How This Book Was Made & How You Can Make Your Own

By Maria B. O'Hare

Testimonials

“This book by Maria O’Hare – encourages people to be more creative and to take more control over their own creative work after it has been produced. As a step by step guide it gives the writer the ability to become more confident about their choice, as to the presentation of their endeavours”

“This is a book about what to do with your own book, when it has been written. It is a very helpful guide-line to those who have knowledge of the internet, word documents ... and in particular it gives information to those seeking a way to put their book on the world market”

“It strikes me that this is the work of a conceptual artist. This means, that the author is capable of the initial concept for her written work and then the vision to complete the manuscript in a new modern way – the difference between the old way of publishing and the new way of doing so has an extraordinary gap – that gap in particular is time. What used to take months to hear from a publisher is now no longer necessary, as within hours or less this conceptual artist has shared her ability so that others may save time. .. Now with this book “How this Book was made” the writer without a controlling publisher can reach the entire world at the press of a button. This is what Maria O’Hare as conceptual artist is offering – not just to writers, but to those who have to research these elements in order to keep updating them and making improvements wherever possible from a technical point of view”.

“I feel there is a gap in the market and this is the type of book that fills that gap. Anyone just ready to approach a publisher would now very seriously consider the alternative as this ...could change the course of people’s publishing choice”

 

 ABOUT THIS BOOK

This E-Book is a book within abook as it shows you how it was made as it goes along: from  cover to virtual cover. By using the methods laid out in simple, easy to follow steps, it will teach how to easily design, format and upload your e-book/s to sell globally too. In the end, you will  achieve full independence as a publisher of your own e-books. No expensive specialist tools are required; only basic computer word-processing skills (MS Office with Word and PowerPoint graphic software or its equivelent free Open Source: Open Office) to follow along & a willingness to be adventurous.

Then you will be ready to PUBLISH after you read this e-book on how this e-book was made of course... It is about the same price of a Cappucinno Grande - but a lot less FROTHY. So why not treat yourself and have both?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dig-Press
• Release date: Sep 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536538472

Book preview

HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE

SECTION ONE: HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE INSIDE

STEP ONE: Get Prepared for the Nuclear Option

STEP TWO: formatting a blank document

STEP THREE: Make a backup copy of your MSS. & Nuke the copy but only if you need to:

STEP FOUR: Formatting Different Sections within the main body of text for an e-book

STEP FIVE: Modifying Headings

STEP SIX: Controlling & Viewing how your sections and Headings appear on any e-reading Device/App

STEP SEVEN: Creating a Table of Contents Automatically or Manually Creating a TOC list

STEP EIGHT: Creating Book Marks within the document & Hyper-linking these to the Table of Contents

STEP NINE: EXTERNAL HYPERLINKS

STEP TEN: Inserting/embedding quality images in your e-book

SECTION TWO: HOW THIS VIRTUAL BOOK’S COVER WAS MADE

IDEAS FOR CONCEPTUALISING YOUR BOOK COVER & SOURCING IMAGES

QUALITY OF IMAGE/S & RESOLVING RESOLUTION ISSUES

RESOLUTION DPI = DOTS OR PIXELS PER INCH AND WHAT THIS MEANS IN REALITY.

CONVERTING A LOW RESOLUTION IMAGE INTO A HIGHER ONE IN STAGES

INCREASING THE SIZE AND QUALITY VIA SCREENSHOTS, RESIZING & EDITING (THE 4 ‘PS’)

SETTING UP A COVER IMAGE IN POWERPOINT

CREATING A BLANK CANVAS

THINKING & CREATING IN LAYERS FOR THE E-BOOK COVER

FORMATTING LAYER ONE

LAYER TWO – THE CREATION OF THE I-POD/I-PHONE TYPE BOOK COVER FRAME used in this book’s cover.

LAYER THREE – CREATING THE SMART PHONE SCREEN FOR THIS COVER

LAYER FOUR – INSERTING AND FORMATTING YOUR MAIN IMAGE/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPH

LAYER FIVE – INSERTING TEXT BOXES AND FORMATTING TEXT, USING SPECIAL EFFECTS AND WORD-ART (how this e-book’s cover text was created).

SAVE YOUR BOOK COVER SLIDE AS A SINGLE IMAGE FILE

SECTION THREE: HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE AVAILABLE TO THE WORLD

UPLOADING YOUR FINISHED E-BOOK TO SMASHWORDS

E-BOOK TAX/VAT & ROYALTIES - SMASHWORDS

E-BOOK ISBNS SMASHWORDS

ABOUT THE BOOK & YOU IN GENERAL – No Matter where you Distribute your Book

UPLOADING YOUR FINISHED E-BOOK TO AMAZON KDP

TAX/VAT/ROYALTIES KDP

What Next?

About the Author

Other Publications by DiG-Press

Forthcoming books

POSTSCRIPT

HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE

And How You Can Make Your Own

(1st EDITION)

By

Maria B. O’Hare

DiG-Press

2016

1st DiGital Edition

Copyright © 2016 All rights reserved

[e-mail]

Below are a few excerpts about this book and are taken from a compilation of five writer’s comments who meet regularly to brainstorm and discuss each other’s work. The testimonials are given by writers ranging from well-established traditionally published authors to more novice writers who have not yet ventured into the world of getting their writing published.

