Today we have a guest post by: Douglas Klostermann. Doug shares his extensive knowledge and tips on creating ebooks with our readers. Enjoy! ~JP

Publish Your E-Book to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple iTunes and iBooks for Free

Using the knowledge, tools, and tips I've gained from my experience as a best-selling e-book writer, I explain every step of the e-book process from formatting through marketing, in order to help you publish and sell your e-book as easily and inexpensively as possible.

Why Now is the Time to Join the E-Book Revolution

Statistics about e-books, e-book publishing, and e-readers are being reported and discussed with increasing frequency and the overall conclusion is clear: e-book sales are rising at a dramatic pace.  E-book sales in the United States currently exceed those of the other formats, including hardback and paperback sales, and grew 200% from 2010 to 2011.  Electronic books are now outselling printed books on Amazon.com - hardcover and paperback combined - and the Kindle e-reader is the best-selling product on Amazon.  Apple's iPads are selling by the tens of millions, Android powered tablet sales are increasing, and numerous other companies are developing and selling tablet devices.  There is no better time to join the e-book revolution.

E-books can be read on a PC or Mac, on an e-reader device like a Kindle, Nook, or Sony Reader, on an iPad, Android or other tablet, or even on an iPhone or other smart phone.  The publishing playing field has never been so level for self-published, independent authors.  Your e-books can be up for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple iTunes and iBooks at no cost to you.  They will be available on these sites along with all the printed and digital books, with the potential to be found and purchased by anyone shopping and searching online.

With e-books you can publish your books as soon as you complete them, then make changes and additions to your text or descriptions at any time and have the new versions posted and available in minutes or days.  If you have information, knowledge, or a story that others are interested in reading and the skills to write, format, put on sale, and market an e-book, the process is both straightforward and free or very low cost.

This tutorial will cover each step of the process, and is excerpted from my much more comprehensive e-book about creating, formatting, publishing, marketing, and selling e-books called The E-Book Handbook, which goes into further detail about each of these steps.  Learn more about The E-Book Handbook - A Thoroughly Practical Guide to Formatting, Publishing, Marketing, and Selling Your E-Book:
http://www.dojoklo.com/Full_Stop/The_E-Book_Handbook.htm

Setting Up a Website or Blog

Before or as you start writing your e-book, it is important to begin putting some other elements of your future e-book empire into place, including a blog and/ or website, which are important for creating awareness of your e-book and marketing and selling it directly to potential readers.  I suggest that you spend some time to build this foundation that will be helpful for selling and marketing the e-books you will be putting so much effort into.  When your e-book is finally ready for publication and you are eager to start selling it, you'll be glad that some of the groundwork has already been established.

WordPress is perhaps the most powerful and versatile free blogging platform currently available, and is also easy to set up and use.  You can start a free blog at WordPress.com, but I highly recommend that you use the (also free) WordPress software available at WordPress.org to create and host your blog on your own website.  There are several reasons for this.  Free WordPress.com blogs hosted by WordPress are intended to be personal blogs and are not intended for people who will be using their blog to sell something or to make money.  Right now your blog may not be intended or designed primarily to sell your e-books or to make money but rather to discuss your subject or your thoughts.  But over time the number of posts you write about your own e-books might grow, and your affiliate links to products on sites like Amazon may increase and it may begin to appear that your blog is intended primarily for selling.  So rather than risking having your blog suspended at some point by WordPress, and to give yourself the ability to explore other ways of advertising or earning income through your blog, it is best to host it on your own website.  Plus hosting it on your own site will allow you the options of customizing your blog and using versatile WordPress PlugIns.

Today's guest post is from Author, Alana Cash.  Alana is an award-winning filmmaker and author. She taught writing at the Univ. of Texas and Jung Institute in Austin, Texas.  She currently lives in Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy her insights and experiences in the world of Print On Demand Publishing! ~JP

This past year I’ve been learning about relatively new e-business of digital publishing while getting my novel, TOM’S WIFE, into print.  I chose to work with Createspace because I already had my documentary films selling through them, but

I’ve spent time researching two other publish-on-demand (POD) companies – Smashwords and Lightning in the event that I decide to switch.  I a bit of a technophobe, leaning more into my right brain and having terrible nightmares after reading software manuals, so some of my frustrations in this process were of my own lack of understanding (i.e. uploading the cover art).  But some things that I experienced are universal and I set them out herewith:

YOU DON’T HAVE A CONTRACT WITH YOUR POD COMPANY

In a standard publishing situation, once a book has been accepted for publication, the publisher and author negotiate a contract setting out the percentage of sales the author will receive as royalties, which rights (movie rights, international rights, paperback rights, etc.) the author transfers and which are retained by the author to be negotiated later and other matters.

