Joanna Penn's Step-by-Step Guide to E-Book Publishing

POSTED ON Apr 18, 2011

Joel Friedlander

Written by Joel Friedlander

Home > Blog > E-Books & Readers > Joanna Penn's Step-by-Step Guide to E-Book Publishing

It seems like everywhere I look these days, people are talking about e-books. Have you noticed that too?

Just this week I ran an article on my blog about how e-books sold more copies in February than any other trade book format. That’s impressive!

It was only a few weeks ago that I was in a conversation with another publisher about getting into the ebook market. This publisher said they thought there was no rush, since e-books wouldn’t really take off for years.

How wrong can you be?

Right now, authors like Joe Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Zoe Winters and many others like them are selling hundreds—and thousands—of e-books every month.

Not only that, but my inbox is filling up with questions from authors who want to get the e-book rights back from the companies that published their print books in the past.

Put it all together and you can see that this is a move that no authors want to miss out on.

The e-Readers Are Moving Off the Shelves

Millions of avid book readers are buying e-book devices like the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad. And you know what else is interesting?

People who own e-book readers buy a lot more books than they ever bought in print. E-books are creating a whole new world of readers who will buy even more books than ever before.

It’s pretty easy to see why, too. E-books are cheaper to buy than print books, and much more convenient.

Say you’re sitting at home and you see an article in today’s paper about a great new book that solves a problem you’ve been worrying about. Maybe your kid is applying to colleges, and here’s a new book on getting financing to pay for college.

What do you do next? Make a note to pick it up the next time you’re at the bookstore (if it’s still in business, of course)? Put it on a “wish list”? Head to the garage and jump in your car to go buy it?

Not e-book readers. They’ll just grab their Kindle or Nook or whichever reader they like, log in, purchase and download the book without leaving the couch. In a minute or two, they’ve got the book and are already reading it.

Are you beginning to see how this is going to CHANGE EVERYTHING?

What You Have to Do

There must be a catch, right? Sure, and here it is:

Your book has to be available as an e-book, or you are completely locked out of this scenario.

Unfortunately, this is what has stopped lots of authors—traditionally published and self-published—from taking advantage of the growing interest in e-books.

Let’s face it, most authors don’t know what an e-book is, or how to deal with the world of being an e-book publisher. It all seems really complicated, difficult and time-consuming, so they do what we all do when we’re confused: nothing. After all, if you do nothing, you can’t screw up, right?

Wrong. Doing nothing right now is exactly the wrong move for most self-publishers.

Of course the problem is that most people are busy already. Even though you only have to convert your book to e-book formats and upload it to get selling, figuring out HOW to do it looks like it will take a lot of time.

But now there’s a new way to get your book into e-book retailers the smart way.

It was put together by my friend Joanna Penn, who writes The Creative Penn blog, and who is the author of three self-published books.

Many people know Joanna for her terrific articles, interviews and instruction on writing, publishing and marketing books. She has over 13,000 followers on Twitter, so you know Joanna can provide great content on these subjects.

Joanna has just come out with the e-book module of her terrific Author 2.0 training program. This is now a stand-along course that shows you step-by-step how to get into e-book publishing.

Lots of courses tell you “it’s like having a guide helping you along” but Joanna’s course actually carries through on that promise.

For instance, I was just watching one of the videos that’s part of the course. It shows you how to upload and set up your book on the Kindle Direct Publishing website.

In the video, Joanna guides you, field by field through the forms you have to fill out, and shows you the reports and other tools Kindle makes available for authors.

“Wow,” is what I thought while I was watching it. “I wish I had this video when I was trying to figure this stuff out myself.”

Lots of Ways to Learn Here

But there’s much more than that in Joanna’s course. Take a look at what she’s put together for you:

  1. Two videos where she goes through all you need to know about e-books. (Also available in mp3 audio format along with the slides.)
  2. A PDF e-book on all the material covered in the videos with hyperlinks to useful sources.
  3. Screen capture video of how to publish on the Amazon Kindle, including account screens.
  4. Screen capture video of how to publish on Smashwords, including account screens.
  5. Audio interview with Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, plus a transcript.
  6. Action steps so you know how to proceed next.
  7. And Joanna is available for any questions she hasn’t covered elsewhere.

This whole package is almost a master-class in getting your e-books done, uploaded and on sale quickly and easily.

The cost for this cost is a surprisingly affordable $39.95. Joanna has done all the hard work, and put together a package that makes it super easy to learn to do this yourself.

I can tell you from my experience over the last couple of months, the time alone it would take to work all this out is worth far more than the $39.95 Joanna is charging for this course.

If you want to see your book in the Kindle store and available for Nook owners, this training will get you up to speed fast. That’s worth a lot. After all, how many sales are you missing by not having your book for sale now?

Click over to Joanna’s site now and check this out. You won’t be sorry you did.

Get Started Today - Button Orange

P. S. Don’t put it off, you know what happens when you do that, right? Click the button and use this opportunity to get started on publishing your e-book today.

This is an affiliate post for Joanna Penn’s E-Book instruction. I recommend it. Photo by daz smith

Joel Friedlander

Written by
Joel Friedlander

Book Cover Design Checklist

Set your book up to SELL with our FREE Book Cover Design Checklist to boost the quality of your book to its very best!
Liked this post? Share it with friends!

More Helpful Articles