The Writer’s Technology Companion

It would be sort of hypocritical if I were to write a 5-part series on writing ebooks if I didn’t put my money where my mouth is and pony up an actual ebook. So I’ve decided to put the five posts together, reformat a little, add some nice images, and release the whole thing as a small ebook (12 pages, plus front matter). I’m releasing this under a Creative Commons license that allows you to share and circulate it freely, and use any part of it for any non-commercial purposes, so long as you credit me as the author.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Unless you’re Stephen King, your e-book isn’t going to sell itself. You’re going to need to get out there and market it a little.

First of all, make sure it’s featured prominently on your site. Write a post about it, making sure to use all the important keywords you think people doing a Google search might use to find information like yours. For a while, at least, it’s a good idea to put a blurb about your e-book at the bottom of every post you write, too — make sure our existing readers know about, and keep telling them about it! [Read the rest of this entry…]

OK, you’ve written an e-book, fixed all the typos, formatted it nicely, and are ready to go. Now what? How do you get it to an audience?

Well, that depends on your ultimate goal. Are you planning to give your e-book away, or do you want to sell it? Let’s look at both options separately. [Read the rest of this entry…]

I had originally scheduled this post for later in May, but the folks at Daily Blog Tips declared May 1 RSS Appreciation Day and I decided to join in the fun. So you lucky readers get not one but two posts this Thursday — a day when I normally don’t post at all!

Depending who you ask, RSS stands for either “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”; either way, what it amounts to is a feed of content generated by your site (or some other source) in a standardized format. This means that content can be read, aggregated, republished, automatically downloaded, and otherwise manipulated in a variety of different kinds of formats.

Some more common kinds of feeds are: [Read the rest of this entry…]

Once you’ve written your e-book manuscript, you need to get it into shape for release. While there are e-book creation programs out there that will turn your e-book into a self-contained executable program, I advise against this. First of all, they rarely look all that good, and they force your reader to use a software interface they may not be familiar with. More importantly, executable files can contain viruses, and are often blocked by email programs, corporate networks, and even the operating system itself. No point in giving your readers a security scare when they’re about to read your book.

Instead, I suggest saving your file as a plain-jane pdf file. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Once you’ve decided on a topic for your e-book, you have to sit down and write it. For the most part, e-book writing is the same as any other writing, but there are a few special considerations. Since your book will most likely be read on a screen of some sort (readers could print it out, but that’s a lot of ink and paper!), you’ll want to incorporate some of the strategies you use to write for the web.

One thing to pay attention to is structure. [Read the rest of this entry…]

An e-book is a book, article, or other self-contained written material that is circulated electronically, usually over the web. Although they’ve been slow to catch on — few people relish the thought of reading a novel-length book on their computer screen — e-books have started to gain a lot of popularity with the release of high-quality e-book reading devices like Amazon’s Kindle.

Lots of writers have written and distributed e-books, for various reasons: [Read the rest of this entry…]

If you’re as busy as I am, chances are you’re not always at your own computer when the urge (or need) to write strikes you. Although I try to schedule uninterrupted time to write at home, there are always projects that I can work on whenever I have a spare moment while I’m out and about.

The good news is, if you can get to a computer, you can write.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

It’s generally not a good idea to post your email address “as is” on your website. Spammers use programs called “bots” to scour the web and collect email addresses, to which they then send massive amounts of spam email.

Instead, create a separate “Contact Me” page and add a contact form where your visitors can easily send email directly to you, without exposing your email address. Of course, some spammers have bots that fill out these forms, but that’s much more rare and isn’t as big of a concern.

Here’s how: [Read the rest of this entry…]

You might be wondering what exactly to put on your writer’s website. There are a few elements I think should be on any writer’s website, but in the end, your particular needs should determine what your site contains.

The core of your site should show you and your talents off in the best possible light, and as thoroughly as possible: [Read the rest of this entry…]