How To Create And Sell Your Own
EBooks On-Line

Have a special interest you know a lot about? Ever thought of selling your information on-line? It's not as difficult as you may think! In this section, the WebGuide provides a few useful tips and software sources where you can create and sell your own, or you do the writing and have someone else package it for you. Your choice.

Pick A Subject - Any Subject?

Your information could be extremely valuable to many out there in cyberland. Ever thought of writing your own book to sell this information? I have 12 which I'll be writing and selling next year. But forget the old method - write it, shop it to agents and publishing companies, hope someone picks it up and gives me a decent deal. Or worse, spend a ton of money getting it into print and selling it door-to-door myself.

First and foremost in my life I am a writer. A good one I'm told. I've just never had the time nor taken the time to get serious about it - until now! The Internet has opened up incredible doorways of opportunity for people like me and I intend to use this resource to the fullest advantage. Electronic Books, or EBooks as they are called on the Net, are my solution and my opportunity to self publish my many materials at a very low cost and reach a HUGE audience. (Ummm, of course that's also because I know how to market too. Don't forget that part of the equation, ok?)

Here's my recommendation for what it's worth, if you choose to do as I will be doing next year. Pick a subject which not only interests you a lot - but also one on which you really do know a lot. Then sell it for a little bit less than what it's really worth. Ok, don't go too far underselling - but hey, word of mouth works like wildfire on the Net. Better to have people raving about you and your work than to bomb on that big of a scale. We are all real people out here and none of us like being ripped off, ok? So, pick your subject and you're on your way...

Self Publishing

One of the highly recommended software programs available out there as an EBook compiler is E-ditor Pro. Highly recommended on several different sites. If you are deciding to write and compile your own EBook, you'll want to pop over there and pick up a copy. It's very inexpensive so not to worry on the cost. You will also find on their site some excellent tips on How To Create Your Own E-Book.

If you plan to sell your own EBook on-line, be sure to visit the E-Commerce Section of the WebGuide for information on how to accept credit cards on-line (I'd recommend the Total Solution Package since this is the least expensive and comes complete with almost all the tools you will need such as shopping cart, transaction processing, etc.)

I had a slight problem with some EBook sites, though. E-ditor Pro say their compiler produces a book format compatable with Internet Explorer. On another EBook site which offered free downloads of EBooks they indicated you would need Adobe Acrobat reader to read them (.pdaf format). Even though Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Adobe are all available for FREE on-line, I'm still checking to see if there even is an EBook compiler which will work with both Netscape and with Internet Explorer, since these are the two most popular agents on-line. Wish me luck.

Published By Others

Ok, so you know you can type up your book. Maybe you've already been writing for years. But heck, you don't want to mess around with setting up your own secure server, getting on-line credit cards and transaction processing services in place, nor worry about how you are going to lock your book so it can't be freely distributed to others after it's been purchased by one individual. Solution? Booklocker.com! Why the BookLocker.com? Check out some of the features for their services here:

• BookLocker.com will design and sell your eBook, you send them the text and they'll do the rest! You can have your eBook online and ready to sell in just a short time.
• BookLocker.com will provide you with a worldwide audience with 24 hours, 7 days a week distribution of your eBook.Their web site viewers can preview excerpts of your eBook as well as read your biography before deciding on a final purchase. Your eBook is available instantly!
• You can log into your account at anytime and check the stats of your sales.
• BookLock - can lock down whole chapters of your eBook or specific pages, can also use a Unique System ID, what this does is gets the users ID from their computer, (no two are alike), then this would be used along with a password, insuring that nobody buys your eBook and then passes along the key to others. With this you can make certain parts of your eBook readable, giving the reader a "teaser" while leaving the more important areas locked until you receive payment! There is NO EXTRA COST for this feature!
• They also have affordable packages set up for authors who already have an eBook designed but would like to have BookLocker.com distribute it for them.

Ok, so now we know BookLocker.com is like a publisher - but for online eBooks only. We all know most publishers out there can charge up to 55% or higher selling your book IRL, how much does BookLocker charge? A mere 20% of sales. Now THAT'S what I call a good deal. Heck, it would probably cover the costs of having a merchant account, secure server, your own shopping cart software, etc., etc., etc.

Set-Up costs for creating the eBook from your text varies, depending on content chosen, if you're adding pictures (adding your own logo is no extra cost though), etc. You will have to contact them for a quote.

Oh, btw, the BookLocker also reccommends the E-ditor Pro software if you're going to compile your own and submit it to them for distribution.

My one concern, as indicated above, is being able to read them in a Netscape browser. They indicated their books could be read in most any browser, but when I tried to read one of their free ones my Netscape wasn't talking to me. *G* I'm not sure if a plug-in is required or what that plug-in may be. I've written to them and shall let you know their answer in the next update of the WebGuide Journal.

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