By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Michael_E_Sedgwick]Michael E Sedgwick
1. Many people-perhaps a majority-do not have the grammar, punctuation or word usage skills to write a publishable book without some need for education, practice and help from a professional editor, professional writer, or experienced English teacher. Although MS Word's AutoCorrect tool has improved in recent years, it does not tell you if you have used the appropriate word. For any writer, it is essential to have a good dictionary. Assuming you intend to publish in the United States, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary or the New Oxford American Dictionary would fill the need. For publishing in the United Kingdom, choose the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. In addition to a good dictionary, a reference book on grammar/style is indispensable. The classical Elements of Style by Strunk and White, Woe is I by Patricia O'Conner, and Grammatically Correct by Anne Stilman would form a good reference foundation. For guidance on the trickier aspects of style, choose either The Chicago Manual of Style from The University of Chicago Press or Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law from The Associated Press. Some publishers and writing authorities prefer the first of these manuals while others favor the second. Whichever handbook you choose, adhere to it; in other words, do not mix the two style approaches.
2. If you feel what you have written is interesting enough to be published, you will probably need to have it professionally edited unless you are very good at self-editing or have a friend who is capable of doing so and can be trusted to be objective and brutally honest. To proofread thoroughly what you have written on the computer, you should print the document. The printed document reveals flaws that you missed on the computer monitor. This is a well-proven fact. After reading the manuscript many times during the writing and editing, you will become so familiar with the contents that you will read what should be there rather than what is actually there. Having one or more other persons dedicated to the task is a better option. Again, if you wish to pass up the need for a professional editor, you must be a writer capable of good syntax as well as one who avoids punctuation and other grammatical errors. This skill may come over time by reading good books and employing plenty of practice in the art of good writing.
3. Professional editors usually provide proofreading, line editing and substantive editing, each being progressively more detailed and rigorous. Proofreading costs run between $0.02 and $0.05 per word. Line editing costs more than proofreading, but a manuscript with structural errors won't get past a literary agent or publisher. For a manuscript that needs complete revision, substantive editing can cost as much as $0.15 per word. In the last instance, the editing charge for a typical novel running to 100,000 words could be prohibitive.
4. After editing, you need to find an agent who will seek a publisher interested in your book. Alternatively, you can approach small publishers directly. Publishing can cost between $2,000 and $5,000 depending on whether your publisher is a small independent one or a New York giant and whether you are required to share the costs.
The alternative to taking your manuscript to a publisher is to self-publish and you can do so in either eBook, or printed paperback format, or both. The eBook format's popularity is growing at an exponential rate and has forced the curtailment of printed book sales in many locations, including the closure of large, national bookstores. Before proceeding with self-publishing you will need to obtain an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Also, consider the artwork you would like to use on the cover of your eBook. You may be sufficiently talented in the use of Adobe Photoshop or similar software to produce your own. Both ISBN and book cover artwork can be provided by Firebird Media Management (see later reference).
To make a manuscript ready for eBook publishing, one must format it and the type of format needed depends on the seller e.g. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apple iTunes. Amazon has made available a Kindle article titled Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform (DTP). The article provides a very clear guide on how to proceed with having your book published as an electronic book.
Accounts based in the United States must enter Name, Address, Payment Method, Business Type and either a Social Security Number, Tax Identification number, or an Employer ID Number. Accounts based outside the United States must enter Name and Address.
To prepare your text for uploading to Amazon DTP, you should convert it to a single.html file. One can save manuscripts written in Microsoft Word as an.html file by using the Save As command, selecting the Other Formats button and choosing Web Page from the drop-down menu.
You are now ready to begin the first step in preparing your title for digital publication on the Kindle Store. Click on the Bookshelf tab in DTP to begin.
Signe Nichols at rel=nofollow [http://www.firebirdmediamanagement.com/]www.FirebirdMediaManagement.com previously referenced, will format your manuscript for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iTunes electronic books for a modest charge as well as provide an ISBN and book cover artwork, if needed.
6. Many people still prefer printed books and one can meet this demand by publishing in paperback format at very little expense through CreateSpace.com, a subsidiary of Amazon. After logging into the site, create an account, upload your file in PDF format and use their free online tools to produce a paperback in a wide choice of sizes. You can use the same artwork for your book cover that you used for your eBook, or you can select something suitable from the site's artwork offerings. The cost to produce a proof book via their print-on-demand process is less than $5 plus shipping cost. If you choose to do so, you may then have your book sold on Amazon.com. CreateSpace will arrange for the production and shipping of books as customer demand arises at Amazon.com. Nothing could be simpler. Naturally, you can purchase your book from CreateSpace for less than $5 per copy and sell it yourself.
7. Now that you have your book published in one or two formats, you have the task of marketing it. The first thing you should know is that no matter how hard you work at writing your book, the effort needed to publish and market it is much greater, and not always as much fun. The self-published author does not have the marketing or promotional support of a publisher and must undertake those activities him or herself.
The marketing activity is a whole field of enterprise on its own. National bookstores such as Barnes & Noble will not be interested to sell books by an author who self-publishes. Sales success is possible through small, independent bookstores, though public libraries, and to writers clubs and religious groups. There are many organizations online willing to promote your books at a price. A standard marketing tool, however, is your own website. Many hosting sites (such as GoDaddy.com) can provide a suitable domain name for you and offer a variety of stencils from which to design your website. You may find such stencils limit the layout of the site you have in mind and you may decide to create your website from scratch. Doing so will take education, patience and perseverance. Probably, the most powerful software tool for this job is Expressions Web 4 from Microsoft. Use of this software is definitely not intuitive but help from teaching tools such as that created by Kelly Lucas is available. At her website rel=nofollow [http://www.expression-web-tutorial.com/]http://www.expression-web-tutorial.com/,for a very modest price, one can purchase a comprehensive video class on three DVDs detailing the use of Expressions Web 4 and HTML5.
8. One may also choose to use one of the online social networking tools such as Facebook to help promote a book. One should use every opportunity when meeting groups of people to promote one's book. Bookmarks and business cards are valuable tools for reminding others of your product after you have parted. If you are of the Do-It-Yourself disposition, you can create a sheet of four or five bookmarks using Microsoft Word. Select the Columns command under the Page Layout tab and choose either four or five columns depending on the bookmark width you desire. Office Depot provides a service to laminate the page with thin poly on both sides and cut the sheets into individual bookmarks. You need to be careful in selecting the exact width of columns in MS Word in order to produce uniform bookmark widths, a factor even more important when creating 2-sided bookmarks to avoid misalignment.
9. There is a variety of tools to assist you in measuring the effectiveness of your website in reaching potential customers. The web hosting organization will normally provide statistics on the number of hits, pages read etc. for a functioning website. In addition, Google Analytics can help with website optimization and Google Adwords is a unique method of advertising keywords that describe your book.
10. A large number of books hit the marketplace every day and the competition is intense, so be aware of this fact before launching into publishing in either eBook or printed page.
The purpose of this article is to give someone new to writing an article or novel suggestions for ensuring the material is worthy of publishing and to give consideration to self-publishing in either ebook or paperback formats, or both. The information given was used by the author to publish his own two books "Bramdean" and "Of Heaven & Earth" and promote them with a self-designed website http://www.authormichaelsedgwick.com
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Publish-in-EBook-or-Paperback-Formats&id=6708396] How to Publish in EBook or Paperback Formats
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