Part 5 - So, How Do You Physically Make an eBook?

"If you know what to do to reach your goal, it's not a big enough goal"

Bob Proctor

First, what is an eBook?

The word "eBook" basically means "electronic book". You can think of it as an electronic version of a "real" physical book. You can download the book to your computer or handheld device rather than buy it on a store shelf.

Unless you actually did have a book printed and you're making an electronic version of that, no physical book actually exists.

The ebook itself is just a computer file - a document - either a PDF file designed for the free Adobe Reader, or a simple Microsoft Word document. It could also be an HTML file (which is actually the same look and feel of a web page) OR, it could be an “.exe” program-style of file. This file type is for MS Windows computers and MAC-Intel computers running MS Windows. It is more like a multi-media eBook.

You could read the eBook on your desktop computer screen, your laptop, or you could download it onto your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) – which is a handheld unit that keeps your schedules, does your email, lets you store and read eBooks, and a whole lot more.

You can even print eBooks from your printer and read them wherever you do most of your reading.

Once you've created an eBook there's no more cost associated with them - not that they cost you anything to create unless you hire someone else to write it. It becomes a file on your computer, waiting for you to upload to your site and then transfer to computers all over the world.

If you’re not a writer, you can go to sites like www.elance.com or www.guru.com and get someone to quote you a price to write your ebook for you. You may be surprised at how inexpensive it is. At these sites you will find writers and software programmers eager to do contract work for you.

Because an eBook is a digital product, you can add website links to them that lead your customers to other products or affiliate links you may have. Remember, an affiliate link is a unique link you’ve obtained from someone who is willing to give you a commission of any product you sell of theirs. This way, your eBook can still be making money for you even after you sell it.

Some marketers write an ebook and give it away for free – allowing other people to either give it away free or even sell it for 100% profit.

Why would you do this?

As the author of the book, you have added links into the book that would drive people back to your site where you can market more profitable, and higher cost, products.

This way, you have an entire, self-motivated, sales force marketing your eBook, and ultimately your sites and products, at virtually no cost to you.

As a side step: The word “eBook” is fast becoming an old term that doesn’t completely represent what an information product can do or contain in today’s modern world of multi-media. A simple “PDF” file contains words, some pictures (although this makes the file size a bit too large), and clickable links to websites. A very functional format, considering books off the shelf are the exact same – minus the active website links.

However, today’s eBook creation software, allows you to create a book that looks and acts like a website. You can add video, audio, text, hypertext, flash animations, animated banner ads, interactive and quizzes. You can also add scripts – snippets of special computer code - that personalize the book and even add today’s date each time. Feedback forms can be filled in and sent online straight from the book. Newsletter subscription forms can be added. In fact, anything you can add to a website you can add to an EXE eBook. The software then compiles everything into an “.exe” program file that makes this ‘website’ portable and downloadable.

Here’s a tip: With an “.exe” book you can either send the pictures and multi-media components you use in the book with the actual book, so someone downloads it as a complete unit. Or, because this creates a much larger file that some people will be upset about having to download, you can take advantage of the fact that, according to Internet guru Jim Edwards, 75% of all Americans on the Internet are now on High Speed. These high-speed Internet connections are “always on”. With an ‘always on’ Internet connection you can set your book so that it pulls all its pictures, audios, and videos from your website instead. This means that the pictures, audios, and videos stay on your website and aren’t sent with the book to the customer, only the text is, which makes the eBook file very small, yet the multimedia content is still there.

The disadvantage is that the customer has to be connected to the Internet to be able to access the multimedia portions of the book. The eBook could be installed onto a laptop and the text could be read, but they wouldn’t be able to access any links or view videos etc. unless they were connected to the Internet – which is becoming less of a challenge as more and more laptops become wireless and more public places are adding wireless internet for these laptops to connect to.

HOWEVER, THIS ADVANTAGE FAR OUTWEIGHS THE DISADVANTAGE…

The major advantage of creating an eBook, a multimedia information product, in this manner is that you can update information, on the fly, and keep your customer’s eBook product updated without having to send updates to everyone each time something changed.

For example: Imagine you had a video in your eBook showing backyard mechanics how to replace the headlamp in a Honda Civic. Now, a new model of Civic comes out and Honda changed the replacement procedure.

