晓闻心雨

本文转载自wordpress啦

时间永远都不够用，最理想的情况当然是你可以很频繁地更新你的博客文章，写出优秀的访客文章与其他博主 建立良好的关系，对每一个评论都认真回复等等，但是要做完这所有的一切并不是每个人都可以做到的。或许你曾考虑过制作一本电子书作为博客的补充，但是却苦 于没有时间精力来做这件事。

既然你已经明确了制作电子书的理由，你也从其他免费博客上下载过免费的电子书，应该可以知道电子书的优势所在:

• 免费电子书可以被用做“诱惑内容”以吸引用户的注册。
• 免费电子书会带来很大的流量: 它们可让更多的人可以念念碎碎，并还会带来链接。
• 在你的网站上提供电子书会改变读者对网站的看法:他们会把你当成是blogging世界中一个非常“重量级人物”。

不过，当然电子书的制作比单纯的发表文章要难得多。一本25页的电子书，其字数就可能有四千或者更多，然后你还要认真编辑仔细校对(一旦人么开始发 电子邮件订购的时候，你就不太可能再去修改哪些令人尴尬的排版错误或是一些无效的链接)，如果你想让你的电子书看起来更专业点，有必要安装PDF软件以及 电子书封面的软件，之后，随着你就可以开始电子书制作了…

撰写电子书并不是件很容易的事情，很多blogger都没有尝试过。这也是为什么这里提倡大家制作的原因：如果你能写出高质量的电子书，那么你就能比别人高出一筹了。

这里我跟大家分享下我只会十三个小时的时间完成电子书的撰写、发表并最终推出我的免费电子书，大家也可以做到的。我的时间是这样分配的:

• 列出提纲: 30 分钟
• 内容第一稿: 4小时
• 添加一些图片: 一个小时三十分钟(主要都是我男朋友在做！)
• 编辑和修改文章内容，插入所有链接: 3小时
• 附录资源: 1小时
• 设置封面: 小时三十分钟
• 转换为pdf: 几乎瞬间完成！
• 最后定稿审阅和检查链接: 15 分钟
• 推出电子书并推广: 1小时15分钟

我是分成四天来完成所有的任务: 我是一个自由职业者，因此我的时间安排是相当灵活的，虽然偶尔也会接一些付费的活儿来干。

下面是我制作电子书的十三步骤，与大家分享:

步骤一: 想法

你要对电子书有明确的概念。电子书不同于博客上随便发表的一篇文章，也不是单纯的博客，你的内容范围不能太泛泛而谈。从你的博客上挑选一个类别的文章，或者能组成一个系列的某个话题相关的文章。

我想制作电子书也有一段时间了，但是也经常因为自己的老借口“等我有更多时间的时候再说吧，”而推迟。后来，两篇相关的博文激起了我的灵感 ，我很自然就想到写电子书(辞去你的工作)。我下决心要推出这本电子书，很快在我完成这个系列的第一篇文章之后的一周，我的电子书就与大家见面了…

步骤二: 告诉你的读者

告诉你的读者在未来的一周或者两周，你将会发布一本电子书。这样以来，一方面这个时间期限会时时鞭策你，另一方面大家的关心也会激励你。

你可以通过在博客文章、Twitter或者时事新闻栏发表通告。要传达出一种兴奋的感觉:告诉读者将会有电子书“馈赠”或者“倾情奉献”。这是获得 大家支持的一个序幕。我个人觉得“赠送” 这个词的含义不够好，目前赠送的东西也太多了，总让人觉得有种“便宜”、“垃圾”之类的含义，不过或许每个人的感觉不一样。

步骤三: 列出提纲

如果你经常写比较长的文章，你可能已经养成了比较好的习惯，就是在动手写之前先列出提纲。特别是写电子书，这一点显得特别重要: 你也不希望写了好几个小时之后，发现自己跑题了。你也不希望，面对着电脑屏幕在那边苦思冥想，却不知道接下来该写什么。

