E-Publishing for Free! YOU do the work...

From: Daniel Joseph Min (Real.Min_at_Colorado.USA)
Date: 11/20/04 

Date: 20 Nov 2004 07:47:28 -0000

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IF YOU'RE AN INDEPENDENT UNPUBLISHED author and you're working on
a limited budget, you can still publish and promote your books on-
line completely free of charge, and without the need or approval
of any other publisher apart from yourself. You may want to sell
your books on-line. Or, if you're like me, then you always enjoy
your work and you always work for free--so that's why you post your
books on-line, simply to share what you've written with the global
internet community. And you can teach any would-be self-published
authors among family and friends how to do the same--once you've
gotten the hang of it. So here's my simple step-by-step method for
the independent e-publisher to publish your books to the Internet:

1) We'll assume that the independent author already has a new
   computer with a reliable internet connection, and is using
   Microsoft Word since it's the most popular word processor--
   which if used judiciously can produce professional-looking
   books (in the eyes of the average reader). Remember, we're
   NOT trying to impress elitist publishers or their college-
   educated graphic designers and typesetters who use hi-end
   publishing software with a library of postscript typefaces.
   It's nice that they do that, and we all benefit from their
   professional artistry every time we visit a bookstore. But...

   The *ONLY* people who the independent author wants to impress
   are the author's readership. The vast majority of readers out
   there simply aren't that picky about how perfectly an on-line
   book is edited and formatted. As long as your book looks and
   reads like a book, and your material and writing-style grabs
   and holds the reader's interest, then you're well on your way
   to e-publishing success. You don't need to be a professional.

2) You must have written and at least casually edited your book as
   time permitted you. I'm so busy writing that I leave a few typos
   in my wake. That's because I'm more interested in content and the
   overall purpose of my work. For example, which would you rather
   hear, a bad recording of the Beatles or a perfect recording of
   Kenny G? This is because form ALWAYS follows function. In this
   day and age where most people are so busy that they'll be lucky
   to finish writing one or several books in their lifetime, it's
   a given that so many published books nowadays contain more than
   their fair share of typographical errors. Just ask anybody who
   reads paperbacks on a regular basis. So don't be too concerned
   if your editing experience falls short of a Ph.D. in English.
   Most readers won't even notice a few relatively insignificant
   errors. They're used to it. So it's better stay busy developing
   and refining your writing style and your understanding of the
   subject matter of your work, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

   And above all, don't worry if your writing style is singularly
   unique and unorthodox. That's what separates you from the crowd,
   and identifies you with your work--drawing much-needed public
   attention to your books, provided you promote them through the
   Internet search engines (we'll get to that later in item #7).

3) Before you format your book for on-line e-publication, you'll
   want to digitally sign every chapter of your book and post it
   onto the Google newsgroup archives, using any one or several
   newsgroups of your choosing. Get the free PGP software here:
   http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html. If you're shy or for any
   reason unsure of yourself, then pick a newsgroup that few if
   anyone post to. That way, you won't likely be heckled by the
   veritable Legion of newsgroup "trolls" who are notorious for
   disrupting the more popular newsgroups with their filthiness
   and childish insults. Or, if you're accustomed to newsgroups
   and the warring factions who post and reply to them,--and you
   know how to use kill-files,--then you should digitally sign
   and post your book to those newsgroups which relate more or
   less to the subject matter of your work, and let the trolls
   troll themselves into an early grave (for all I could care).
   Posting to popular groups draws more attention to your work,
   and generating publicity is what every self-publisher must do.
   
   And if your writing tends to be controversial or "forbidden"
   by orthodox science or religion, then you'd be well-advised
   to maintain anonymity and post your books through anonymous
   remailers like I do. This is sound advise in any case, given
   the pandemic problem of identity theft if for no other reason.
   And by digitally signing your work, you kill to birds with one
   stone. You've certified the autograph authenticity of all your
   work (PGP clear-signed messages are admissible as evidence in
   lawsuits involving plagiarism etc.), and you've assured your
   readership that YOU are YOU, and not some rogue forger such
   as the "trolls" are so well known for doing. And the Google
   archives will time- and date-stamp every post made thereto, so
   you can cite the archived URL of every book and article that
   you've digitally signed and posted to any of the newsgroups.

   For example, my Google-archived books are linked on this URL:
   http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=XJBDEJF138262.9022453704@anonymous.poster
   As you can see, every chapter is digitally signed, and shall
   remain permanently archived and available to the public for
   many decades to come. Once you've Google-archived your book,
   then you're ready to move on to the next step, formatting...