Testimonials

"This book by Maria O’Hare – encourages people to be more creative and to take more control over their own creative work after it has been produced. As a step by step guide it gives the writer the ability to become more confident about their choice, as to the presentation of their endeavours"

"This is a book about what to do with your own book, when it has been written. It is a very helpful guide-line to those who have knowledge of the internet, word documents ... and in particular it gives information to those seeking a way to put their book on the world market"

"It strikes me that this is the work of a conceptual artist. This means, that the author is capable of the initial concept for her written work and then the vision to complete the manuscript in a new modern way – the difference between the old way of publishing and the new way of doing so has an extraordinary gap – that gap in particular is time.

What used to take months to hear from a publisher is now no longer necessary, as within hours or less this conceptual artist has shared her ability so that others may save time. .. Now with this book How this Book was made the writer without a controlling publisher can reach the entire world at the press of a button. This is what Maria O’Hare as conceptual artist is offering – not just to writers, but to those who have to research these elements in order to keep updating them and making improvements wherever possible from a technical point of view".

"I feel there is a gap in the market and this is the type of book that fills that gap. Anyone just ready to approach a publisher would now very seriously consider the alternative as this ...could change the course of people’s publishing choice"

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This is a book within a book, where the book itself explains as it goes along, how it was created so that you can easily create your own. This book uses the basic tools of word-processing that most writers/researchers are usually quite familiar with: MS OFFICE and their various software programs such as Word and PowerPoint or its free Open Source equivalent: OPEN OFFICE. These tools will allow you to create your e-book interior (inside) and its cover (outside) so that you can upload your own e-books to sell world-wide with distribution to online stores such as: Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Barnes & Noble – Nook and many more outlets.

The author of this book has simply presented in one place a synthesis of everything she has learned about successful e-book publishing by becoming (inadvertently) her own publisher and ending up with an Imprint: DiG-Press which publishes in physical book format also. She does it all - well almost everything: she doesn’t do the editing, herself, and she loves the fact that it can be done with very little technical skill, using the tools already in her writer’s toolkit and ‘virtually’ for free.

For the purposes of using this book directly as a teaching aid, this book was created (inside and out using MS Office – Word & PowerPoint) and test-driven (published) on four of the most established and well-known e-book publishing platforms that distribute world-wide: Amazon (Kindle – KDP); Smashwords; Lulu and Draft2Digital. Each has been selected as they are free to use; the fact that they offer very good services to authors/self-publishers and, they also provide the greatest reach for your readers to find your books. These platforms however, all have very specific requirements for uploading a successful e-book. Therefore, this present book aims to guide you in the specifics of each as well as demonstrating each step of the way: HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE.

This book will suit writers/researchers/individuals or groups (but possibly not anyone who understands HTML code or any avid Scrivener fans – the popular alternative that many authors/self-publishers swear by - if you can figure it out and don’t mind paying a bit) wanting to publish their words, message, stories. It may even be useful to fairly advanced and well-established self-publishers who are currently limited to a single or just two platforms, where this book may help them to explore other options and possibilities.

All in all, this book should be suitable for anyone wanting their words published in e-book form (there is a physical book also which is detailed at the end). From established authors wanting to dabble in the immediacy and creative freedom of e-book creation, to community projects/charities needing to raise money and awareness for some noble cause, this book might just meet your need? This book may even create a desire that didn’t exist before to publish your writing when you find out just how doable it is.

One more thing, there is a free PDF printable version – a compliment to this e-book and is available on request by citing the key word given at the end of this book. – This printable PDF book will make it easier to work from and apply the various methods, guides and steps given within this E-Book; a virtual book within a virtual book, which shows you in real-time how it was made as it goes along.

...Now Let’s Get Ready to...

....after you read this book of course....

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SECTION ONE: HOW THIS BOOK WAS MADE INSIDE

‘W’= ‘WORD’-TYPE-DOC WAY

Slide10

STEP ONE: Get Prepared for the Nuclear Option

Basically, the surest way to create a successful e-book formatted in a word document is to get rid of any previous formatting within your manuscript, but keep the essential part: your words intact. This section will show you how and tell you why this is very important. So don’t do anything just yet, until you have read this part and see the other options.

Some call it the NUCLEAR method meaning to NUKE everything back to the text itself. This term and its meaning come from the style guide on Smashwords (one of the major global platforms for self-publishing e-books beyond Amazon KDP – Kindle Direct Publishing). It is well worth doing if you want to be certain that your uploadable file (for conversion to an e-book) is clean and free of nasty gremlins lurking behind MS Word’s software program – hidden junk that e-books simply do not like. Using this method means your MSS (manuscript) will have simple basic text – THE MANUSCRIPT striped down to its bare bones.

Therefore, instead of spending loads of time making your manuscript look beautiful in ‘Word’ or its equivalent, or if it already looks beautiful, please be aware that your digital book will not reflect all your efforts, unless you follow the steps below. This is because, a physical book or physical manuscript, being a fixed format where things are fixed on the page do not translate directly to the flowable text style found within most e-books (as used in this present book you are now reading).

It doesn’t matter whether you are reading it on a small i-phone screen or on a large computer monitor the text should flow and align and resize itself according to the e-reading device/app you are using. This is one of the main reasons why it is important to make a copy of your MSS (Manuscript)  - which is outlined below, so that you can do something quite different