This is a guest post by Anna Hicks.

The ways of book publishing are changing dramatically, with more and more authors deciding to publish themselves in the form of an e-book. More and more people are purchasing iPads, Kindles, Nooks, and other devices on which they can read digital forms of books, and authors are catching up. Nowadays, there are actually more digital books sold than hard copies. Since authors can take in nearly all of their profits if they self-publish instead of a fraction of book profits if they go the traditional publishing route, the decision to create an e-book can be a no-brainer.



There is a difference between simply publishing an e-book and publishing it properly so it makes money. however, so it is important to optimize your e-book for the web. There are various ways to do this:

Create Multiple Formats

The first is to make your e-book available in as many potential formats as possible. The easiest format is a PDF. PDF files can be read by anyone on any type of computer, and that sort of universality makes the file type valuable.


Create an ePub File

The other common file type for an e-book is a ePub file. To publish your book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the other major e-book sellers, you'll need to submit an ePub file. Unlike creating a PDF, making an ePub file can be difficult. You need to make all headings, sub-headings, and formatting styles very standardized so they can be recognized on Nooks, Kindles, and so on. It will take a long trial-and-error process to make your e-book into an ePub file.

The easiest way to transfer your e-book into an ePub file is to save it as a filtered Web page. If you create your e-book originally as a Word document, simply click "Save As" and then click "Web Page (filtered). You will still need to tailor images to fit the ePub standards if you have them in your document, but saving the file in this manner and then uploading it to the various distribution services should work just fine.


An Eye-Catching Cover

Finally, it is absolutely vital for your e-book to have an attractive cover. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but people do it all the time. Studies have shown that an unattractive e-book cover is actually worse than having no cover at all. So when you go to create your e-book cover, be sure to actually take the time to make sure that the design is well thought out and professionally designed.

Whether your book is about the average credit card debt per family or adding a new addition to your family, it needs to look professional. If you don't have experience creating covers, plunk down the money to have one professionally done. In the end, it will worth the money.