打开一个空白文档，或者坐下来拿起一张纸和一支笔，写下电子书的大纲。每个人列提纲的方式或许会不同，我通常是这么做的:

• 花上五分钟在心里构思: 在纸张的中心写下你的电子书名或者主题，然后记下脑袋冒出的所有想法。
• 删除那些超过电子书范围的观点。对剩下的观点，按照一定的逻辑有序地排列。(我通常都是标出这个观点接下来的那一个。)
• 按顺序写出提纲列表。这些就将成文电子书的部分或者说是电子书的章节。
• 在每个部分下面列出至少两个要点或者一两句话: 这些将成为你要叙述的要点。有时候，在每个部分内，你还需要小标题。
• 如果看到一些图片或者资料（书，博客等），你有所启迪的话，也在这里记录下来。

这听起来有点复杂，不过如果你能够认真坐下来安静地写上一个小时，相信你会列出一个非常完整的提纲。 一旦你列出了书的章节之后，粗略地想想每个章节要多长比较合适。如果你的目标是四千字左右: 就差不多是25页的电子书了。

步骤四: 内容初稿

这一步骤应该是大多数blogger最为畏惧的，要写这么多的文字的确是件很恐怖的事情。如果你真得感到如此恐惧，不妨把电子书想象成一系列相关联的博客文章(每个小标题就像是新的一篇博文)。这里，提纲就起作用了，有了提纲，你才可以把电子书分块来写。

这里有四个秘诀应该也会对大家有帮助:

第一: 拒绝分心

写作的时候，一定要注意避免分心，这一点很重要。这意味着在未完成写作之前，不要接收邮件，不要上Twitter和Facebook。你不必要一次性完成写作，不过至少要求自己一次能花上两个小时，或者给自己设定目标完成一定章节的书写。

如果你的家人或者室友会打扰到你，试试花上几个小时的时间到一家安静的咖啡厅或者图书馆，一个人静静地完成。 如果你觉得很难集中注意力，你就全屏来撰写，关闭所有的网络连接。

第二: 不要边写边修改

这是初稿，先别过分注意文章的质量。不要不断地修改以求完美，只管写就行。 写完之后你可以回来重新修改: 你目前的任务很简单，就是单纯完成初稿。

第三: 不要停下来查找资料

不要停下来去查找你想插入的链接、引言或者数据。只要在正文部分注明就好了。我倾向于用中括号[像这样]注明。写了一段或者一个句子然后又停下来，会打断你的思路… 你很可能因为找引言而分心。

第四: 初稿的时候不要在意格式

电子书最终完成后会有漂亮的封面，章标题，节标题，粗体正文，斜体正文列表等等…

但是初稿就不用在意这些东西，只要其中的一些甚至都不用也可以。 太注意格式也会让你分心，而且正文还没有完全写完，这些格式也不一定最终用得上，你最后会发现变化还是非常大的。

写初稿的时候，尽量最少用这些格式。注意标题的小标题的格式 (可以使用word中的式样，不要每个标题单独弄)，其它都可以等文章最后完成了再来处理。

步骤五: 添加图片

初稿完成之后，给你的电子书添加必要的图片。使用什么类型的图片就要取决你的电子书的主题了，你可以参考下面的:

• 图表可以很直观地显示数据。
• 图示可以用来解释一些复杂的概念。
• 插图或者照片作为文字的补充。
• 小图形来突出提示、警告或引言。

在插入图片的时候要注意别犯破坏文本完整性这样的错误。如果很巧妙地处理好字体与设计元素的关系，你就没必要用图片来补充你的电子书。如果图片不能给读者带来很好的体验的话，没必要浪费这么多时间来找这些图片。

找图片的时候还要注意版权问题。如果你使用来自Flickr 上有注明版权的图片，请在先获得许可并在你的电子书上加上作者的链接。如果要节省开支，你可以考虑从istockphoto或者fotolia上购买图片。

