Category: Self-Publishing

What’s the Copyright Law on Screenshots?

Christine John
computer and tablet

If you are a nonfiction writer, in particular, writing books that teach people how to use software or how to navigate a website, you may use screenshots as a visual tool to help your reader understand the whole process. I am also guilty of using screenshots in blog articles and in some of my books. Many people use screenshots on their websites and in books, but they don’t realize that screenshots are covered by copyright and if they are used without permission, it is copyright infringement. What is Copyright? Anytime…

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How to Find Ideas for a Nonfiction Book

Christine John
ides, concept

Many people say that they want to write a book but they don’t know how to get started. The first step is knowing what you want to write about. You need to come up with a brilliant book idea that people will want to read. There are five ways you can come up with ideas for a nonfiction book. 1. Choose a genre. A genre is a particular category of art, music or literature. Think of what you’re interested in, e.g. health and fitness, money management, internet marketing, parenting, sports,…

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How to Effectively Promote Your Kindle E-book

Christine John
Kindle e-book

I have just completed the first draft of my new e-book which I plan to publish using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Even before I publish my e-book, I have already started thinking about how I’m going to promote it to generate sales. There are plenty of things you can do to make your readers aware of your new book and here are the top five promotional tips. 1. Charge 0.99c for your e-book. If you want to reach as many people as possible, start by pricing your e-book at 0.99c.…

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Don’t Know What to Write? How to Overcome Writer’s Block

Christine John
Writer's Block

I have been blogging since March 2020 and I have never had a problem coming up with something interesting to write about. However, today I sat in front of my laptop trying to think of what my next blog post was going to be about. I had no idea what to write and nothing seemed to inspire me. Suddenly, an interesting thought came to my mind. If I’m having trouble thinking of what I could write, maybe other writers are having the same problem. Thus, I came up with this…

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How to Self-Publish a Paperback Book to Amazon KDP

Christine John
Published Paperback Books

Last week we covered how to publish your book as a Kindle eBook. Today, I will show you how to format and upload your manuscript to be published as a paperback on Amazon. Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon offers a Print on Demand (POD) publishing service.  Twenty years ago, Amazon stored books in a large warehouse. When you ordered a book online, someone would have had to collect the book from the warehouse, pack it, ship it and deliver it to you. The beauty of POD publishing is that the…

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How to Self-Publish Your Book on Amazon KDP

Christine John
Self-publish to Amazon Kindle

After all the writing, editing and formatting of your manuscript and designing your book cover, you have finally come to the part you have been waiting for: to self-publish your book on Amazon KDP. If this is your first book, congratulations for making it this far! I know that writing a book can be a daunting task and a lot of people give up before completing the first draft, but not you. You stuck with it until your book was completed and now you are ready to publish it on…

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How to Create a Book Cover

Christine John
Book Cover Design

Creating an eye-catching book cover is the last task you have to do before you publish your book. Before you can create a book cover, you first need to find out what are the requirements for designing a professional-looking book cover for Amazon KDP and Draft2Digital. Draft2Digital’s Cover Art Requirements It is very easy to design a cover for Draft2Digital because they have very few requirements. The only thing they require is that you provide a JPEG image at 1600 x 2400 pixels to upload to their website. This can…

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How to Format Your Book for Draft2Digital

Christine John
Format your book

In this week’s blog post, we will cover how to format your nonfiction book for Draft2Digital. Formatting your book for Draft2Digital is much easier than doing it for Amazon. There are only a few things you need to do to get your book ready to upload. Sign Up for a Free Account Go to Draft2Digital.com and click on the Sign Up button. Fill in your name, email address, and create a password. Click in the box if you would like to receive marketing news from Draft2Digital. Then click in the…

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How to Format Your Book for Amazon KDP

Christine John
Format for Kindle

Last week we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing on Amazon KDP and Draft2Digital. Today we will cover how to format your book to publish on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). What this means is that you will be able to upload your completed manuscript to KDP so that it can be published as a Kindle e-book. If you wrote your book in Microsoft Word, then it will be very easy to format your book for Kindle. First, if you have not signed up with Amazon KDP, you need…

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Self-Publishing on Amazon KDP and Draft2Digital

Christine John
Self-Publishing books

Now that we have gone through how to plan, outline, and write your book, the next step is to format your book for self-publishing on one of the online publishing platforms. However, before you start changing the margins, font, and layout of your Word document, you need to choose which platform you will use to self-publish your nonfiction book. Many writers choose to publish their book through Amazon KDP and then upload their book to a book aggregator site, like Draft2Digital, to reach more readers through online book retailers. The…

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