# Using "eBook" to make money ...



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

I've been looking at the various eBooks programming offerred over the net. I think this might be one way to supplement income, i.e. generating some "do-it-yourself" projects for small homesteaders.

Does anyone have experience using eBook programming; and if so, which program did you use and what are the pros and cons of it? (I did notice some were free and some were costly.)


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

I don't have any experience with eBook formatting programs but I am a reader and I'm on a forum site called Goodreads. They have different groups for all kinds of different books, some for authors and there may well be groups there that discuss author/business related issues as well. I do know many of the authors that self-publish are on that site so you may find a group within those forums that can give you more information.

I do know from some of the things I have read that there are programs for writers and websites where you can write your book and it is formatted for self-publishing through their business. I don't know if it is in hard copy or in eBook formats ... probably both available ... and I don't know what other programs may be available for eBook formatting but I can't think of anywhere else you might find the information and people who have used the programs.


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Thanks SFM. I'll google "Goodreads" and check it out.


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## joebill (Mar 2, 2013)

I do not publish ebooks, but while you are considering that, you might also consider the fact that you can now get really good deals on printing your hard copy publications. I have written a couple of how to's in the 85 page range. They sell for $18 and cost me in the <$4 range. Nice profit, even if I only sell hundred or two a year each.

The printer is LightningSource, and many people who claim to be publishers of books for others use them. I only publish my own books, but with LS, anyone who can edit and make a final electronic copy of a book and work their way through the maze of LS's site can be a publisher.

There is a set-up fee of, I think, $75 per title, and sometimes they have a sale and waive that fee. Might be another small fee or so in there, but it's all reasonable. It takes some attention to detail to work through the site (Thank God for my wife) but it's all there to figure out.

They also make it clear that if you can't figure it out, they are not there to hold your hand very much. Authors are invited to either figure it out or go find a publisher that can.

My first book of that nature has been selling out there for 10 years now on Ebay and our own site, and no sign of slowing down, so I would submit that hard copy is a profitable and time honored venue. I introduced my second book as a $5 download, and it does much better as an $18 hard copy, saleswise.

A further suggestion; Lightning source will offer to market your book to almost every bookseller in the country, but if you let them, you'll soon find your book for sale on every site online for a few cents over dealer cost, none of them except Amazon ever having bought a single copy. They advertise them, have LS drop ship them to the customer, and pocket a few cents change, ruining your own retail sales. I had to cut that off a few months in, so I suggest you don't make that mistake.

Good luck, and if I can be of any help, speak......Joe


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