在这个阶段，你需要把图片放置在一个合适的位置，因为你可能需要改变图片周围的注释文字或者是与其他图片联系起来。

步骤六: 修改和编辑文章内容

完成了你的初稿，也是最难的部分。现在可以开始修改编辑润化你的文章了。跟写初稿一样，你得找一个不受别人打扰的时间和地点:比较容易犯的错误就是忘记删除那些“[提醒]” 。 跟最初写文章一样，你进来修改了。它还可以一步步教你如何改写和编辑整个文件，而不是告诉你一页页如何做到最完美。

我修改文章的步骤是这样的:

• 修改结构
• 编辑添加的引言、例子和链接
• 修改使其通顺流畅以及语气问题

第一: 修改结构

初次修改主要是“大框架”:确保你的章节顺序正确并涵盖了所有你要叙述的要点。从第一页开始快速地通读整本书。注意:

• 换一换不同节的顺序是不是更好？
• 注意不同章节中重复的部分
• 太短的章节(是否需要再扩展下，更详尽一点？)
• 太长的章节(剔除多余的内容！)

第二: 编辑添加的引言、例子和链接

一旦，大结构定下来以后，你就可以决定在哪里输入引言和例子更合适。这将会跟电子书的格式相关，但也有要注意的地方:

• 如果一个章节中文字内容过多的话，可以使用一个例子、引言、提示框、个案研究等来调节调节。
• 创建一个模式：例如， 每章都以一个引言或个案研究作为开头或结尾。
• 在每章后面附上所有的链接，以方便参考。(虽然你在正文里已经做好链接了。)

很可能为了使加入的引言、例子或者个案研究取得更好的效果，你在一些句子或者段落中来来回回修改。

第三: 修改使其通顺流畅以及语气问题

修改所有听起来拗口或者模棱两可的句子。可以尝试大声阅读你的电子书：这样你就会知道哪些句子太长或者句式过于复杂。
同时，也可以检查你整本电子书中的语气是否一致。是否有一开始的时候像闲聊而后面却正儿八经的感觉呢？如果你不是一个天生的幽默家，请确保你所添加的笑话或者双关的话语是滑稽的。

步骤七: 给电子书添加格式

文本内容结束之后，你可以给所有的内容添加格式了。设置好你所有的标题和小标题，确保使用了word的“样式和格式”功能。不要手动一个个设置字体大小和格式。这样不仅效率不高，而且这样你还无法自动生成目录，这一点更为关键。

给你的文本和标题选择一个比较现代的并且容易阅读的字体。文本和标题的字体都应该尽量大一些，比你在工作或是学习中的字体大些。

除了章节标题的格式之外，你还在其他博客中见到过其他一些格式选项，包括:

• 使用粗体来强调关键要点斜体来强调一些字词。
• 把引言设置成区别于主体文本的形式(如，锯齿状的或在一个方框中)。
• 使用杂志风格的“pull box”来提示。
• 把一些段落分点列出，以引起读者的注意。

你还可以给每个页面添加一个页眉或页脚，至少可以添加下页码。如果考虑在每个页面添加电子书的标题作为页眉页脚，你还可以加上你的名字，版权或者是你的博客地址。

注意，如果你的电子书需要一个封面的话(我推荐使用)，你可以在首页显示不同的页眉、页脚。

步骤八:添加目录和附录表

想要让你的电子书脱颖而出，一个比较简单的办法是添加下目录和附录表。专业的电子书(和纸书)都有这些东西，为何不给你的电子书也添加呢？

目录

如果在设置标题的时候，你使用了word中的样式和格式功能，那么添加目录是毫不费力的事情。你只需在你的图书的开头插入一个新的页面，(Word 2007),插入中“引用”选项，然后点击“目录和索引”。

Word会自动生成标题、小标题以及页码。以后如果修改内容的话，只要点击目录可自动“更新”。下面是我的电子书的目录：

附录表

在我的电子书中，我想在书的后面添加一些内容供有兴趣的读者进一步阅读。放在书的正文部分又不太合适，所以我创建了附录表。
根据书的主题，你的附录表可以是:

