Writing Nonfiction PDF Books – A Great Way to Start

writing nonfiction ebooks

Here is another post on writing. Specifically, about writing nonfiction PDF books. They are a great way to get started! Even if you’ve never written a book before, you can do this. If you have a computer and the capability of saving your files as PDF files, you’re ready to go.

Do you have a real book?

Several years ago, many people did not consider eBooks, or PDF books, to be real books. Then Amazon developed this thing called “Kindle.”

Not long after that, eBooks increased in popularity and credibility. Actually, in some years, Amazon sells more digital books than print books. I don’t know the current statistics on that, but I remember a few years ago that the number of digital books (eBooks) exceeded the number of print books that were sold during that year through Amazon.

They Practically Became Equals

What that meant was, that eBooks increased in popularity and credibility. In effect, they became “equals” to print books. A print book was a real book, and an eBook was a real book too.

Give People What They WAnt

When people want a book, they want what they prefer. I actually like holding a book in my hands and being able to rifle through the pages. I have also bought many eBooks, and I really like those too. So, some people will want a print book, some will want an e book, and some will want both.

I Highly recommend you do both

Now, even though I’m talking here about using a PDF file to get started with your book, I really think that you should have the goal to do both. Because once you have your eBook written and set up, and you’ve learned how to format it yourself, you just have so much of what is needed to send the file off for a print on demand (POD) print book. So I think that you should have the goal of doing both.

The distribution won’t be as wide, but it is a place to start

The way to get started is to simply to produce a PDF book. Of course, if you have it set up only as a PDF book, your distribution will not be as wide as it would if it was available via Kindle, Mobi, or an ePub format, but you will still have a book and it will be a real book. It will be a book that you can sell right from your own website. Some of you reading this may already have your own websites. If you do, then you are good to go, and you can get started with your own PDF book

8-1/2 by 11 produces a real book

PDF stands for portable document format. It’s something that’s often used to send things through email, because the file is not as large as it is in other formats. It’s also easier to use. You can produce an eight and-a-half by eleven real book. That’s just the easiest way to do it. Use your preferred word processing platform, Microsoft Word, for example. You can then set it up as an eight and-a-half by eleven, and come up with your own cover page. Then, learn about other pages you need, copyright pages and such, by looking at other books. Be sure to add them.

be consistent with size and formatting

Then you can just produce an eight and-a-half by eleven real book. You need to be consistent with the size of the words in different parts of your book. You can make the title whatever size you want it to be; of course it will be larger than the chapter titles, headings, and subheadings. Then figure out what size you want and just be consistent. Use the same type of formatting and style for the chapter titles, and do the same for each type of heading every time. If you use subheadings, again, be consistent with the formatting and style.

So, the title of the book, chapter titles, headings and subheadings: Be sure you’re consistent with what you are doing so that they all look like.

next steps

Once you get all that done, and you’re satisfied with the book, what’s next? You may have hired an editor to look at your book and go over it for you. Maybe you had a writing group look it over, give you all the input that you need, and you’re satisfied, and you think you have a book.

Get your cover page on there. You can hire someone to produce a good cover for you, but you also can do some yourself. If this is your very first book, and you’re experimenting, you might want to produce your own cover.

get a way to accept payment

Now, you can sell it from your own website. Get a shopping cart of some type or go to PayPal where you can accept payments, and then sell your eBook. It is a real book, especially nowadays. So that’s one way of getting started in the self-publishing world.

basis for print books

Once you have all that done, go back to your word processing file, go over to Kindle or some platform like Lulu.com or48 hour books, (I don’t get any kickback for mentioning those names) read their instructions, and you will have what you need to have a print book produced also. Then you will have an e book, and a print book, and you definitely would have a real book then.

If you did it through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), you certainly would have that book available on Amazon where people could find it. Some people say, “That’s another mark of having a real book, when it is on Amazon.”

So, here’s a nonfiction writing tip: writing nonfiction PDF books are a great way to start, especially if it’s a first book for you.

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