Powerpoint to Ebook

Though there are sites and software on the web to use (translation buy) to take your PowerPoint to a point where it can be sold as an eBook on a platform like Lulu, the simplest though not necessarily shortest route to this point is:

1.  Convert the PowerPoint to a PDF – This will ensure some consistency in page numbers from the original PDF to your Ms Word document.

2. When you made the PowerPoint, the images had to come from someplace right? Well during that journey they probably ended up in a useable jpg format on your computer. You want to just plop these on your desktop and grab them and use the Insert function in your Word program. The reason for this is if you try to go straight from PowerPoint to, say, a program like Lulu to sell your book, you will be rejected due to text boxes which will not be a problem if you INSERT images.

3.  Now you have the appropriate canvas upon which to work, go for it but make sure first to read the instructions to posting on the different eBook sales platforms.  Though you will find they have more in common than not, you will need to learn the idiosyncrasies of all of them if you want to use them all.

4.  If you decide, in order to save some time and to get to the end of the tedious replacement of images, to just go straight through to the end without stopping, don’t forget that you will now have to make sure everything is uniform. Make a copy and make notes, notes, notes.  Notate fonts, font sizes, spaces before and after subheads, etc so that when you are done, your book will look like a piece of art – your art.

 

NEXT TIME: Smashwords smash this!

Disc Herniation Survival Guide, Second Edition

Check out this great book available now on Lulu as a PDF which covers how to avoid and life with herniation’s as well as avoid them and care for your back.

Variations In Styles Make E-publishing Challanging

So you’ve got your e-book down – at least in your favorite word or word type program. Great. Now you think it’ll be a piece of cake to distribute it to Lulu, Smashwords, Amazon …..

Not so fast. Before you make one copy and just go along happily uploading it to the site of the distributors you’ve selected, find out if they have a style guide.  Though you will find lots of similarities in the style guides (things like admonitions to stay away from hard returns at all cost) there are a few things you cannot take for granted.

I’m not going to go into all the little differences in all the style guides here and I’m not entirely sure all the e-publishers aren’t trying to make each of their procedures different from the other guys intentionally but I will say: Do whatever you have to do to get the style guides and get through them. Make copies, make coffee, record them and listen back to them; whatever it takes.

They are for the most part boring and repetitive but if you fail to catch the one difference in each of them then your book will not pass muster the first time and then you will be FORCED to read it. So just sit back, relax and take one at a time and make sure your book meets the requirements for each individual publisher.  You’ll be glad you did.

 

Next time: …No, you can’t just take it from Powerpoint!