• 关于一些东西的快速教程，可能有些读者知道，有些读者不知道 (你不想把这些教程放在书中，因为那些不懂的人可能直接跳过)。
• 推荐资源列表，如网站、博客、书、产品、服务等等
• “备忘录”以供读者打印，特别在技术领域比较流行
• 每一章后的注意和参考指南，通常是在更加科学性的书中出现。

创建附录表也很简单，只要重新建一个新的页面，写上标题“附录表” (或者，你想要多个附录表，就写“附录一”, “附录二” 等等。)

步骤九: 创建封面和图片

所有的艰难部分，写文章和格式已经搞定了: 剩下一个比较有意思的部分就是给你的电子书创建封面。

我建议你花点钱去建一个比较好的封面。从istockphoto或者fotolia 选择一些抢眼的图片。最好是不要使用太复杂的图片(因为，你将要在你的博客中使用电子书的封面缩略图来宣传你的电子书。)。

我不是设计师，我花了不少时间才使我的封面看起来不那么业余。你可以邀请一些比较有设计眼光的朋友帮你，下面仍有几点供你参考:

• 电子书的题目务必使用大并且清晰的字体
• 小标题使用稍微小一点的字体。
• 坚持只使用一两种颜色。
• 多看看一些设计和布局方案，选出你最喜欢的。

一旦你完成了封面的制作后，封面成为电子书的第一页，你可以截屏下来保存为.jpg格式。它会让你的图片看起来像书的模样，就如我的封面：

该软件的使用也非常简单和直观，这也向读者发送了很强大的信号：你是一个非常专业的写手。

步骤十: 把电子书转换为PDF格式

最初写电子书的时候，我使用了很多把文件转换为PDF格式的免费软件，有个问题，它们无法完整地保存链接除非我完完整整地写好链接。比如 www.aliventures.com 这样写的话这个链接是有效的，但是写成Aliventures 链接却无效了。也就是说他们不能保持原来的链接，读者无法进入点击的内容页面。

几个月前，我买了Adobe公司的crobat第八版，花费100美元。我觉得每次都要手动花时间去整这个链接的话，从长远来讲还更不划算。作为一 个写手，这是相当的的一笔开始，因此，我建议你跟我一样，在易趣上找下以前更老的版本(我写这篇文章时，最新的版本应该是第九版，因此你可以找找第七或第 八版)。这能满足你的需求，与最新的版本相比花费也可以省不少。

你也可以看看你公司或者学校有没有Adobe Acrobat。或者在Twitter 上看看有没有朋友愿意帮你转换格式。

我使用过最好的免费转换软件是pdf995，如果上述办法都行不通的话，你可以试试这个。

注意: 如果你安装了 Word 2007你可以使用“保存为PDF格式”的功能。我自己不使用这个 (因为我有Adobe Acrobat) 我不能担保使用word2007的效果如何，是否能够保持所有的链接完整。知道的朋友，可以回复留言。

步骤十一: 最后校对和检查链接

转换成PDF格式后，最后检查下错别字之类的。在这个阶段就尽量不要去做大的修改，要不然你会做不完的工作要做。只要检查比较明显的错误就可以了。
这是二次检查链接的机会，以防链接转向出错之类的。

步骤十二: 发表和宣传

与撰写和制作电子书整个过程相比，在你的博客上发布电子书显得比较容易。你可以选择博客程序中的“上传” (在Wordpress中选择媒体->添加新的媒体)功能上传你的电子书，也可以用FTP程序来上传。

写一篇新的文章告诉你的读者你发表了电子书。使用之前创建的图书封面 (不管是通过eCover Software Pro程序弄的立体图片还是单纯的平面图)。

接着就是宣传了。在Twitter上念叨，发送邮件通知博客朋友，以确保你的电子书在他们的博客上也能成为人们谈论话题。你还可以考虑给当地的新闻出版社 投稿说明。

步骤十三:休息放松!