4) There are numerous freeware Document-to-PDF format-conversion
   utilities available for download, such as "CutePDF", "WinPDF",
   "PDFMoto", "PDF4U", "PDF995" etc. over the Internet. I suggest
   downloading and installing at least several of these programs:
   http://www.google.com/search?as_q=freeware&num=100&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=CutePDF+PDFMoto+PDF4U+PDF4FREE+PDF995+Paperless

   With these freeware PDF conversion utilities installed, then
   you'll need to open your book in Microsoft Word (or whatever
   publishing program you're running). Hopefully, you've already
   got at least several dozen high quality fonts installed. But
   if not, you can obtain them on-line from a variety of sources,
   preferably freeware. Postscript fonts work best, but if you
   have only Truetype fonts available, that should suffice for
   now. Later, consider acquiring some higher quality Adobe or
   other brandname postscript fonts to achieve superior results,
   since postscript fonts always kern better and print better
   than do truetype fonts, and many postscript fonts come in
   families much larger than the usual normal, italic, bold
   and bold-italic. Again, most average readers are not likely
   to notice any difference, at least not on a conscious level.
   But a better quality typeface will have a benefic influence
   on their reading experience--whether they realize it or not,
   especially where the font is well-matched with the material.

   Always format your Word document file to print hardcopy editions
   of your book. I recommend printing double-sided pages duplexed
   2-up on landscaped letter or legal size paper, since it's surely
   the cheapest, most popular and widely available paper there is.
   Be sure to set the margins to mirror. Open a few paperbacks and
   notice how the page headers are formatted, with page numbers on
   the outside, book title centered on the left pages, and chapter
   title centered on the facing pages. It's the most commonly used
   format. It'd be a good idea to browse through the newest books
   of your writing genre next time you're at the bookstore, so you
   can see what format is the most popular for your subject matter.
   Generally, works of fiction fit better on 5.5" wide by 8.5" tall
   pages (2-up letter size), whereas a nonfiction textbook benefits
   from the legal size paper making pages 2-up 7" wide by 8.5" tall.

   And because you're printing on both sides of the paper, consider
   using a lighter, ink/toner-friendly typeface like Berkeley Old-
   style Book for bodytext. A lighter font reduces the "bleed-thru"
   shadows of the printed text on the back side of plain white bond
   while reading. This will save you ink/toner, and save you money.
   I've used this typeface for the bodytext in all of my own books,
   set by default at 11 points, and with 1.2 lines of line spacing.
   And Berkeley Oldstyle Medium works great for titles and subtitles,
   and for the smaller page numbers & headers, which I set at 10 pt.

   But here I'm only sharing my personal preferences and experience.
   You really need to experiment and decide for yourself what looks
   best for YOUR style and genre of work. For example, I've typeset
   several dozen books over the years for my family and our friends,
   employing nearly as many varieties of typefaces according to the
   general feel and sensibility of their mostly fictional storylines.
   Perhaps the best reception any of these books have had came from
   a book in which I'd selected the truetype font "Poor Richard" for
   the text, which is a rather heavy, ink-consuming "Alminach"-like
   typeface. Fine for printing presses, but not so kind to a common
   ink bubblejet or toner-consuming printer, especially when you're
   printing and binding hundreds of copies. But in this case, this
   font proved worthy of its merit, and the book has done very well
   in print. Thus form DOES have an effect on a book's readability,
   where the typeface and textual theme are "married" so to speak.

   Keep this in mind when choosing the right typeface for your work.
   As for the Poor Richard font, it requires slightly heavier matte
   to counteract bleed-thru, and it worked extraordinarily well for
   that particular book. But each book has its own unique character,
   thus having a comprehensive library of fonts can really pay off
   in the hands of a discerning typesetter. So use your own judgment
   and experiment until you've matched the best font with the story.

   Truly professional book publishers entreat each worthy book as a
   genuine work of art unto itself, and so every page from cover-to-
   cover is envisioned and produced by consummate graphic designers
   such that the book itself manifests in print to the satisfaction
   of the reader. Remember it's the READER who pays the publisher's
   bills, whether you're an international "Fortune-500" corporation,
   of if you're working completely on your own, a Hermit, like I am.
   Of course my readers don't pay my bills. I do that all by myself.

5) Browse through the newest and most popular books of your writing
   genre at your local bookstore, and buy the one that really stands
   out as the book you like the most, especially for its layout and
   readability. Take it home and refer to it when constructing your
   book's "template". Hopefully, the book you bought is a good book
   to read. At least, it's a marketable template upon which you can
   draw inspiration and create a hybrid facsimile for your own books.
   In this case, you needn't match the fonts being used in the book
   that you purchased, but focus rather on the book's layout since
   it caught your attention. If your book includes some pictures or
   illustrations, then consider how these pictures will best enhance
   the text by their placement within the story.

   Cover design of your book will depend on the market for your work.
   Black text on a white cover is pristine, and is easiest to format.
   Allow lots of white space and use no more than two or three fonts.
   Be sure that your book's title generally tells your readers what
   the book is about, and try to do so using as FEW words as possible.
   And you might want your book's cover to be more bookstore quality,
   more graphical & colorful with multilayered 3D effects. Go for it!
   But limit colors to three (unless it's a photo or an illustration).
   Search the internet for professional "tips and tricks" to help you
   design the best cover for your book. I'm satisfied with black text.

6) Now that you've got your book completely formatted cover-to-cover,
   print it to disk using the PDF printer driver of your choice. Some
   of the Doc-to-PDF utilities increase file size beyond the more com-
   pact Adobe output, but the result is fundamentally the same. Print
   your book cover-to-cover to PDF format and check it for any errors.

