When you're weighing the pros and cons of investing so much time into a project you have to take many things into consideration; however, monetary investment isn't one of them. I am often amused by the stories of people who have spent hundreds of dollars for formatting and distributing an eBook when everything you could possibly need is available completely free of charge. I know this, because I did it.

The seven most useful resources I found for creating, publishing and selling an eBook were all free. I've listed them here, so you can get start your own eBusiness today.

1. Create your eBook in your favorite word processing program. Many people use Microsoft Word or Word Perfect. You can sell your eBook in these formats, but the most popular eBook format is called PDF. Unlike other file formats, a PDF can be read by anyone with Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free program most people have. It's available at:

http://www.adobe.com.

You can also convert your eBook into PDF format for free at the Adobe site:

https://createpdf.adobe.com/.

All you have to do is sign up. If you want to include active hyperlinks that will enable readers to click out the book and onto the internet or to click to different places within the book, you need to use the paid version, though. If you want hyperlinks and don't want to pay any money, there's a great little program called PDF995 available at:

http://www.pdf995.com.

First, convert your document to PDF format and then use another free program available from the same company called PDFedit995, to activate your hyperlinks. I've tested the free version several times and it works great. You have to tolerate some ads, though.

So there you have it, an eBook, ready to go and formatted for free.

2. Now you need a place to sell your eBook. If you already have a website, that's great. If you don't, there are many places that offer free web space. The biggest complaint about these sites is the pop up ads, so avoid using sites that have them.

3. The next hurdle to selling an eBook is how to collect the money. You can sell through a publisher like Booklocker.com, or you can handle transactions yourself. You will need a merchant account with the major credit card companies to do this, but there are online companies that will handle these transactions for you without a merchant account, such as Paypal.com and Stormpay.com.

4. Now you're up and running, but how do you let people know about your book? There are plenty of free advertising spots on the internet that allow you to list your eBook, announce it, offer sample chapters and even publish author interviews. Many do not require you to link back to them. These sites are not always easy to find, and after months of compiling a list of URLs and testing them, I decided to sell an eDoc that would save others the many hours I spent on the internet searching. You can purchase the list at:

http://www.authorscafe.com.

If you read through back issues of the Author's Caf? newsletter (sign-up is free) you will also find the URLs for several free listing sites, although some of those may be out of date.

5. Another great way to promote your eBook is by publishing a newsletter. I watched my monthly eZine grow one member at a time and I now have more than 600 subscribers. You can start your own newsletter at:

http://www.topica.com

6. Don't forget to write and submit articles. When I get slack about submitting free articles for other people to publish in their eZines, I immediately notice it in my sales? figures. To find sites that will accept articles in your genre simply go to any search engine and type in ?free articles.''

Editors note:

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