最好，给自己好好放松一番。电子书出来了，你博客也获得了很多新的访问者。给自己来一杯葡萄酒、啤酒、或者咖啡……接着开始想你的下一本电子书了。

附原文：

Thirteen Steps to Write and Publish a Free Ebook In Thirteen Hours

Have you ever considered producing an ebook for your blog readers? In this comprehensive post Ali Hale breaks down the process of how to do it.

There’s never enough time. In an ideal world, you’d be posting to your blog frequently, writing great guest posts, building relationships with other bloggers, and responding to every single comment … and all that’s more than you can manage. You might have considered writing an ebook as a companion to your blog, but you just can’t find the time or the energy for it.

You already know all the reasons to do it: you’ve downloaded your share of free ebooks from other blogs, and you’ve seen that:

• Free ebooks can be used as what Sonia Simone calls “cookie content”, to entice newsletter sign-ups
• Free ebooks can be a great traffic draw: they get twittered about and linked to
• Just having a free ebook available on your site will subtly shift readers’ perceptions: they’ll see you as one of the “big guys” of the blogging world

But, of course, an ebook is harder to create than a blog post. A 25-page ebook is 4,000 words or more; you have to edit and proof-read carefully (once people are emailing that ebook to one another, you can’t fix that embarrassing typo or broken link); you’ll need PDF and ebook cover software if you want it to look professional; you have to launch it with a bang…

Writing an ebook isn’t an easy undertaking, and it’s something a lot of bloggers never do. That’s why, if you do write a high-quality free ebook, you’re going to stand out.

Here’s how I wrote, published and launched my free ebook in just thirteen hours and how you could do the same. My time broke down like this:

• Writing an outline: 30 minutes
• First draft of content: 4 hours
• Adding some graphics: 1 hour 30 mins (mostly my boyfriend’s work!)
• Redrafting and editing, inserting all links: 3 hours
• Appendix of resources: 1 hour
• Creating a cover: 1 hour 30 mins
• Converting to pdf: almost instant!
• Final proof-read and link-checking: 15 minutes
• Launching and spreading the word: 1 hour 15 minutes

I spread the tasks above across four days: I’m a freelancer so my schedule’s quite flexible, but I do have to do a bit of paying work once in a while!

And here’s your 13-step guide to doing the same:

Step 1: Get an Idea

You need a clear concept for your ebook. An ebook isn’t a blog post – but it’s not a blog either: don’t make it a general overview of your niche (especially if it’s quite broad). Pick one category from your blog, or a topic which would make a series of blog posts.

I’d wanted to create a free ebook for a while, but it was one of those things I thought I’d get around to “when I have a bit more time”. Then I came up with an idea for a mini-series of two linked posts (Reframing Work #1: Ditching Drudgery and the Conventional View of “Work” and Reframing Work #2: Min Hours, Max Cash – or Do What You Love?) which would lead very naturally to the ebook (Quit Your Day Job). I decided I was going to go ahead and launch it, a week after the first post in the series. This led to…

Step 2: Tell Your Readers

Tell your readers that you’ll be bringing out a free ebook in a week or two weeks’ time. It’s amazing how a deadline – and public accountability – can motivate you!

You might want to make the announcement in a post, on Twitter, or to your newsletter list. Communicate a sense of excitement: tell readers you have a “treat” or “goodies” coming up. This is part of the pre-launch process of getting a buzz going. I personally find the word “freebie” can have a bit of a connotation of something cheap and rubbishy – but you might think differently!

Step 3: Write the Outline

If you write long blog posts, you might already be in the habit of outlining before you begin. With an ebook, this is crucial: you don’t want to write for hours only to find you’ve wandered far off-topic. Neither do you want to sit staring at a blank screen, wondering what you’re going to say next.