   Once you're satisfied that your book is ready for publication, then
   connect to the Internet, and upload your PDF files to your websites.
   You can get free websites on Yahoo, Angelfire et al free webservers:
   http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=100&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=free+web
   If you need help getting your site up and running, why not ask your
   children or grandchildren to help you? Young people today are more
   savvy on the Internet than are the majority of the over-fifty crowd,
   and getting them involved in any case will encourage them to write
   books and post them on-line just like you're doing. Everybody wins!
   The freeware PDFMoto for Windows makes this process especially easy.
   Download it on this URL: http://www.pdfmoto.com/downloads/index.shtml

   And you may want to build a more comprehensive website beyond just
   posting your books on-line. If you're intent on selling your books
   or additional goods and services, then you'd do well to develop a
   good business plan before proceeding, and study books on internet
   commerce. But unless you're a serious and experienced entrepreneur
   with some capital to risk, selling your books may not be practical,
   and in some cases could even be illegal. By giving your books away
   for free, you risk nothing, and your work will have a better chance
   of being downloaded and read by those visiting your websites--which
   brings us to the final item in our e-publishing list, e-promotions!

7) While everyone with an email address and a website should print up
   hundreds of business cards and keep some with you at all times (and
   pass them out only if asked, for to do otherwise is unprofessional),
   promoting your books through the search engines is absolutely essen-
   tial to putting your website up on the World Wide Web radar screen.
   With so many free URL meta-submission sites on-line, this is really
   fast and easy to do. Since I only recently put up my first webpage
   with links to my PDF books and Google-archived plain text homepage,
   it just started showing up on AltaVista, Yahoo, etc. last week. So
   I've been busy adding "mirror" sites to as many of the free website
   hosting servers as I can find on the search engines, and submitting
   these new mirror sites to the search engines in every single case.
   Doing so continually increases ones Internet presence and visibility,
   which in my case is a double-edged sword, because I've been an avid
   and unabashedly outspoken socio-political and religious activist for
   nearly seven years and counting. Myself being a staunch Republican
   and Biblically-correct right-winger, I've attracted myriad enemies.

   This is another good reason to digitally sign ones email and news-
   group articles, since only my PGP-clearsigned messages can ever be
   legally attributed to me. Every falsehood anyone has said about me
   cannot be linked to one or more of my PGP-clearsigned messages thus
   are lame forgeries & false statements--the usual disinformation and
   obfuscation tactics employed by the left-wing liberals. But I'm not
   dissuaded nor distracted by it. Much to the contrary, I'm elated by
   all the publicity I get no matter how immature my inept critics are!
   International *fame* is independent of ethics, morality or humanity.

   Thus, my advise to every genuinely-independent on-line e-publisher
   is this. Never worry about what other people say about you or your
   accomplishments. Wear your critics' attacks like a badge of honor.
   This will bolster your Internet standing a thousandfold, and helps
   your name appear in the search engines irrespective of whether the
   Internet community is complementary or critical of you. Typically,
   good people are criticized a thousand times for every one time he
   or she is complemented. That's just the way of the world. But it
   is GOOD publicity for you to have your name repeated on-line, and
   will help to promote your books should you wisely choose to make
   them available on-line. For example, if I type my name into the
   AltaVista search engine, my name comes up only 200 times or so:
   http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=wrx&pg=aq&aqmode=s&aqa=&aqp=Daniel+Joseph+Min

   Same thing happens with Yahoo, because my name isn't mentioned that
   much on the World Wide Web--not yet, that is. I still working on it:
   http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv1-fp&p=%22Daniel+Joseph+Min%22

   But if I type my name into the Google Groups (newsgroups) search:
   http://www.google.com/groups?as_epq=Daniel%20Joseph%20Min&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100
   Bingo! More than 20,000 hits and counting. That's good publicity
   no matter whether you like me or not. By contrast, type your own
   name into the same search engines and count how many times your
   name comes up. If you've been very active on the Internet, and
   you always use your real name or consistent alias, then it should
   come up plenty of times in the search engines. But if you haven't
   been very active on the Internet, then your name will come up less.
   
   Also, be sure to include your best-known name along with a few well-
   known "buzzwords" in your homepage metatag header in order to boost
   your ratings in the search engines. You can find plenty of helpful
   advise on how to do this on the search engines; search "metatags":
   http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=metatags+%22improve+your%22+ratings&btnG=Search
_________________________________________________________________________

That's about it. Once you've got your books on-line and highly-ranked
on the search engines, the rest is a matter of tracking your websites'
visitor activities to see how many of your books have been downloaded.
Beyond this, be sure to continue promoting your books through various
and creative means, like blogging HOT news issues with your book-links
always appearing prominently on your page. And be sure to keep posting
and replying to the newsgroups, with your website's URL below your sig.
Oh yes, and keep on writing & publishing, and help others do the same.

Daniel Joseph Min
http://www.geocities.com/daniel_joseph_min

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