When I watch old movies about an author and his/her interaction with a publisher or an agent, I get jealous.  That’s what I thought it would be like, and of course, it does still happen that way for some writers.  You remember the scene I’m talking about.  The writer comes in with either a large folder or perhaps a cardboard box full of handwritten or poorly typed pages of his recent masterpiece, and they take it from there. Simple.

Now I (we) know that it doesn’t happen that way any more, at least for the likes of me and others like me.  Publishers and agents want a sure thing, a name, notorious or otherwise famous.  You and I are on our own in a strange world of competition and marketing.

After my first two books were printed (an entirely different but interesting story), I was proud as a new father to hold them, the physical manifestation of all that labor. To me, there is nothing which will ever replace the printed book. The feel of it, the smell of the pages, and the fact that it will last nearly forever makes a book a very desirable thing.  Nonetheless, there is a trend toward the electronic transmission of music, video, and books which is not going to go away.  Likely, both forms will co-exist for some time yet, but as an author, you will sell more books in electronic form than printed and make more money doing it.

Creating a perfect printed book is possible, but a perfect digital version is elusive. There are several versions of e-readers, some incompatible with each other.  Creating a book which can be read by all of them requires making your book more simple than you might want. The fancy font, in particular, is nearly the first thing lost.  To be sure, the requirements vary not only as to the individual device being used but also its size, its color, resolution and also its users’ whims. There is no universal solution, only  solutions of compromise.

Some organizations will claim that a writer only need to supply a .pdf or even a .doc version of their book, and their proprietary conversion software will turn it into a e-book.  Easy? Sure is tempting but don’t fully believe it. To get the best array of compromise and to be sure what your work is going to look like, it is best to get yourself involved  in the conversion process, and better still, to do it yourself.

You will need some help to start, most of which is available on the Web. By that, I mean the explanation of how to do a conversion, not the actual doing of it.  Be careful of where you send your valuable manuscript, and be sure and have it copyrighted before you release it to anyone. No exceptions.

If you are still interested, then I have some suggestions for reading. Obtain the Kindle book by Guido Henkel called “Zen of eBook Formatting.” Henkel gives an interesting and enthusiastic view of ebook creation.  I used this book to get started and to convince myself that I could do it. Be warned that his book is not a complete guide and has some omissions that will prevent you from actually producing a finished e-book on your own. It will, however,  give you a leg up and does provide a tremendous insight into the process.

In the  next installment of this series, I will give you a more detailed summary of problems I encountered, and my solutions.  Using this method, I have completed seven books so far, and they range in size from 75,000 to 135,000 words. Two are published and widely distributed for a variety of devices, and yes, both are also in printed format.

Alexander Francis