Ebooks - the Easy Way To Get Published Now!

A friend put the story of his life as a professional magician, film promoter and entrepreneur on paper. It took ten years, two electric typewriters and probably a gallon of correction fluid. He was shocked when he found the cost he faced if he had his book published. There were added problems because he wanted 40 photographs in the book and didn't want to send it overseas where it could be published more cheaply.

Things turned around when I suggested that we publish it as an ebook, a computer file that can be read on most computers. It took weeks to scan the heap of creased pages into my computer and correct the errors caused by his liberal use of the correction fluid. But we soon had the ebook in place on my Internet site, ready for customers.

This was all new to me too.

I sent review copies on CD Rom to magazines and some of his friends in the United States of America and England, but I sent the photos that some magazines wanted over the Internet.

The final parts of his research took only days thanks to email. The 40 photos were also scanned into the computer. Putting them in to the ebook did not add anything to my costs. The customers got reasonable quality pictures, some in color, that had been a major factor in the high quotes he'd received from printers for producing the printed version. That was just a couple of years ago and the resources available to anyone that wants to write and publish their own ebook have improved dramatically, while costs have actually fallen!

I originally supplied the book on CD Rom and posted copies to all parts of the World. These days, I just let buyers download it and other ebooks from my website, immediately after payment. That reduces my costs and gives them the added incentive of 'instant gratification'.

You can also take advantage of this low-cost, quick method of producing and selling your own ebook. The speed of production and the fact that you keep most of the money yourself instead of getting just a royalty and possibly an advance are not the only advantages that ebooks give the beginning author.

There's no slush-piles on the Internet! If an unknown author submits their book to a traditional publisher, they may have to wait months for a response and still may just get a form letter rejection.

The high costs involved in processing a book through a traditional publishing system means there is less chance of an unknown author's manuscript being selected and groomed. But almost anyone, almost anywhere in the World that has an Internet connection, a computer and a few dollars, dinars or whatever for the essentials (website, Domain Name, credit card processor and Word processor program) can produce, publish and sell their first ebook in a few weeks or even less.

You do NOT need a current model computer - I know one, extremely successful ebook author that was producing his books and did all his Business on a fairly old Windows computer running Windows 98 until very recently!

You can be successful even if there are many other books about the same subject available. No-one has your specific background and experiences. You've probably got tips and short-cuts or perhaps secret methods that have been handed down through your family for generations. You don't have to be an acknowledged 'expert'.

Your task is not to bring your readers from minimal knowledge to Trade Certificate level. In mos