Day 5
Okay! Today's the day! By the end of this chapter, you'll have your very first e-book! Do you feel it yet? Do you feel like that guy who’s running the mile and is coming around the final turn and can see the finish line? You should! You’ve done a LOT of work to get here. But, now isn't the time to slow down … it's the time to do what the milers call “kick it”. That’s where you suck it up, reach down and get all you have in you and run as fast as you can!
That's exactly what we're going to do in this chapter. We're going to cover a whole lot … in great detail and at a pretty fast pace. Why? Momentum! You're excited right now because you can smell, taste that e-book. I want that enthusiasm you’re feeling right now to come out in your writing … it'll make a HUGE difference in the words you choose, in how you put those words together … in how your book sounds to your readers…in how well it sells!
So…let’s get going!
I'm going to be talking a LOT about Microsoft Word in this chapter. Most people have this installed already. If you don't have Word, you can go to http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.1/index.html and download Sun Microsystems Open Office. It’s a great office suite… has a TON of features, most of which are almost entirely identical to Word features (sometimes better)…and it’s FREE! Please save yourself some frustration and use either Word or Open Office. Microsoft Works just doesn’t do some of the things you’ll need to do with your book.
Now, you still have that yellow legal pad you were working with in the last chapter, I hope? The one with all of the things you wanted to say about your topic…and all of the explanatory details you added to those points.
Good, grab it and sit down in front of Word (Open Office) and let’s get going on your book.
Okay, the first thing we’re going to do is actually construct your book. I've found over the years that this really helps me get everything straight in my head before I even get started doing a lot of writing…I’m sure it will help you as well.
Go ahead and open Word up and get a new page started. Then, before you type a word on the page, minimize it!
Let's go get a cover picture for your book first. You can easily find just about any type of picture you want at a couple of sites I've found over the last several months. The first site will cost you a little bit of money…about $1.00 a picture…but it is well worth it! It’s called I -Stock www.istock.com They have more pictures there than you can shake a stick at! The deal is that you have to set up an account with them and fund that account with, at least, $10.00. Then, you can grab any picture you want…most are $1.00…download it and use it till your heart's content. Well worth the money! The pictures are excellent quality and are big enough so you don’t have to stretch them and get them all out of whack.
The second site, stockexchange, http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml has a TON of free-use pictures. You have to read the individual license, but you'll find a bunch of great pictures there as well as some paid ones. They work the money the same way that Istock does.
So, go grab you a picture, save it to your hard drive someplace where you can find it again and let’s get back to Word.
What we're going to do is actually build the book first … before you even start writing it!
You're very first page is going to be your cover page with the picture you just downloaded, the title, your name and the copyright statement. Look at the cover of this e-book to see what I'm talking about here.
Remember that list of things you wanted to say about your topic … the one with the sub-topics written in right below each main topic? That’s going to be your guide for writing starting right now. The first main topic will be your first chapter. The sub-topics underneath of it will be the paragraphs for that particular chapter.
So, go ahead and put your first topic at the top of your first REAL page and start writing. Now, you have 5-7 sub-topics there. Let's say your first sub-topic is “Ducks in Egypt”. All you need to do is write a paragraph that says just that. Something like: Mallard Ducks were first domesticated, but there is some evidence to suggest that the Egyptians used ducks in religious sacrifice (see picture which shows Akhenaten sacrificing a duck, ca. 1353-1336 B.C).
The first written reference to ducks was… you get the idea. Write 3-4 sentences about each sub-topic and then, when you finished that idea, move on to the next sub-topic.
When you’ve finished your sub-topics, you’ve just about finished the chapter. Do a last paragraph that summarizes the chapter and then a sentence that introduces the next chapter and then you’re done!
See how simple that is? It really cuts the BIG task of writing a book into much more manageable tasks…a chapter…a paragraph at a time!
One VERY important thing here! Unless you're a college professor who’s writing to other college professors, don’t try to sound like one! Make what you say sound exactly like what you’d say if you and I were sitting on your front porch or on your living room couch and just talking. Envision telling your Uncle Jim about ducks and then just write those words. Don’t use a lot of big words or