Because of the EXE eBook, you don’t have to create and recompile a newly updated eBook after you shoot the new video. You also don’t have to notify all your customers who ordered that eBook to go back to the site, download the new version, and re-install it on their computers. Instead, you shoot the new video and replace the old video on you site with your new one. Simple. The book is automatically updated.

Now when your customer plays the video from within their eBook, the book will access the new video instead.

Why should I keep all the video files on the internet as opposed to allowing the customer to download them with the eBook?

You could include all the audio and the video files, as well as the images as a download with the eBook but this would make the download size enormous! Even a highly compressed video file can be in excess of 100 megabytes! Multiply that by how many video clips you include in your eBook and you’re looking at one monster download. Believe me, no one will want to download it especially if they’re still on dial-up.

The only other disadvantage with the .exe eBook format, that’s anywhere close to worth mentioning, is that the .exe file currently only runs on MS Windows computers and MAC computers with an Intel chip that can run MS Windows.

But, considering how many people have PC’s, as compared to the older MAC’s, you still have a massive worldwide audience.

Essentially, you would choose what format works best for both you and your target audience.

EBooks or Reports?

You can write eBooks or reports (or whatever you want, for that matter). There's no cut and dried rule about how many pages or words constitutes an eBook and what constitutes a report.

In general, a report would be a short document - anything from 1 page to say 15 pages and an eBook would be anything beyond that. I've purchased eBooks at 45 pages and some at 145 or 200 pages. I've also purchased an eBook that was only 15 pages long but was worth every word.

Many eBooks are written in a 12 or 14-point font size with a 1.5 line space. This makes them extremely easy to read.

Use a regular font, such as Arial, Verdana, Courier, or Times New Roman. The choice is yours.

You can use any font you want but, because the eBook picks up the fonts from the person’s computer, you run the risk that the person doesn’t have the font you chose and tries to pick a font close to it. This can totally change the look of your book.

Also, by using a regular font, you make the book physically readable. Pick up your local newspaper, a magazine, some non-fiction, and some fiction books, and go to some websites. You’ll notice that they all use a plain font that is easy to read. The only fancy fonts they may use will be kept to the titles and short text entries.

So, enough talking – how do you actually make an eBook?

Making an eBook is actually quite simple...

To make an eBook yourself, and in its simplest form, all you need is the word processor that came with your computer.

You don't need any fancy desktop publishing software, eBook generation software, HTML editors, or anything like that.

Remember, an eBook is simply a computer file that people download and open.

In that sense, you can:

1)    Write, or copy and paste an article from InfoGoRound, or FreeEzineArticles.com, or Wikipedia.com into the MS Notepad text editor program that comes with every computer.

2)    Save the file as an extremely basic “text” file (‘.txt’ – which is universal to all computers and the only file format Notepad will save as), and then…

3)    Either place the file on your website for people to download, or email it to everyone you know.

You have now just published a report - or an extremely small eBook.

Congratulations. You are now in the online publishing business!

Basic as it is, it’s still valuable information that you can sell or give away free.

The disadvantage with a text file however is that it contains no formatting whatsoever except for paragraph separations, making it difficult to read and extremely boring to look at.

With a fully functional word processor like MS Word, you can make titles larger, bold, italicize, underline, and even indent text. You can choose an easier-to-read font and change font sizes as needed. It’s also easy to box-in certain text, add a pull-quote, or highlight certain words or sentences with a highlighting tool.

If you need to, you can also add images or photographs with your word processor and that's great. (Graphics and photos definitely make your file size much larger though. So use them only if you have to or feel that they add to the value of the book).

For the most part, keeping it simple works best.

A clean design, with well edited text, and free from clutter will look more professional and be easier to read.

Once you've typed out your eBook or report - or pasted in the content that you have rights to, checked it over, and feel confident that your customer is getting the best from you, then it's time to get it ready to publish.

By "published" I mean getting the file ready to put onto the Internet for others to download it to their computers - after they paid you for it of course - if you're charging.

You have a number of choices here.

You can publish your ebook file straight to the Internet in the same file format as your word processor. To do this you would simply save your document then upload that file to your website.

That’s great and you've still published your first ebook. However, having your file uploaded to the Internet in that format poses two problems: The first is that only the people who have your brand of word processor can read your ebook and secondly, because it's a word processor file, other people can edit it, change it, and do a lot of things to it that you don't want them to do. Your work is not safe.

