Publish and Sell E-Books

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
1515 Students

Learn how to use free tools to publish an e-book, and then list and sell your e-books in the world's largest online bookstores.

E-books are blazing through the publishing world like a speeding comet, with thousands of previously undiscovered authors as the bright glowing lights in its tail. Independentâ€”indieâ€”authors are becoming overnight sensations in the New York Times and USA Today, on Amazon, and well, everywhere e-books are sold. In this course, you'll see how you can join their ranks by learning how to publish and sell your own e-book.

It's no secret that e-books now regularly outsell traditionally published books in online bookstores around the world. This is great news for authors, who no longer need a large budget to self-publish and promote their books. In fact, in this course, you'll learn step by step how to use free tools to turn your manuscript into a professionally published e-book ready for distribution. Or, if you don't consider yourself a ""techie,"" this course will give you the information you need to select the right publishing services to help you as you convert your manuscript so you're ready to sell it as an e-book.

Whether you're a first-timer or have already put out an e-book or two, this course puts you inside the publishing industry, sharing the tricks of the trade used by traditional publishers to make sure their books are in the best position to be found by readers. You'll learn how to target your reading audience, select bookstores, get your book distributed around the world, and even have your book added to your local library's virtual shelves. By the end of this course, you can have your publishing dreams come true by selling an e-book. Make it happen today!

Course Revised June 2013

Courses are delivered to you through expertly executed lessons, online instruction and interaction with like-minded students. Our courses are designed to deliver all of the benefits of studying in a classroom whilst giving you the flexibility to study at a time and place to suit your needs. You can access your classroom 24/7 from any device with an internet connection.

This course has a 3 month duration. You'll complete comprehensive lessons, quizzes and assignments before submitting your final exam at the end of the course to achieve your certificate. Courses must be completed within the 3 month access period.

E-book sales climb higher every day. In fact, e-book sales have put millions of dollars in the hands of previously unpublished authors, midlist authors who've had modest print sales, and established authors who've decided to strike out on their own. When you publish your own e-book, you can earn up to 10 times higher royalties! In this first lesson, we're going to do a whirlwind tour of the rise of e-books. We'll follow that with an overview of the major players in the industry and look at e-book readers. By the time you're finished this lesson, you'll be ready to start self-publishing your own e-book.

In this lesson, you're going to start getting your e-book ready for publication, much like you would prepare a great manuscript for an editor at a publishing house. You want to make sure you have a great story that hangs together or a nonfiction book that's error-free. One of the best starts you can give your e-book when you send it off into the world is to make sure it's up to today's standards—with proper grammar, spelling, and style. In this lesson, you'll find out how to use tools to make this task simple and fast!

Today, we'll start the first steps in the publishing process. You'll learn how to create a reader profile describing your ideal reader and apply what you've learned to your marketing plan. I'll share two of my book profiles with you and show you how they helped me write the book descriptions, select the titles, and create the covers. I've filled this lesson with lots of tips that will help you find readers for your book when it's launched.

For this lesson, we'll look at a few things you should do before publishing your book. First, we'll discuss copyright registration. This will ensure that you're compensated if someone uses part of your book once it's in the bookstores! To make your book available in bookstores, you'll also want to get an ISBN, which stands for <i>International Standard Book Number</i>. This identifies your book worldwide. I'll tell you how that works, and what your options are, as well. And finally, we'll examine CIP, or <em>Cataloging in Publication</em>, data. This is the information librarians add to their catalog so that they can circulate your book to their patrons. It's exciting to think about, isn't it? Pretty soon, you'll have a catalogued book!

This lesson takes you "under the covers" of your book to your title page and all the front and back matter you want to add. You'll need to consider the author name you want to use, or whether you want to use your own name at all. This is a big decision, so we'll look at a number of things you should consider. Once that's done and you've typed all the information into your book and formatted it, you'll learn how to add a table of contents and hyperlinks, so your reader can move around easily. This lesson will give you lots to think about and lots to do—and when you're done, you'll have included everything you'll find in any traditionally published book.

