The noise in the ebook market has gotten so loud it's hard to hear yourself think. It's not so easy to generate a viable income. So how do you do it?

HIRE PROFESSIONALS-People do judge a book by the cover, especially ebooks!
Get a proper book cover done.
Get it edited by a professional
Have it laid out for print by a professional too (because print and ebook covers different markets), especially if you are a non-fiction writer. If you are a fiction writer and this is your first book, then go straight ebook... but don't skip the other steps.

MARKET, MARKET, MARKET-that's all there is too it... become your own advocate and never stop
Before you publish a book you need to start marketing. You should be on Facebook and Twitter, have a webpage and an idea of what your longer term plan is for an author brand (that's you) and platform (that's your body of works). Sounds easy, but it's a full time job if you want to earn a living as a publishing author.

MY EBOOK BUYING RULES
I have several ebook readers - I use them to test files mostly. I am old-school and don't particularly like the ebook reading experience...(I'm always terrified I'll drop the darn thing in the bathtub, even though I've never dropped a real book in!) I miss the feel of a paper book when I'm reading on the devices. But I do download content all the time. After a while I had to develop a list of "ebook reading rules" because I kept downloading stuff that turned out to be, quite frankly, crap. So I made my rules up to guide my purchasing habits:

• Book must have a professional cover, with a professional sounding "about this book" - complete with punctuation and proper styling
• Book needs to be published by a viable publishing company - that means if it says Smashwords, I don't buy your book. If there is something that looks interesting, I look the publisher up, so they should have a website
• Ebook needs to cost less that the print book, since my first love is paper books, and if it costs less to buy a paper book, well, I'll go buy a paper book (and get a latte at the same time!)
• Book should have a balance of reviews - I don't care if they are all good, I like to have an idea of how the book speaks to people
• Must cost less than $15
• Short stories should be indicated as such. I feel quite ripped off if I think I'm ordering a novel and get a short story - I don't mind paying for shorts, I just like to know what I'm getting
• There should be something about the package that entices me to share my hard earned money (and I do work very hard for what little I have!)
• The book must look and feel like a proper book

So those are my basic buying rules. I'd be curious to know what your rules are, if you have any?

It seems like the publishing world is changing on a daily basis, and nobody knows where it's going yet. All the hype is about ebooks, ebooks, ebooks. Well, the other day I came across this cool little site that you all need to visit, and keep for your files. It's www.autography.com. It's bringing ebooks one step closer to being author/reader friendly by offering signed copies of ebooks, customized. Books are then available for download as either an epub or mobi file. Now how cool is that? Work it up with a QR code and voila... a great package.

All the hype today is about ebooks. Everywhere you turn, you are told that ebooks are the wave of the future. That they are outselling, or soon will be outselling print books. Is it true?

Well, yes and no. In some cases, yes, the ebook is outselling the pbook. Should you be doing an ebook version of your book? Absolutely... sort of. It depends on the kind of book you are doing. Ebook readers still have a lot of limitations, so you have to look at a number of factors before deciding. If your book is fiction, then the answer is absolutely yes. If it's a complicated math book, well, that could be enough of a challenge that you should wait until the technology is there.

But in all cases, it's my humble opinion, that as of today anyway, you should do both a print book and an ebook because limiting options loses sales. And if you are doing that complicated math book, maybe you can do a less complicated short piece that could be done as an ebook to make it a supporting piece.

So, we can make that ebook for you, yes. But while you're at it, lets do a lovely print book too, because some of us still prefer "real" books.

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