How to Publish Your Book Online (update 07/06/08)

Have you ever wanted to publish your own book without going through the usual rejection at book publishing companies? The internet finally gives you a chance to do so with the sites in this article and a simple PDF creator program.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• computer
• internet access
• Print to PDF by Valusoft in combination with free online PDF conversion or inexpensive older copy of Adobe Acrobat

1. First of all, spend the money necessary to get a PDF conversion program, such as an older version of Adobe Acrobat--check on Amazon.com--or Print to PDF--which should be available at Office Max or Office Depot. This is necessary because the sites I know only accept this format. The Print to PDF works for converting the book's inside to PDF, however the cover file will not go through properly, to convert the cover file with this program go to www.freepdfconvert.com. This will give you 15 file conversions a month free. (You can choose to go with the website solo and pay for a subscrition, but I believe it will be cheaper to use the combination).
2. Before converting any text to a PDF in the book that you're writing, go over the writing with a spell check tool. Then make sure to correct any absurdities within the writing--what seems impossible, what doesn't fit with the flow of the story, or anything else that can be found. Make sure everything is punctuated correctly and no words are missing.
3. I found that the sites need a page count as well, so it is recommended to write the book in MS Word--or any other type of compatible publishing program that does the same--and shrink it to whatever size that is chosen on the publishing website for the book. Then page down to the last page to see its length. A much harder way is to print the story out and see how much of the text fits to each page of the selected book size to get an amount. (Measure it against a book owned or try to get a blank book in the size).
4. Convert the text to PDF with the recommended program. Follow the instructions to do so recommended by the program or use the link in MS Word that may have been installed to do so.
5. If publishing for free is desired, try Createspace.com or Cafepress. They both have publishing programs for no charge--however Createspace offers the additional benefit of selling on Amazon.com. These two collect a part of the book price to make a profit.
   If more publishing help is desired, Booksurge.com can be used for a fee.
6. Promote your book on your blog(s) or website(s). Free websites can be obtained all over the web but better ones include Freeservers and Tripod. It is also great to promote it by providing a link from your blog on your social site (MySpace, Yuwie, etc.) or by notices, bulletins, or the link sharing feature on Facebook.
7. It also may help to use free classified ads to promote the book as long as they do not spam people. Craigslist is a popular example of one of these places.