Ebook Formatting, Editing

**puckman** · Jun 18th, 2012, 04:39 PM

Hi, I have an ebook ready to launch and I need advice. I need an editor to proof read and check grammar, and I need formatting advice. I also need advice on copywriting, or preventing my work from being stolen. I have seen some ebooks lately that require the user to only use Acrobat, and the process was clunky, but if thats they only option, so be it. Any help or advice you can share would be much appreciated. Thanks!

**Jdp5h** · Jun 18th, 2012, 06:22 PM

I'm currently in the same spot. Looking forward to any advice. Thanks in advance!

**puckman** · Jun 18th, 2012, 09:16 PM

ugghh.. I will pay someone with experience to help me get this thing out the door and make it look good.

**Jdp5h** · Jul 14th, 2012, 08:01 PM

Hey puckman, any luck on finding advice for formatting ect.? I've done quite a bit of research but I'm still a little confused. If you have a link or suggestions of some material that helped you out, let me know if you don't mind. Thanks in advance.

**Steve W** · Jul 15th, 2012, 03:53 AM

I've done a fair bit of print layout work & could possibly help you guys. PM me if you'd like to discuss this...

**deepestblue** · Jul 15th, 2012, 04:39 AM

Once it's to your liking let the market tell you if the layout etc. is any good: Just get it out there and sell it and they will tell you believe me :-)

**TheBigPill** · Aug 6th, 2012, 05:55 PM

Just wondering what type of material you have and what you envision as your final output? Is is all or mostly text? Do you have images, video, etc.

Do you plan to also print physical copies?

More info is needed.

As for protection you could use the security features in Acrobat *but* they aren't that hard to defeat. In the end, make sure you offering something of value so people will want to buy from you again.

**healthstatus** · Aug 6th, 2012, 07:01 PM

I go to Elance and have a professional graphic designer style my ebooks. You can also hire editors from Elance or Guru.com to edit your book. Microsoft word has spell checking and grammar checking built in.

Your book is going to get stolen, it will not be stolen by people likely to buy your book, quit worrying about it. Appeal to the buyers, use one of the many digital protection, membership scripts/plugins that are available to keep from tempting the rightous and start selling it.

**Jonleehacker** · Aug 6th, 2012, 08:58 PM

My apologies that I don't remember the system for how to accomplish it, but the best deterrent to prevent ebook theft I've seen is when the buyer purchase, you create a customized version with "property of thebuyers@email.com" on the bottom of every page.

Obviously you'll want to automate it, but that gives the buyer a pretty strong reason not to pass the ebook along and it lets you track down the guilty party if you find one on a file sharing site.

**puckman** · Aug 11th, 2012, 12:20 PM

I used Elance and had a decent editor, but he was cheap. For a 40,000 word book he charged me $160 to proof it. It wasn't done well, but I had several good offers around $300-$400. I should have paid the higher amount and it would have been done perfect.

I hired a designer from a referral and this guy was AWESOME. Totally satisfied with my designer. $300 to do the cover, several logo's, images, etc.

Elance works, but I would stay away from people with little or no ratings. And I would try to find any referrals you can for this type of work.

I am using Kajabi, it works well, but I need to find out how to get traffic other than paying for it. I am reading Ryan Holidays book for that.