If you are considering writing one or more a course in miracles, there are some compelling advantages to publishing them as e-books. An e-book is an electronic book also known as an online-book, digital book or e-book. Quite simply it’s a book that is created on the computer and sold as a download. Here are my Top Ten Advantages:
1. E-books are relative quick, easy and inexpensive to publish. First of course, you need a well-written and carefully edited manuscript. (You can write your own book or pay a ghostwriter to write it for you.). Then, assuming you take the do-it-yourself digital publishing route, you’ll convert your Word document into PDF format (the most popular format for e-books), and if you want to sell your book for the Kindle and the Apple’s iPad — and you should — you’ll have to prepare your manuscript for those formats too. In addition, you’ll need to set up a simple web site from which to sell your e-book and choose a shopping cart service for processing payments by buyers and downloading the book onto their computers. (Note: Some e-book authors give their books away for free as promotional tools). By the way, it’s a good idea to order an ISBN (International Book Standard Number) for your book. An ISBN is a unique number that identifies your book. You will need one if you would like your book to be available in libraries or sold at online bookstores like Amazon.com. Also, be sure to get your digital book copyrighted.
If do-it-yourself publishing is not your cup of tea, there are web-based publishers who will publish and sell your electronic book for free in exchange for a cut of the revenues the book generates.
2. Unlike traditional publishing, you make all of the decisions in e-book publishing. You, no one else, determines the content of your book and what its cover will look like, when your book will be published, what it will sell for, and how you’ll market it. However, if you would like some expert guidance and advice on these matters along the way, there are professionals who specialize in e-books, including how to market them to buyers.
3. Revenue from the sales of your digital book are yours, all yours, assuming you publish it yourself. If you work with an eBook publisher, the publisher will take a cut of what your book earns, but the cut will be far less than what a traditional publisher would get.
4. You can revise your electronic book whenever you want. In contrast, if you work with a traditional publisher, the publisher, not you, decides whether and when a revised version of your book will be published regardless of how out-of-date the current edition may be.
5. Your e-book can be interactive and include hyperlinks to video or audio content, helpful resources, podcast interviews you may have done, your website, your blog, and so on. Such features can make reading electronic books an especially rich experience.
6. E-books are great business marketing tools. Among other things for example, they can help educate members of your target market about issues related to your products or services — why asset protection planning is important and how it works, the difference between a traditional divorce and a collaborative divorce, the basics of retirement planning, and so on.
7. Digital books can be excellent vehicles for highlighting your own professional knowledge and expertise should you want to develop a higher profile, become a national expert that the media turn to for comments on a particular topic, and so on. However, it’s a good idea to hire an experienced public relations professional to help you use the book to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. Just simply having a book won’t do it.