The 8th annual TomatoArtFest was the place to be Saturday August 13th. Over 120 vendors filled Woodland street in downtown Nashville TN-- all themed around a single plant: the tomato. From tomato themed jewelry to tomato shaped stress balls and a variety of attendees dressed like the "often misunderstood fruit" you could find a little of everything at the festival-- as long as you liked tomatoes of course.

For me, the highlight of the trip was the tomato art show, boasting the wonders of the art world as it relates to our red little friends.

The following photos are a few of my favorite pieces from the show in a variety of mediums. I hope you find the same amount of inspiration in these pieces as I did-- a little something to refuel your creative juices!

Today we have a guest post from Australian Journalist, Tom Mallet. You can find out more about him at the end of the article.

Enjoy!  -JP

If you look objectively at everything in your home, you’ll notice that quite literally every single object, including the home itself, is a product of design. There are  multiple types of design methods, but the core process is the innovative, problem solving “mental technology” of design. Every type of design from formatting hardcopy booklet printing to the most esoteric software in its vaguest visualization stage is a design process.

Ancient design principles- Still working, tens of thousands of years later

The oldest known designs are an insight into human design at its most practical and most aesthetic points of origin. Ancient humans came up with a range of designs which are indicative of an interesting set of priorities and types of extended logic:

• Tools- Design creators and implements for managing materials
• Jewellery- Aesthetic design ideas like seashell necklaces, the first truly personalized designs
• Rock art- Spiritual and educational materials

These are still core elements of design logic to this day. The most banal everyday item includes functionality and some sort of aesthetic values. Spiritual and educational materials are dressed up and enhanced with tools and aesthetic designs.

The Mechanics of Design

Also harking back to ancient times are some of the physical processes of design and design logic. As every designer in any discipline will find out whether they like it or not, design tools and methods tend to produce new design ideas. Mistakes, random scratchings of basic ideas and even accidents will often contribute to the logic of any design. Designs build on other designs. This has been going on for the whole of human history.

Pottery is a case in point. The ability to create stylized shapes in clay started in prehistory. From that a clear linear process of design leading up to modern ceramic technology is quite obvious. From the design perspective, however, the sheer number of designs based on these original basic techniques and ideas is staggering.

Interestingly, the mechanics of design follow both necessity and visualization, but not necessarily the logic. Recently some old Moorish surgical tools were discovered in Spain. These were good quality surgical instruments, and they were shown to modern surgeons, who recognized most of them, but had no idea what some of the instruments were for. This means, by extrapolation, that either the Moorish surgeons had developed special tools for processes not used today, or they
designed these tools for unknown surgical procedures. In that sense, design is a true logical process, both obvious and tangential depending on a range of practical design issues and the logic associated with them.

The Future of Design

If the past history of design was a growing fire of ideas, logic, aesthetics and techniques, the future is likely to be a hypernova of extrapolations of these fundamental design methods. Never before has humanity had the tools to create so many different associations of these basic elements of design. Technology and education are creating infinite, Mandelbrot- like possibilities for design evolution. The next millennium may well be the “Age of Design”. Even 19th century hardcopy products like business card printing are likely to combine with new technologies to produce 3D-printed smart business cards with their own communications systems.

Somewhere in the world, a basic design for a future icon of technology or art is in progress, every day. The ancient designers and their tools are still at work, even now.

About the Author

Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including booklet printing and business card printing.

Looking for good printing down under?

Check out the folks at Dark Horse Printing.
They specialize in booklet printing and business card printing.

I had an unexpected opportunity this weekend. In fact, it was so unexpected that it was one of those things you wish you could have prepared for and had more time to explore. However, I seized the opportunity when it fell into my lap, like any good graphic designer enamored with their work would. While attending a book signing event with my grandmother, and after driving over 3.5 hours to get there, we truly discovered a gem. Nestled in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains and part of the Big South Fork National Land Preservation Area, we discovered a colony where you could easily step back in time. WAAAAYYY BACK. And by colony, I mean just that. The community of Rugby TN was apparently originally settled by the British in the 1880s. And now, the community is a tourist attraction bringing in history lovers from far and near. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to find something that would thrill me and those in my profession from a career standpoint. But I did.

In the center of the community stands a building, refurbished, though authentic: The Rugby Print Shop. Still furnished with tools and equipment from the era I couldn't get enough of the way our earliest career ancestors must have felt laying out copy and 'designing' their papers and flyers. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did taking them!

And though I didnt get to set up an actual demonstration or see the press in action, here is a shot from the community's website: http://www.historicrugby.org/