So, what are your other options?

As already mentioned some eBooks are made into web pages and then put into an eBook creation program that compiles all the pages together. It then creates an EXE eBook with a ".exe" file extension like "gardening.exe".

Some of these purchased programs allow you to put password protection onto the book so that only someone with a password can read them. The program may also allow you to add security features like no right clicking, no copying and pasting, no printing etc. Basically, the program gives you a lot of options that other eBook formats don’t.

If you're looking for this type of program, either do a Google search for " ebook creation programs" or give one of these a try:

Ebook Generator Pro by Internet guru Armand Morin, or “Activ E-book Compiler”. Both create .exe format eBooks.

I currently use Ebook Generator Pro as it has some really cool features - such as the ability to shut someone’s book down if they were issued a refund. Or the ability to password protect certain areas. It will also allow you to run the coolest and latest plug-ins such as Flash video, Shockwave, streaming audio, and the likes.

Many eBooks, however, are still converted to a format that just about any computer can open. This file format is called a Portable Document File, or a “PDF”, and can be opened and read on both Windows and MAC computers.

The disadvantage with PDF files is that they are not as flexible as .exe eBooks and aren’t multimedia-rich. PDF files are essentially for text only or text and still images. You cannot add audio or video to it.

PDF files, however, are still an extremely viable eBook format. They can also be offered as an alternative “text only” format along with your .exe eBook.

PDF files come with a "pdf" file extension such as "gardening.pdf" and requires the free and easily accessible Adobe Reader to open and read the ebook. This reader is available as an absolutely free download from www.adobe.com.

While you cannot include multi-media files, such as video or audio, it is a universal file format and one of the easiest formats to prepare your book for. In fact, other than having to write your links in the full http://www.yourlinkhere.com/ in order for it to work, there is virtually nothing else you have to do to your word processor document once you’ve typed it up.

So how do you convert your word processor file to the pdf file format?

It's really quite simple.

I use a program called Adobe Acrobat Lite. It came as a freebie when I signed up for one of my Internet web hosting accounts.

Assuming you've installed the software, and also completed your eBook, using whatever word processor you use, simply go to your <File> menu and select the <Print> option.

When the Print Options dialog box opens up, you will see a drop down window at the top, where it says "Name", meaning the name of your printer. To the right of the slim window you'll see an arrow that drops down a list of whatever printers you have installed on your system. If you’re using the Adobe Lite version, one of the printers will be called “Adobe PDF” or something similar. If you use the PDF995 program mentioned below, it may say “pdf995” or “Print to PDF”.

- Printer Dialog Box -

When you select this option, the computer, instead of printing to a printer, now prints your document to a PDF. In other words, it begins to convert your word processor document into a PDF file, and that pdf file is the file you upload to your website. During the process, it will ask you to name your new file.

It's that easy.

Another good pdf conversion program is PDF995, which you can download and use free to convert all your files into pdf files. The free version displays some ads on your computer during the conversion process. If you purchase it for $9.95, at least that's what the price was at the time of creating this product, then it removes the ads for you.

Another location is http://createpdf.adobe.com/, which has a monthly subscription but a free trial to get you going.

The beauty about these converters is that you can convert virtually any file that you would be able to print to a printer, into a pdf file, no matter what program you’re using to create the document.

For example, you can make an electronic version of a coffee table-style book of your photographs in a program like CorelDraw, or Microsoft Publisher and then convert it into a pdf file for others to view.

Okay then, should I be including image files in my eBook?

This is a good question. It would be hard to make a coffee table-style eBook of your photographs if you didn’t include any photographs or images.

The downside of including images and photographs in your eBook is that they dramatically increase the size of your eBook file, making downloading a chore. However, as more and more users convert to high speed Internet, this will become less of an issue.

The basic advice here is: Use images if you absolutely have to. Sometimes it’s just easier to show something through the use of an image than it is to try and explain it.

Test it out for yourself. Use the steps outlined here to convert your book to a PDF file. Convert one without images and one with images and notice the difference in the file sizes.

So, what types of images should you use?

Okay, I need to sidetrack for a moment...

