Everybody knows what a book is: a stack of printed paper, held together by glue, staples, etc. If we talk about the ebook, however, it’s not that clear. What is an ebook? Is a huge Word document or PDF an ebook? What about Kindle books, Kobo books or Apple’s iBooks? For many years people have…
The Easy Way To Sell Digital Downloads From Your Website
Have you ever considered selling digital products such as books, tutorials, videos, etc. from your own website? After all, blogging is hard work. Why just rely on advertising fees to support your writing when you can sell your own digital downloads? When I first tried this two years ago, I had a PDF version a…
How To Create Ebooks With Open Source Software: #4 The Cover
[PART #1] – [PART #2] – [PART #3] Welcome to the fourth part in our short series about creating ebooks with open source tools. (If you missed the last one, click here). Today I’d like to talk a bit about cover design. To many people design is a matter of taste, but it’s much more than that….
How To Create Ebooks With Open Source Software: #3 Conversion & Preview
[PART #1] – [PART #2] – [PART #4] Welcome to the third and final part of our short ebook creation guide. After going on and on about the importance of styles, today I’ll finally show you how to get your ebook converted to MOBI or EPUB, files that you can easily upload to the Amazon…
How To Create Ebooks With Open Source Software: #2 Structure & Flow
[PART #1] – [PART #3] – [PART #4] Welcome back to the second part of our little ebook making course. For those who missed it, here’s a link to the first part: # 1 Manuscript Styles Some of you might wonder why we started out by talking about styles. Maybe they seem to make certain formatting tasks a…
How To Create Ebooks With Open Source Software: #1 Manuscript Styles
[PART #2] – [PART #3] – [PART #4] We live in a time where almost anyone on the planet can create, publish and sell books (or other media) without any insurmountable technical or financial preconditions. There are already many tutorials out there how to make ebooks. Each one has its own approach. In this short series, I would like…
Not a Game: Being Indie (a movie)
Free to do whatever and whenever you like: it’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it? Whether you’re in publishing, teaching or web design, once you kiss your job goodbye and decide to brave it out alone you will need a different toolkit. In the employment world it’s all about permission and expectation, and more often than not,…
How Indie Publishing Could Revolutionize Creative Expression But Often Doesn’t
It was Clay Shirky who said in a recent interview that publishing is no longer a job, it’s a button. In fact, I’m staring at one right now. It’s blue and it says “publish”. It’s simple. Shall I click it? No? But it would make me a world-class publisher, wouldn’t it? Some people will say yes,…
A Short Story About The Middle East
( tl;dr – wrote a short story, you can download it here) I’ve lived both in the Far and Middle East. Both experiences left strong memories, traces, impressions. And I noticed very early that if I wanted to convey any of my experiences to others in writing, an autobiographical account wouldn’t cut it. Short Fiction…