How to become an e-book author!
For a successful career as an e-book author you will need:
An idea for a book! The first and most obvious step in becoming an e-book author is deciding what to write about. Whether your book is factual or fiction it is a good idea to jot down a brief plan of what you want to include – you can expand on this in many ways and create a web or list of ideas to help prevent any cases of writer’s block further on in the venture. It may also be a good idea to write a brief paragraph or line for each chapter, as this can be a great way to come up with the structure of your book and give you a sound base to refer to should you become lost. Once you have the plot of your book settled it is time to get down to the actual writing, enjoy!
All books need a cover and e-books are no different, once you have finished your book and decided on a title you will be in a better position to decide how you would like the cover to look. You can design a cover yourself or consider hiring a freelance designer – or joining forces with another digital nomad! Promotion of your book is essential to drive sales and maximise your exposure. You can do this in many ways, and one of the best and easiest forms is social media – facebook, twitter and even youtube are great ways of getting your product out there. You should also consider setting up a simple website to showcase your eBook. There are easy to find websites devoted to giving you great advice on self publishing and promotion such as www.mediabistro.com and www.free-ebooks.net.
Training/qualifications
Absolutely none! The great advantage of being an e-book author is providing you have an idea you need no formal training to get started. You will need a good understanding of the language you intend to write in and a good knowledge of grammar and punctuation would be advantageous.
There are creative writing courses available online if you would like a greater insight to the process and many of these require no formal qualifications to apply but do come at a cost. A quick search of Google will return over 55,000,000 results so you are bound to find a course to suit your needs should you require!
Hardware/software
A laptop and a decent internet connection is basically all you need! And maybe a dictionary?
Where to find work online?
Self publishing is becoming a popular concept and there are many options available to the budding e-book author such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), smashwords.com and iBooks Author (Mac only). These are a small example of platforms available to self publishers, and each varies in its royalty costs – so have a good look around before committing.
How much can I earn?
Obviously that depends on how much you want to charge, how many books you plan to write and ultimately how many you manage to sell! With the arrival of the kindle and other e-book readers the sales of e-books have never been higher and appear to be growing, provided your book sells there really is no limit to the amount you can earn – although you’ll need some other means of supporting yourself initially while you pen your masterpiece!
How well does it suit the digital nomad lifestyle?
Ideally! The beauty of being an e-book author is that you really only need minimal equipment, what could be simpler than traveling the world with a rucksack and laptop? A trip to Paris for a romance novel maybe? A Spanish spy story? Your next destination could be your next inspiration for a bestseller!
If your book is successful, aside from promotion, eBook authoring can be a great way to build residual income.
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