Open up a blank document or sit down with a piece of paper and write an outline before you go any further with your ebook. Everyone has different ways of doing this, but one which works well for me is:

• Spend five minutes mind-mapping: write down your ebook’s title or theme in the centre of a piece of paper, then jot down all the points that come to mind
• Eliminate any points which are too broad for the ebook’s scope. Order the rest in a logical sequence (I just jot a number next to each)
• Type or write out the list in order. These are your subsections or chapters in the ebook.
• Jot down at least two bullet points for each section, or a couple of sentences: these are the main points you’re going to make. Sometimes, you’ll want subheadings within each section.
• If you think of a great idea for a graphic, or a resource (book, blog, etc) to recommend, write that down here too.

It might sound complicated, but if you sit down for an uninterrupted half-hour, you can easily get a complete outline written.

Once you’ve got a list of sections and subsections, think about roughly how long each will need to be. Aim for a total of around 4,000 words: this is about right for a 25-page ebook set in a large font: I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

Step 4: Draft the Content

This step is the one which many bloggers find daunting – writing enough words to fill an ebook. If it seems overwhelming, try thinking about your ebook as a series of linked blog posts (with each subheading starting off a new post). Your outline really helps here, because it breaks writing your ebook into manageable chunks.

And these four tips should help too:

First: Get Rid of Distractions

It’s crucial that you avoid distractions while you’re writing. That means keeping away from emails, Twitter and Facebook till you’re done. You don’t need to write the whole ebook in one go – but try to give yourself a block of at least two hours to work on it, or set yourself the goal of drafting a certain number of sections.

If your family or housemates are likely to interrupt you, try heading off to a coffee shop or library for a few hours.

If you find it hard to concentrate, try using a full screen text program (I like Dark Room), or switch off your internet connection!

Second: Don’t Edit As You Write

This is your first draft, so forget any worries about the quality of your writing. Don’t keep editing sentences to try to make them perfect – just move on. You can come back and rewrite later: your current task is simply to get a complete draft down.

Third: Don’t Stop to Look Things Up

Don’t stop to look up links, quotes or statistics that you want to include. Just make a note to yourself in the body of the text. I tend to enclose these in square brackets [like this]. Stopping part-way through a paragraph or sentence breaks your flow … and it’s very easy to start looking up one quote and get distracted!

Fourth: Don’t Format While Drafting

Your finished ebook is going to be a visual masterpiece, with a cover page, section headings, subsection headings, bold text, italic text, lists, maybe tables and specially-formatted blockquotes…

Your first draft, however, should have few or none of these. It’s easy to get distracted with formatting, and it’s also inefficient to format before all the text’s written – you’ll find yourself changing a lot of things around.

Keep your formatting to a bare minimum while you’re drafting. You might find it useful to format headers and subheaders (make sure you know how to use styles in Word – don’t edit each header separately) – but the rest can wait.

Step 5: Add Any Graphics

Once the draft is complete, add any graphics that you want to include in your ebook. The type of graphics you use will depend on the topic of your ebook, but you might want to consider:

• Charts to show statistics in a visual, instant way
• Diagrams to explain complex concepts
• Illustrations or photographs to complement the text
• Small graphics to highlight tips, warnings or quotes

Don’t make the mistake of just using pictures to break up the text. If you use a large font size and use design elements well (just as you would in a blog post), then you don’t need to stuff your ebook with pictures. Graphics used for the sake of it don’t add much to the reading experience, and finding or creating suitable images can use up a lot of your time.

When you’re looking for graphics, be mindful of copyright laws. If you’re using images from Flickr licensed under Creative Commons, make sure you credit and link to the owner in the ebook. If you have a small budget for the ebook, you might consider buying stock photos from istockphoto or fotolia.

You should get your graphics in place at this stage because you may want to change around some of the text to explain or to tie in with the images you’ve chosen.

Step 6: Redraft and Edit Your Text

You’ve got your first draft done – the hardest part’s over. Now it’s time to revise, edit and polish your ebook until it shines!

