word for destroying whatever raw materials you have sent me. If in the future your book got stolen – it is not me, and if you don’t think you can trust me on that, don’t engage my service.
- BONUS: Your cover get created for FREE.
- BONUS TWO: There is no bonus #2. Creating a format that Smashwords will take and creating ePUB format is two entirely different thing, both require equivalent time and effort respectively. Soweee!
So, I will see ya all on iBookStore soon! :D
Now - Do good stuff, add value to your customers!
Category: Wired Chinese Knot
Corra @ de Cor's Handmades
1 comment :
woah~ This is super cool!
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