How to make an eBook

sethgodin

Gold Star

Created by sethgodin

Seth Godin is the bestselling author of ten books. He writes about marketing, the spread of ideas and managing... (more...)

Check out my other Squidoo pages

Your fans are waiting!

How to make an eBook in just a few steps

I've had a lot of success with eBook publishing and I get asked a lot about the mechanics. Here's my version--your mileage may vary!

It's just a few steps

And they're all free

Write something worth reading!
Put it into Word or a similar word processor.
Change your page layout to wide.
Even better, change your page size to eight inches wide and six inches high.
Use a legible font for the body copy. Times is fine, but boring. Don't use something fancy.
Use a headline font with bravado!
Now, if you have a Mac, just choose, "print to PDF".
If you don't have a Mac, go buy one and repeat the previous step, or, if you must, figure out how to do that step with a PC or a Commodore 64 or whatever it is you're using. [Easy tip: visit http://www.openoffice.org/ it's free and has print to PDF built in].
Your eBook is now basic, but done.
If you open it in Adobe Acrobat (not the Reader, but the for sale version) you can add hyperlinks. Recommended.

Copyright and distribution

Now that you've got a PDF, what to do with it? First question is: copyright. If you live in the US or the EU and you do nothing, then your work is automatically covered by copyright. You can cover your bases by clearly stating this and by indicating your website so people can find you.

I recommend you consider a creative commons license, because it makes it more likely your idea will spread. Why? Because you leave no doubt about your intent and because no one needs to ask. They can just email it or post it.

See below for the link to the Creative Commons site where you can choose the license that works for you.

How to distribute? If you have a blog, post it. If you know people with a blog, ask them to post it. Make it clear in the eBook itself that you want people to post or email (which is a good reason to make sure that the size of the PDF is less than 2 megs... otherwise, it's hard to mail.)

I didn't go over the point of the exercise yet, but I think it's obvious: if your ideas spread, you win. So, if you write something that people want to spread, if you make it easy to spread, and if you benefit from the spreading, then you've won.

Useful links

Choose a creative commons license: You choose the parameters, it finds the license.
Some of my ebooks: There are three or four here.
The ideavirus book: This was my first and most successful eBook. I wish the formatting was cooler.
Change This... the gold standard: I'm proud I helped start this site.

Share your knowledge. Make a difference.

How to make an eBook

Rate this Lens

Created by sethgodin

How to make an eBook in just a few steps

Explore related pages

It's just a few steps

And they're all free

Copyright and distribution

Useful links

I'm looking for great examples

If you know of one, put the link here.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

#18

#19

#20

#21

#22

#23

#24

#25

#26

#27

#28

#29

#30

#31

#32

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Related Topics

Bookmark and Share

Favorited By

Hi, I'm sethgodin

More pages by me...

Gold Star

sethgodin is a Giant Squid!

A fast, free, and fun way to stand up for what you believe in.

About Squidoo

Get Help

Cool Stuff

Loading Workshop

Report this Lens

Login

Join Squidoo for free!

^#1

^#2

^#3

^#4

^#5

^#6

^#7

^#8

^#9

^#10

^#11

^#12

^#13

^#14

^#15

^#16

^#17

^#18

^#19

^#20

^#21

^#22

^#23

^#24

^#25

^#26

^#27

^#28

^#29

^#30

^#31

^#32