Tools to help you join the self publishing revolution

Tools to Help You Join the

Self-Publishing Revolution

Trevor Hunsaker

#1 Weird Secret to

Self-Publishing Your

Book...

( Traditional Publishers Hate It! )

Write the

?&*% Book

Authoring

Plain text – NOT a Word Processor

Typesetting ≠ Writing

Text Editor:

• Notepad++

• Adobe Brackets, etc

Markup Format

Prose: Markdown

Technical: LaTeX

Why Markdown?

.md ?

.html

.epub

.mobi

.docx

Markdown Tutorial

http://markdowntutorial.com/

# Heading (h1)

## Smaller Heading (h2)

_italic_

**bold**

[Link Text](URL)

Markdown Tutorial (cont.)

!(/path/to/img.jpg)

* List item 1

* List item 2

Docverter.com

HTTP API for converting from markup to document

• http://c.docverter.com

Run on own computer (Source on Github)

• Wraps Jruby, Pandoc, Calibre

Hosted solution coming

Docverter Usage

Script via bash or your choice of language

HTTP POST request, multipart / form-data

Documentation:http://www.docverter.com/api.html

Docverter’s Sample:http://www.docverter.com/examples/markdown_to_epub.zip

curl

--form from=markdown \

--form to=epub \

--form input_files[][email protected] \

--form input_files[][email protected] \

--form other_files[][email protected] \



--form epub_metadata=metadata.xml \

--form epub_cover_image=document-open.png \

--form epub_stylesheet=stylesheet.css \

'https://c.docverter.com/convert' > markdown_to_epub.epub

Via Python & Requests*

*Forked version of Requestshttps://github.com/saturdayplace/requests

Via Requests

http://bit.ly/1nkcDRz

You (Really) Need Help

Fiverr.com

● Copyediting

● Cover

● Illustration

Marketplaces

Amazon

Apple iBooks

Google Play

SoftCover.io

LeanPub.com

Own Website / Gumroad

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

https://kdp.amazon.com

Supported Formats: DOC, DOCX, HTML, MOBI,

ePub, RTF, TXT, PDF

Complex formatting in Word and PDFs may not

convert well

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon Pays You:

Royalty File Size Book List Price

35%

<= 3 MB $0.99 - $200

3 MB < SIZE < 10 MB $1.99 - $200

>= 10 MB $2.99 - $200

70% Any $2.99 - $9.99

Apple iBooks

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesC

onnect.woa/wa/bookSignup

Accepts ePub format

Takes 30%, pays you 70%

iBooks Author (Free on Mac store) for creating

multitouch books

iBooks Producer for publishing to the store

Google Play Books

https://support.google.com/books/partner/checklist/4

489282

Don’t publish their royalty rates

Accept ePub, PDF

“On the Internet” people claiming ~ 50%

Full text available in Google searches

Customer Service (?)

SoftCover.io

Ruby gem (OS X and

Linux)

Generate: HTML, PDF,

ePub, Mobi

Command-line interface> softcover deploy

Takes 10%, pays you 90%

Create a marketing site

for your book

Create multi-media

packages

LeanPub.com

Dropbox + Markdown

Web interface for previewing or publishing

Generates: PDF, ePub, Mobi

Takes 10% + 50¢ per sale

• Sell before complete, buyers get free updates as

you progress

Sell generated files on other marketplaces

Gumroad.com

Sales and Fulfillment only (Add to your own website)

Takes 5% + 25¢

Super simple customer checkout process

Easy to integrate into your website

Sell whatever file you have

Marketing Conversion Rates

YouTube 2.2%

Twitter 5.4%

Facebook 6.3%

Email 9.4%

MailChimp.com

First 2,000 subscribers free

< 12,000 emails / month

Trevor Hunsaker

[email protected]

http://saturdayplace.com

Thanks!

Physical Books

Amazon Create Space

Lulu.com

Blurb

Tools to help you join the self publishing revolution

Internet

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