As with the first draft, you need to find some uninterrupted time and space for this: it’s all too easy to make mistakes or forget to remove those “[notes to self]” when you’re getting interrupted.

It also helps if you follow a step-by-step method, working on one aspect of the redrafting and editing throughout the whole document, rather than trying to perfect each page as you go along.

My process for redrafting and editing is as follows:

• Edit for Structure
• Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links
• Edit for Flow and Tone

First: Edit for Structure

Your first round of edits deal with the “big picture”: making sure that your chapters or sections are in the right order and cover all the points you wanted to make. Start at page one and read, fairly quickly, through the whole ebook. Look out for:

• Sections which would work better in a different order
• Places where you’ve repeated yourself in two different sections
• Sections which are too short (you may need to expand and give more detail)
• Sections which are too long (cut any waffle!)

Second: Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links

Once you’ve got the broad structure right, you can decide where best to enter quotes and examples. This will depend on the format of your ebook, but some things you may want to consider are:

• Using an example, quote, tips box or case study to break up a long section of text
• Creating a pattern: eg. opening or ending each section with a quote or case study
• Putting all the links at the end of each sections for easy reference (even if you also link in the body of the text)

You may find that you need to move around a few sentences or paragraphs in order to make the quote, example or case study work well.

Third: Edit for Flow and Tone

Rewrite any sentences which sound clumsy or which are ambiguous. You might like to try reading your ebook aloud: this often highlights any over-long or complicated sentences!

This is also a good point to check that you’ve used a consistent tone of voice throughout your ebook. Did you start off chatty but then drop into a more formal style? If you’re not a naturally humorous writer, make sure that any jokes or puns you’ve included really are funny.

Step 7: Format Your Ebook

Now that the text is complete, go through and get everything into the right format. Set all your headers and subheaders, making sure that you use the “Styles and Formatting” feature of Word (or your chosen word processing program). Don’t set the font size and style each heading manually. It’s not only inefficient, it stops you making an automatic table of contents – more on that in a moment!

(You might want to read up on Styles and Formatting, if you’re not sure how to use this feature.)

Choose a modern, easy-to-read font for your text and for your headings. Make both text and headings quite large – bigger than you’d use in a document for work or school. As I mentioned in Step 3, I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

As well as formatting your section headings, you’ll also want to use some of the formatting options that you’re familiar with from blogging. This might include:

• Using bold to emphasise key points, and italics for emphasised words
• Setting out quotes in a different style (eg. indented, or in a box) from the main text
• Using a magazine-style “pull box” for quick tips
• Breaking some paragraphs into lists, to help keep the reader’s attention

You’ll also want to put a header or footer on each page with, at the very least, the page number. Consider including the title of the ebook in the header/footer on each page (in case readers print it out). You could also put your name, your copyright notice, or the URL of your blog.

Note that if you’re including a cover (and I recommend that you do), you can tell Word to use a different header and footer on the first page.

Step 8: Add a Table of Contents and Appendix

An easy way to make your ebook instantly stand out from the crowd is to add a table of contents and/or an appendix. Professional ebooks (and paper books!) have these – so why shouldn’t yours?

Table of Contents

If you’ve used Word’s Styles and Formatting feature to set up your headers, it’s really easy to add a table of contents. Just insert a new page at the start of your ebook, and (in Word 2007), go to the “References” tab, then click “Table of Contents” on the far left.

Word will automatically lay out the table with the headings, subheadings and page numbers. If you change the ebook after creating the table of contents, simply right-click on it and “update”. This is the table of contents from my ebook:

Appendix

In my ebook, I wanted to supply some ideas for further reading at the end. These didn’t fit with the body of the text, so I created an appendix.