Today you'll learn how to add your cover to your book, along with any other essential images. Images aren't always perfect, so you'll learn some basic steps on how to adjust them. And you'll also learn how to check the file size of your book and ensure that it meets bookseller and distributor requirements. Once you've got everything just the way you want it, you'll learn how to convert your book file to a PDF, the most popular document file on the Web. And you'll even learn how to password protect PDFs to sell from your site!

What are your options for converting your manuscript into an e-book that users can read on e-readers? Your choices range from hiring a service that does it all to doing it all yourself. In this lesson, we'll look at the pros and cons of paid services and free services, and I'll show you how to use Sigil—free open source editing software—to convert your book to EPUB format and add metadata that will help with sales at online retailers. Not sure what metadata is? We're going to go into detail on that too, and you'll learn how to use the same tools as traditional publishers in the brick-and-mortar world to give your e-book an inside advantage. By the end of this lesson, your e-book will be ready to read on many popular e-readers!

<p>In this lesson, you'll learn how to use an e-book management tool to do a number of different things, from organizing your own e-book library to converting your e-book to a multitude of formats. The name of the tool is <i>Calibre</i>. Calibre lets you add stars and comments to the books you've downloaded, as well as convert unprotected e-book files from one format to another, so you can read books you've purchased on your smartphone, tablet, or e-reader. By the end of this lesson, you'll know how to use Calibre to fine-tune your EPUB file and convert it to MOBI for the Kindle reader. You'll be amazed at how easy Calibre is to use—just follow the steps, and you'll have your e-book ready to upload to online bookstores in no time! </p>

Publishing your own e-books is a business, and in Lesson 9 we'll look at the business end of things. There's always some paperwork required to start up a business, particularly on the Internet where you're dealing with online bookstores that could be anywhere in the world. Amazon is the world's biggest bookstore, and its headquarters are in the United States, so we'll look at their requirements first. They don't make the rules though—they only implement the ones set down by law. We'll also go through the business decisions you'll have to make, including adding DRM, pricing your book, and whether you want to make your title exclusive to one store. We'll wrap up the lesson by walking step-by-step through the questions you'll answer as you upload and publish your book!

This lesson opens up many virtual bookshelves for your new book as you learn how to select and work with an e-book distributor or aggregator. Even if you're an international author, aggregators can get you into any bookstore you want! It's an exciting time to be self-publishing, as there are many different options and tailor-made solutions. Even if you're starting out with a publishing budget of $0, your book can reach millions of readers. And if you're concerned about your technical skills, don't! In today's lesson, you'll also learn how a distributor can take care of everything for you.

When you decided to self-publish your book, you eliminated the publisher—who would have gotten the biggest share of income from your hard work. In this lesson, I'll show you how you can eliminate the bookstore too. That leaves all the money from sales in your hands! There are other advantages to selling your books directly, and we'll take a look at those, as well as some of the disadvantages. I'll outline the three main considerations for direct sales, and we'll do a quick overview of the many options you'll have for collecting money online and delivering books to your buyers.

This may be the last lesson of the course, but it's also one of the most exciting. We're going to look at additional ways to get your book in readers' hands. One of the first, of course, is libraries. How would you like to see your name and book come up when you search your library's online catalog? We'll also talk about getting into school libraries, and the Google Books Library Project that aims to digitize all the books in the world. Interested in your multimedia options? We'll cover this today as well, and we'll discuss your options for printing your book so traditional print readers can also have access to it. So be prepared to come away with new ways to have your books reach readers!

Linda Aksomitis

Linda Aksomitis has a master's degree in adult vocational/technical education, with a minor in English. She has published 25 books for readers of all ages (fiction and nonfiction), including numerous e-books, and she has a few thousand publication... Read more

Read Linda Aksomitis's Profile

Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Online learning is a flexible way to study that fits around your schedule, giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace from anywhere in the world. You'll have 3 months to complete the course and can take the multiple-choice questions and final exam whenever it suits you.

If you need help, you can contact us anytime. You can also join the discussion area where you can interact with other students. The discussion area for each lesson is open for the entire duration of the course.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

We do not offer extensions or transfers for this self-paced course. However, you will have 3 months to complete the course, and if you need to cancel within the first 10 days of enrolment, we offer a money back guarantee.