There are basically two common types of images that are used in websites and eBooks. There are others but these are the most commonly used. They are JPG (pronounced “JAYPEG”) and GIF (pronounced “JIFF”) files. The file extensions would look like this: mypicture.jpg and mypicture.gif.

These are used because they highly compress an image, making the file size low, yet the image still looks good. JPG is great for photos and those types of images. GIF only uses a handful of colors, thus making even smaller file sizes. It is superb for low-grade photos and non-photo-like images like clipart.

Low file sizes load fast on websites and are easier to include in an eBook because they don’t contribute much to the total file size of the eBook.

Because an EXE eBook is essentially a self-contained web browser, one way of getting around having a lot of photographs in an eBook is to host them on your website and have those pages display “live” in your EXE eBook. This would keep the actual file size of your eBook to a minimum, making it fast to download. Also, because the pages are “live”, you can add new photos on a regular basis, thus keeping the book updated. What great value!

What about this ‘FLASH’ video?

Flash video is basically all those fancy titles that fly across your computer screen with images spinning in and out and doing all kinds of neat things. You usually encounter flash video on modern websites. You can only include Flash video in an EXE eBook.

Now that I completely sidetracked you, let’s get back to creating your PDF eBook...

I mentioned earlier about Microsoft Publisher: you can use Publisher to spice up the look of your eBook, giving each page a consistent background that has your website address and the name of the book at the top or bottom of each page in a lighter shade of gray or even in color. MS Publisher is a desktop publishing program used for creating anything from newsletters to posters to menus and almost anything else you can imagine. There are many desktop publishing programs available.

The sky's the limit here as long as the design is tasteful, professional, and doesn't distract from the message.

While fairly easy, the preparation needed to design and create an .exe eBook is a bit more intense. You need to have a working knowledge of designing simple websites.

What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get programs like MS FrontPage, or the free bonus NVU program, make it simply easy for us to create the pages needed for an .exe eBook.

(Check out the bonus  QuickView videos on how to use NVU).

I use the XsitePro website design software which was designed particularly for people like you and I who are actually in the field of Internet Marketing. It cuts a lot of corners, automates many tasks – making them one-click easy, and is a fraction of the price of MS FrontPage. I got turned on to XsitePro because of the amount of people I met at conferences who use it exclusively.

(Check out the bonus QuickView videos on using XsitePro)

I used XsitePro to design and build this eBook. I didn't even have to worry about adding the navigation links, located on the left side of this page, to every section of this book - each new section in this EXE eBook is a separate "website" page. XsitePro took care of it all for me; adding the navigation to each page and updating the links automatically, on every page, when I made changes.

If you have ever built web pages before, or if you begin to, you'll realize what a pain keeping track of navigation links is. XsitePro automates the entire process for me. A huge headache remover!

With these What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) programs, if you can run a word processor you can unleash the power in these programs. They all come with great manuals and tutorials. Then it’s just a matter of running the EXE generator program you purchased, entering some information, and it’s converted automatically to a self-contained software program designed to run your multi-media rich eBook.

This EXE book was created using:

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Or should you…?

Now, you could upload your eBook file and promote it as is but people still like to "see" your book cover, even though it's digital and isn't actually a physical book. As readers of physical books, we've been trained that way. When you go to a library or a bookstore, your first attraction to a book is by its cover.

Even with an eBook, people like to imagine that they're holding and reading your book, even if they plan to read it on their computer screen. If you doubt this, go to www.amazon.com and view how they list their books, even their eBooks.

You can either hire someone to do this for you or you can use a piece of software designed to create images of software boxes and eBook covers. All you need to do is search the Internet for eCover creators. I use eCover Generator and have been very pleased with its simplicity and the hundreds of templates it provides.

Another piece of software I use is called "The Web Graphics Creator" from Laughing Bird Software. At the time of making this product the cost was only $39.95. This little piece of software not only makes all kinds of graphics and logos for the Internet, but it also easily helps you create 3D graphics of eBooks and Software boxes. You can either get creative on your own or allow its logo design templates to help you. Although the program does create nice software boxes and eBook covers, I found it harder to work with than eCover Generator. Where this program totally shines, and is easy to work with, is in its ability to create personalized logos, banners, and such for your website – or anything for that matter. I use this software to create logos and clickable website “order here” button graphics.

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