The Money Vault

If your dream has always been to become an author then why not publish an e-book. E-books (electronic books) are the perfect vehicle in your quest to become an author. Even if you are not some, mega talented,  J.K Rowling or George Orwell there are many sites on the internet where you can legally copy and paste someone else's work into your e-book. The articles on such sites range from teenage acne to wedding speeches to mortgage advice and debt consolodation. Basically, whichever subject you choose to publish your e-book on, whether it be from knowledge on a subject, personal experience or simply using other people's ideas the list is endless.

The main subject of your e-book should ideally be something you feel passionately about, a subject in which you have some knowledge or feel passionately about will be so much easier to write about and the reader will pick up on that. After all if you write about a subject you have no interest in, how can you expect a reader to develop an interest! No one can become an author and publish an e-book, or any other type of book, for that matter without first having a passion for the subject matter.

After having decided on the subject of your e-book, you will need to come up with a suitable title. The title should preferably give an idea as to the subject of the book, or, choose a title which may not give a clue as to the subject matter but is explained in the first few lines.

Your e-book will be read from a computer screen as opposed to standard page format so it may be best to break up the text to keep the readers interest. People reading from a computer screen quickly become bored unless the script is broken into segments. Have a look at this page so far and you will see the logic behind this. Think of how many times you have visited a website and found just one long page with no breaks, my bet is that you read the first few lines and then moved on.

Pages read from a computer screen have to be pleasing to the eye and broken down into sections to keep the readers interest! A book is chosen to read during relaxation periods, an e-book is most probably chosen after the reader has been staring at a screen for at least an hour.

Start writing your e-book!  Even if your last attempt at writing was as a 15 year old at school you will probably find that after a few tries it becomes really easy. My first attempt at writing was with old fashioned pen and paper, and was basically a disaster. Since then I now have a good few chapters of a non fiction novel in the pipeline and five websites on the go.

PDF files seem to be the most popular format for e-books as they are not so prone to viruses as EXE files. More details on PDF can be found at the Adobe website.

Next step - send your e-book to an e-book site for publication and wait for the paychecks arriving.

Alternatively build your own website to promote your e-book. A website can be built with relatively little expense and with minimum effort. Offer a 'feedback / guestbook page' where readers can leave comments (be prepared for some bad comments - not everyone enjoys the same reading material!) Insert relevant keywords - if your e-book is related to fishing, insert keywords such as 'bass fishing', 'fishing rods' etc. but be sure that your e-book contains the relevant keywords throughout the text.

Once you have your website in place - promote! promote! promote! Never miss an opportunity to promote your website - print up business cards and hand them out to friends or anyone you stop to chat to, put a card or flyer on the pinboard at your local supermarket, have a laminated flyer in the back window of your car, sign online guestbooks including your website address and join forums discussing your subject - again including your e-book  website address.

Click Here for info on publishing an e-book