Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • An Article in Quadrant Magazine
    • A Guest Post by Ian Wells
    • An Aussie bloke remembers: Guest post by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • a father’s tale … by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • “Snakey” by Roger Britton
    • A Guest Poem: “First Loves” by Roger Britton
    • At the Swimming Pool
    • A Modern True Story
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • What I learnt from writing a novel…
  • Mythos
    • A FAIRY STORY
    • Anthropos Rising
    • A Grain of Folly
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Candidly Yours…
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Travel
    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • 5 or 6 Things About Valencia
    • A Bird’s Eye View
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
    • A Tuscan Village Holiday
  • Australia
    • A Country College Residence
    • Alone not lonely in Apartheid South Africa
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • A Sydney Icon or Two
    • 5 things about Coogee
  • Nature
    • Black Swans Surfing
    • Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia
    • A Kit Home Goes Up in Vacy
  • Poetry
    • a funny thing happened …
    • An ancient mystic: Rumi
    • A Window into Poetry
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
  • Memoir
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Voices From the Past
  • Publishing
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • How I Created My Debut Novel
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
  • Contact Us
PublishingWriting

How to create an ebook in 5 easy steps…

written by Anne Skyvington March 15, 2019
digital-unsplash

Why design an ebook?

I wanted to include a special offer for new subscribers to my blog. This is called a lead magnet. I decided to create an ebook based on several of my updated blog posts. I chose five favourite posts from this  blog, Craft of Writing.

First up I had to write the content for my book, which I did using a microsoft word file. I decided to call the book “An Introduction to Writing Craft.”

The Basic Format for an ebook

Next I had to research the structure of an ebook. The format I chose to follow for this, was a three-part one composed of: 1. An Introduction 2. The Content Chapters 3. A Call to Action.

In the introduction I explain to the reader why I am writing the ebook; I give an overview the contents, and discuss why I have chosen these five posts.

The five content chapters comprise the five chosen posts.  The main theme of these chapters is what I like to call the “macro skills” involved in writing a novel.  Be advised that this term is one I have appropriated for my own purposes, in order to explain what I see as the two parameters of novel writing. Both parameters are important: Macro issues to do with the whole text, and the micro issues of words, sentence structure and punctuation within the work.

The third CTA chapter was devised so that I could learn from my readers how useful the book is, and how subsequent eBooks might be improved or changed.

I chose a potential picture for the cover of the book. The cover for the ebook became a simple red “default” template.

ancient-typewrite

The Technical Terms

This was my first foray into creating an ebook. I  had to teach myself the technical jargon involved, having lost the support of my digital expert friend, due to illness during last year.  The first thing I discovered was that some people choose not to distinguish between the two formats: eBooks and PDF files.

PDF stands for “Portable Document Format”, and is the most well-known file type.

EPub stands for  “Electronic Publication,” and is up to its 3rd major update. It is the more flexible ebook format. Literally every device can handle ePub, except Kindles.

Ebooks are created in a format that changes shape according to the device you read it on.

Learning Digital Skills

I decided to teach myself, step-by-step, how to produce both files. In fact, I found that the one led on to the other.

The first step in creating my first eBook was to convert the original microsoft word file “An Introduction to Writing Craft” into a PDF file. I had had experience of doing this before, at least with simpler files. So that was quite straightforward.

cover-first-page

The next step was more challenging for me as a novice publisher: Transferring the Pdf file into an ePub file.ebook-cover-on-apple-books

I was ultimately able to do this, only after several failed attempts.

The cover turned out to be a default template, which I decided to go along with at this stage.

I now declare that I am the author and publisher of an eBook entitled An Introduction to Writing Craft, that I have stored on my laptop computer in my Apple Books application. My next step is learning how to share it with subscribers to my blog.  Or shall I share the PDF file instead?

How to create an ebook in 5 easy steps… was last modified: March 21st, 2019 by Anne Skyvington
how is the term macro skills used here?wha is a lead magnet?what does PDF stand for?what is a CTA?what is a pdf file?what is an ebook?what is an ePub file?
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Anne Skyvington

I have been a reader/writer all of my life as far back as I can remember. Blogging has opened me up to another world, where I can share my skills and continue to create through word and picture. Writing is about seeing the world and recreating it for others to see through different eyes.

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About Me

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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