Design it, Make it and Package it. Get your book turned into a beautiful eBook, Paperback and Hardback.
Intro
So, you’ve written, edited and applied the rights codes to your manuscript and copyrighted it and now it’s all ready to become a shiny new product.
How to make it
The process of creating that shiny new product revolves around finding a super way to produce ebooks. From that, the formats for printed books come.
So you need to go on the hunt for apps and bits and pieces that can give you a high quality ebook file and high quality paperback and hardback files so when you load them up into Amazon pr similar, they look slick, beautiful and professional.
A lot of places that offer pretty good ebook creators tend to insist you distribute through them. Others wont let you download the pub file or pdf file or both.
There are some awesome ones that don't do either of these things but….
It will cost money.
Not a whole lot.
Look, you write books, you publish books, you have to bite off the small cost associated with making books.
Here are a few that might stack up for you.
Amazon KDP. Amazon can make your ebook and paperback for you. If, that is, you will only and ever sell your books on Amazon. They don't do hardbacks either so you will have to do that elsewhere and bring it into Amazon. Messy but true.
Otherwise....
Kitaboo is an interactive eBook creator. It is a cloud-based digital publishing platform, where you can create and publish DRM protected content. DRM ensures that your content is secure from online theft and piracy. You can either create an eBook from scratch using Kitaboo authoring platform or you can use their conversion service to convert your digital manuscript into ePUB files. It lets you add interactive features such as videos, audio, images, read aloud, etc to your eBook to make it more engaging for your readers. The content you create using this tool is device agnostic and is accessible on all major operating systems.
Flipbuilder is another interactive eBook creator. The interesting part about this software is that it gives the flipping page effect when you turn to the next page in your eBook. This flip effect comes as an interesting change when compared to normal eBooks. You can add multimedia elements to your eBook files. It allows you to convert PDFs into suitable eBook files for whichever eReader you want. The eBooks can be accessed from any system and platform. You would have to download this software on your Windows, iOS or Android system before using it.
Pressbooks is an easy to use online tool. You just need to sign up and can straight away start making your eBook. If you already have a manuscript ready, you can import the file and paste chapters in this eBook creation software. It allows you to add audio, video and image files. You can also select the look of your page from their list of display templates. After completion of the eBook, you can export it in PDF, ePUB, ePUB3, Mobi, xhtml formats. Once you have downloaded your files, you can submit them to eBook stores or use a third-party distributor to sell your newly created eBook.
iBooks Author is available for free on the Mac App Store. You can create interactive eBooks using this tool for iPad, iPhone and Mac devices. It has a lot of features which you can use to enhance your eBook, such as images, audio, videos, animations, 3D objects, mathematical expressions etc.
It helps in creating an engaging and interactive eBook. You can export your eBook in different file formats if you do not want to limit it to an Apple device. It gives you the option to export files in text, PDF, and ePUB format.
Before you create it, what else needs to go into the book?
There are some important elements. At this stage it might be a good idea to bring out the designer in you again. You will need to consider more design elements, this time inside the book.
Chapter title design. This doesn't need to go over the top. It's just nice to pull in some of the cover design elements when you introduce a new chapter.
Copyright and company information Page. This is where you will enter your company details, ISBN numbers and a brief Copyright message.
Teaser (Blurb or Short Synopsis) Page. This has been designed onto the cover in the design stage. It brings the back cover blurb back to the Reader, the thing that probably made them buy the book
Author Profile Page. Tell your readers about your journey with this story. Where the idea came from, how you felt whole yo were writing it. Any particular passions or drives you have.
Review Request Page. This is the page that say a big "Thanks" for buying the book and also says, "Come on review it on Amazon. Please."
Coming Soon Page. Have you got another one in the works? Give your readers a sneaky peak.
Sponsorship Page. If a sponsorship deal mandates you do this or even if you just feel grateful and want to do it, enter some information about your sponsor here. Tell the reader how they helped you bring this work to life.
Any other pages you feel like doing. This can be a creative process too. Have some fun.
And there are calls-to-action
It's time to optimise it for lead generation, reconversion, and promotion. A call-to-action is a link or visual object that entices the visitor to click and arrive on a landing page that will get them further engaged with your company. Calls to Action usually happen in the pages listed above so think carefully about the message or items you want to convey and link to them.
Maybe it's a video preview of the next book or an article or a podcast. Anything. If folks like what you're writing, there's no reason why they shouldn’t be interested in what you’re doing.
Final version
And now, you have a final version.
Check any settings about size and bleed and other stuff and generally look around the software and decide all the things you need to decide, and when it all looks good, save it or export it as an ePub or mobi file or both and make sure you save as a pdf. The pdf will be used to have your paperback and hardback made.
And there it is. You open up the ebook in your reader and isn’t it just as shiny as you’d dreamed?
Look. It’s your book and your design all wrapped up into one shiny little unit.
Your book.
Big up.
Boom.
You officially have a product, all ready to plug into Amazon or whoever you’re going to distribute it (Later).