What people are saying about our courses

The course clarified what I needed to know about getting a book on the market in one way or another, and that was my chief objective. The instructor was everything she should be and more and I learned far more than I anticipated. I had no idea the area was so complex.

Verified Student

A very well-done course. Gave me exactly the knowledge and experience I was after.

Verified Student

I LOVED the class and I'm so excited to have a detailed to-do list now to prepare my books for publishing!!

Verified Student

See More Reviews

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Publish and Sell E-Books you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

Our Values

Learn At Your Own Pace

We believe in personalised learning. That's why we provide all the tools and support you need to succeed at your own pace. With flexible learning, you'll stay motivated and retain more information. Plus, you can balance your studies with work and family commitments to make your dreams a reality.

We Won't Break The Bank

Education should be accessible to anyone who wants to learn. That's why we offer some of the most competitive prices in the industry with payments plans for just $25 per week. Investing in your future is a smart choice and doesn’t have to break the bank.

Industry-Led Courses

There's no better way to learn than from experts with years of experience in your field. That's why each of our 200+ industry-led courses are designed to give you a real-life perspective on your industry. With our expert mentors, you'll learn from people who have a wealth of knowledge and experience, and who are passionate about sharing it with you.

Get The Personal Support You Deserve

At Vibe Learning, we're real people who are dedicated to providing you with personal support every step of the way. Our industry experts are not only professional and knowledgeable but also incredibly passionate about sharing their expertise with you. With their guidance, you'll gain invaluable insights and practical knowledge to help you succeed.

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Microsoft Outlook 2013 Fundamentals

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
351 Students

Get up to speed with the latest developments in Outlook, including how to manage your email, calendar, and contacts and how to get the most out of program tools such as Search Folders and Quick Steps.

Want to learn Microsoft Outlook 2013 quickly? Want to become a confident and productive user of this powerful program without having to memorise a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo? In this course, you'll see what's new in Outlook 2013 and get up and running with the most important aspects of the program, starting with mastering the new Windows 8 style look and feel. From there, you'll quickly learn how to manage your email, calendar, and contacts, and how to streamline and automate your work with keyboard shortcuts, rules, Search Folders, and Quick Steps.

The goal of this course is to teach you what you really need to know to be productive with Outlook 2013. That means you won't waste your time on low-value aspects of Outlook. Instead, you'll focus on the important things like sending, receiving, and managing your mail, and using tools such as the calendar, tasks, and to-dos so you can manage your schedule and get your work done. You'll also learn about the redesigned Contacts section of Outlook (now called People). You'll discover how Outlook can connect to your social networks, and discuss the pros and cons of making those connections.

The course also shares secrets about how to get the most from Outlook. For example, did you know that you can create, send, and receive email messages without ever touching the mouse? It's faster and more efficient, and can even reduce some of the strain on your aching mouse hand. Introduction to Outlook 2013 dedicates an entire lesson to the instructor's favorite Outlook tips and tricks. Whether you're new to Outlook or you've been using it for years, you're sure to learn something useful in every lesson.

In this lesson, you'll pick up some of the fundamentals of this big, powerful program. You'll jump right in and get your hands dirty by playing with the user interface and learning a couple of different ways to navigate between the major sections that we'll be covering over the next six weeks. And just in case something comes up where you need immediate help, we'll go over how you can activate Outlook's help systems and get answers in seconds.

Today we're going to dig into the section of Outlook 2013 where most people spend most of their time: Mail view. Not surprisingly, Mail view is the place where you work with email messages, and once we go over some of the mechanics of the view itself, we'll spend the rest of our time on the basics of email. We'll cover sending, receiving, and replying to messages, as well as how you can use the spell-checker and signatures to give your messages some class.

In this lesson, we're going to address a few more aspects of working in Mail view and with email messages. First we'll look at alerts, flags, and categories. The alerts notify you when new messages arrive, while the flags and categories will help you stay organized and make sure you don't forget to do something important with your messages. We'll also look at how the mail protocol used by your email service to connect to Outlook can affect the way these features function. Then we'll look at how messages are used to transport files around the Internet (that is, how attachments work), and wrap up the lesson with something that most people never figure out about messages.

