How to Deliver Your Ebook

I hope this thread will be helpful to newbies and anyone else who doesn't know how to do this. I am not technical AT ALL so this is what works for me.

When I decided to write my first ebook, I was really excited. I finished writing it in Word and I was stuck. How do I make it a pdf? How was I supposed to sell it? How was I supposed to send it to people? How do I put it on my blog? I was stuck and I had no idea what to do. I googled it and could not find the detailed info I needed. I was a member of a paid, private forum, and no one could explain this to me. So, I ended up buying a couple of books which explained SOME of what I needed to do, but there were still some things that were left out. So I tried certain things as I went along and I was able to fill in all of the gaps left open by others. I am going to share this with you so that you will not have to go through what I went through when I wrote my first ebook. I use inexpensive methods which work great for me for now.

I wrote my ebook using Microsoft Word and my version of Microsoft word has a pdf converter built in (which I didn't know about because I never used it!) so it was really easy for me to change it to a pdf. I know that not everyone has this option so another free alternative is to use open office.org. They have a pdf converter.

My version of the pdf converter does not have any security options. I thought about whether I should invest in something that does come with security options. I decided against it because I know that if someone wants to get an ebook for free on one of the torrent sites, they will. Even if your book is protected, the pdf or zip file can be shared for free after it is purchased. So I go with the idea that MOST people are honest and I just move on. But I know that some people feel better having the option to add a password or lock certain features of the pdf. DL Guard is a great option, which is a bit spendy, but I have read many great things about them.

Now that I had the pdf, I needed a way for people to pay me and a way for me to deliver my book to them. I use e-junkie to deliver my book and PayPal as my payment processor. I uploaded my ebook to e-junkie and they have instructions for hooking up payment with paypal. It was really easy and I wish I had known about these 2 together sooner. I am happy with both and have not had any problems. E-junkie is only $5 a month for the plan that I have. They have other plans that cost more. E-junkie is very easy to use and they have great instructions. If you get stuck they will help you.

So next, I wanted to put my ebook on my blog so people could buy it there. I use Wordpress.org for my blog. I made an ecover for my book and needed a url for my ebook cover. My sales page for the ebook has its own domain. I use the Wordpress Sales Page theme. The blog and ebook sales page have 2 different domain names. I went into the admin panel of my sales page for the ebook, I clicked on post, and I clicked on upload an image. I found the ecover on my computer and uploaded it. I made it thumbnail size, and clicked the html tab to view the url. You will use the url listed right after the letters src. Make sure you are using the url that has .jpg or .gif in the url. Go to Appearance, widgets, sidebar and drag and drop the widget "text" in the sidebar. Give it a title (the name of your book maybe?) and go to Google to find the code for image hyperlinking which is: <a href="http://www.hyperlinkcode.com"><img src="http://hyperlinkcode.com/images/sample-image.gif"></a> . To link to your sales page put the url for the sales page where it says hyperlinkcode.com and put the url of the ebook cover where it says hyperlinkcode.com/images/sample-image.gif and hit save. Your ecover should now be visible on your blog and you should be able to start selling!

This is the method that I use and it works for me. I know there are many more options/methods, maybe easier, but I wanted to share what I use, which is not very expensive, to maybe help someone who might be stuck like I was.