Take Ebooks, for instance!



Conservation oriented folks (and really, that should be all of us) will be glad to know that an Ebook is not made up of dead, pulped trees, but rather, is nothing more than the author's work, converted into a collection of electrons, which can then be viewed and read on a computer monitor.

An Ebook can be downloaded from a web site, saved to one's own computer, and then opened, stored away again, and then re-opened as often as desired, to be read when it's convenient for the reader.

At present, that reading will take place in front of a computer monitor though I don't think it will be too many more years before we're all carrying around electronic "readers" that will allow us to enjoy reading, eye strain free, the hundreds of Ebooks on all topics in the unit's memory, all without felling a single tree to make paper.

But Ebook readers are an article for another time.

Are you a writer? Want to get published quickly and inexpensively?

Let's say you've written the next great story. For some reason, you've not been able to get a publisher interested in publishing your best seller, and the cost of self-publishing on paper far exceeds your budget.

A low cost option is for you to publish an Ebook that contains your great story.

How do you do that?

Assuming that you've written your story using a computer rather than handwriting or typing it onto a piece of paper, the word processing program you've used will have enabled you to save the story in some sort of file.

You can use that file and convert your story into a .pdf file format.

A .pdf file is a Portable Document File (hence the acronym .pdf) which makes the document portable electronically. The .pdf can now be moved from computer to computer using the internet.

Why publish your Ebook yourself?

Converting your story or article into a .pdf file means that you can upload your own Ebooks to a website. Having your story or article as a .pdf on that site now makes it available to be downloaded by anyone in the world, either at no cost or for a fee, from that site.

Further, by creating a professional looking .pdf, the author can offer the reader virtually any size of typeface, almost any font style, include full color photographs and links to other media, including sound and video files.

Imagine, I'm reading your fantastic story and there's a locale somewhere in the world that is pertinent to the storyline. You have added a link in the text that takes me, the reader, to a website giving me all the details needed about that locale, or even to the author's own video or slideshow about that site.

The process of creating an Ebook isn't too complex though many authors will leave the technical side of publishing their Ebooks to others, preferring to concentrate on the writing rather than the publishing.

You can have your Ebook formatted, photographs added, videos or sound links created, have it converted to .pdf format, and offered for sale on your own custom website for sale for a remarkably low sum of money.