It's time to move our attention from email over to the related subject of contacts. By the end of this lesson, you'll be well on your way to mastery of Outlook 2013's new People view and the contacts that reside therein. More importantly, you'll know what contacts can do, and how to use them to keep track of all sorts of information. From there, we'll look at Contact Groups, including their benefits and pitfalls. To wrap things up, we'll talk a bit about Address Books, an approach to contacting people by email that you'll likely encounter (even if you don't realize it) when using Outlook in a corporate environment.

In this lesson, we'll complete our study of the People hub by exploring how Outlook connects to social networks. But we'll do more than just look at how you set up this connection. We'll spend a significant part of the lesson discussing the pros and cons of connecting Outlook to networks like Facebook, particularly when you use Outlook for work and Facebook for play. Once we get a connection set up, we'll look at how this information appears in both the relevant contacts and in email messages to and from known contacts.

So far in the course, we've dealt with communication-related topics like email and contacts. Now we're going off in another direction. Outlook 2013 has a flexible and easy-to-use Calendar that helps you track and manage all the stuff you need to get done. In this lesson, we focus on the basics of using the Calendar, scheduling appointments and meetings, and tracking events. We'll also look at two powerful tools that make working with the Calendar more efficient: Calendar Groups and Schedule view. By the time we're done today, you'll know what you need to know to be able to use one or more Outlook Calendars efficiently. This lesson not only gives you all the info you need about using Calendars—by the time you finish, you'll have reached the halfway point in the course.!

This lesson is about getting things done. Outlook tasks and to-dos are ways to keep track of what you need to get done. Tasks are pretty much what you'd expect—items that you create to keep track of some particular task. To-dos are somewhat more interesting in that they are Outlook's way of tracking things you need to do something about without creating a special task for them. By the time we're done today, you'll clearly understand the difference between tasks and to-dos and know how to work with the To-Do Bar and the Daily Task List, Outlook's two ways of constantly reminding you of the things you need to get done next.

Outlook 2013 is all about communication. But it is all about storing and managing information, too. In this lesson, we look at three aspects of Outlook that help with these essential tasks. Notes give us a way to keep track of all those little random bits of information that otherwise would end up on scraps of paper all over the place. And speaking of random stuff, we have shortcuts and the Shortcuts Pane. With these, you can effectively create your own custom Folder Pane, one that points to the Outlook items most important to you. Even better, you can use shortcuts to point to stuff that's outside of Outlook, meaning you can organize information that's anywhere on your computer, the company network, even out on the Internet. Finally, we begin learning about folders. Folders let you organize the masses of information that you can accumulate in Outlook, while the Folder List lets you find them all again. This discussion lays the groundwork for Lesson 9, where folders are revealed to be a key part of automating your work in Outlook.

One of the great things about Outlook is that you can use it for so much of your communications and personal information. But with so many messages, contacts, tasks, notes, and other pieces of information in one place, organizing and managing it for easy and efficient access can be a big chore. In this lesson, you'll learn how Outlook 2013's flexible category system and rules can help you manage the flood of information that flows into your Inbox every day. You'll also learn how to print from Outlook for those rare occasions where you just have to have information on paper.

<p>As you use Outlook 2013 more and more, you'll eventually reach the point where you need to store old items for future reference. You'll also get to the point where it's hard to find the information you need because Outlook contains so much. In this lesson, we'll learn about the tools Outlook gives you to automatically archive your old items as well as three different tools for finding those items you know are in there somewhere. </p>

<P>Outlook 2013 does a lot of things, and it often gives you multiple ways to do each of them. And beyond the basics, it can do many things that we can't possibly cover in a six-week course. But that doesn't mean we can't look at some cool tips that can make working with Outlook 2013 faster, easier, or just more fun. This is exactly what you'll do in this lesson. I think you're going to enjoy it. </P> </H1> </H1>

<P>Outlook 2013 offers several customization options that you can take advantage of without having to learn programming or develop advanced technical skills. This lesson covers several customizations that you may find useful.</P> </H1> </H1> </H1>

Bill Mann

Bill Mann has been writing about software and the Internet for over 15 years and has relied on Microsoft Outlook to keep him organised and on track since it first became available. He is the author of more than 15 books, including two about Outloo... Read more

Read Bill Mann's Profile

Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Microsoft Outlook 2013 Fundamentals you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.