Depending on your ebook’s subject, your appendix could be:

• A quick tutorial on something which some of your readers will understand but others won’t (you don’t want to put this in the middle of your ebook as those who “get it” will start skipping)
• A list of recommended resources, like websites, blogs, books, products, services…
• A “cheat sheet” for readers to print out – popular in technical fields
• A list of notes and references for each section – often in more scientific books

Creating an appendix is simply a matter of starting a new page and putting the header “Appendix” (or, if you want multiple appendices, “Appendix 1”, “Appendix 2” etc.)

Step 9: Create Your Front Cover – And a Graphic

All the hard work of writing and formatting the text is done: here’s the fun part – creating your ebook cover!

I’d recommend spending a couple of dollars when creating your cover. Look through istockphoto or fotolia for a great, eye-catching image. Ideally, you want something without too much detail (as you’ll be using a thumbnail of the cover pic on your blog, to advertise the ebook).

I’m no designer, and it took me some time to make a cover that didn’t look hopelessly amateur! You might want to enlist a friend with a good eye for design, though some quick tips are:

• Use a big, clear font for the title of your ebook
• Consider having a subtitle or strapline in a smaller font
• Stick to just two or three colours
• Come up with a few designs or layouts and pick the one you like best

Once you’ve put your cover in as the first page as your ebook, take a screenshot and save it as a .jpg. If you can afford to spend a bit more (currently $27), I highly recommend a piece of software called eCover Software Pro, which I’ve reviewed here. It allows you to “drop” that image onto a book-shaped template, so that it looks something like this:

It’s very straightforward and intuitive to use, and it’s a powerful way to send readers the signal that you’re a serious problogger.

Step 10: Convert Your Ebook to a PDF

When I first started creating ebooks, I tried out a lot of different free options for turning Word documents into PDF files. The problem was, they didn’t keep links unless the links were written out as a full URL – so www.aliventures.com would remain as a link, but Aliventures wouldn’t! This also meant that they didn’t keep in the links that “jump” the reader from the contents page to the entry that they’ve clicked on.

A few months ago, I bought version 8 of Adobe’s Acrobat software – which cost over $100. I realised that spending hours trying to put the links back in manually each time would cost me a lot more, in the long term. It is a big outlay when you’re starting out as a ProBlogger, so I’d recommend doing what I did – look on ebay for a slightly older version of Adobe (as I write this, 9 is the current version, so look for 8 or 7). This will be just as good for your purposes, and will cost a bit less than the latest.

You could also see if your workplace or college has Adobe Acrobat. Or ask on Twitter to see if a willing friend can convert it for you! (You’re welcome to send me a Tweet if I can lend a hand.)

The best free option I’ve used was pdf995, so if all else fails, give that a try!

Note: If you have Word 2007, you can use the “Publish as PDF” feature. I’ve not used this myself (since I have Adobe Acrobat) so I can’t vouch for how good it is or whether it will include all links. If anyone knows, do tell us in the comments!

Step 11: Final Proof-Read and Link Check

Once you’ve got your PDF file, go through and do one last check for typos. Try not to get tempted to do much editing at this stage … you could carry on tweaking for ever. Just check for anything that’s obviously wrong.

This is a good point to double-check that all the links are working – just in case anything hasn’t converted properly, or in case you put a link in wrong.

Step 12: Publish and Publicise

Publishing the ebook on your blog is easy, compared with all the work of creating it! You can either upload it using your blog software’s “upload” function (go to Media->Add New in Wordpress), or you can use an FTP program to do so.

Create a new post telling people about your ebook, using the cover image that you created (either with eCover Software Pro or as a “flat” looking image).

Then get the word out! Tweet about it, ask for retweets, send emails to blogger friends – though do make sure your ebook will be on-topic for their blog. You might even consider writing a press release to send to your local paper.

I decided to run a competition in connection with the free ebook launch, which helped to gather retweets and a bit of a “buzz”.

Step 13: Relax!

Finally, give yourself a well-earned break! Your ebook’s out there, and your blog’s getting a lot of new visitors. Get yourself a glass of wine, a beer or a mug of great coffee … and start thinking about your next ebook.