Scott Nicholson, a prolific author with 70 books to date, has found most of his success online, selling self-published books at Amazon for the Kindle and other e-readers.
He handles the entire process himself -- from downloading stock photos at $4 to $5 a pop and making covers in Gimp, a free photo software tool, to converting the manuscripts into formats compatible for the e-readers.
"If I can do it, anyone can," says Nicholson, 49, who writes four novels a year from his home in Boone, N.C. He won't say how much he makes, but it's a "comfortable living," solely on e-book royalties. "I'm self-taught on every part of this."
Not everyone is as tech-savvy as Nicholson, and as willing to put in the extra hours. For those who would like some shortcuts, new tools are available to help authors with their conversions. Rates are relatively cheap, or free in Apple's case.
Red Staple and Folium Book Studio, both released in January, offer self-service online tools to convert your books into the ePub format, which, in turn, can be uploaded for Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Apple's iPad and Sony's E-Reader, at varying prices. Red starts at $29.99, while Folium is $99.
That's the price for a basic book with mostly text and a cover you make yourself and upload.
What about for those who want to make an e-book that's a multimedia extravaganza?
Apple just released iBooks Author, a free software app for Apple computers that offers drag-and-drop self-publishing tools for Apple's iBooks bookstore. The app is available in Apple's App Store for Macintosh computers, where you'll need an operating system at least as current as 2009's Snow Leopard.
Even though the app is geared to textbook authors, writers of any stripe can add photos and video clips, though they must first be converted to Apple's... newsfactor.com »
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