FREELANCE
BOARDS
Elance.com and Freelancer.com (previously called
GetAFreelancer.com) are bulletin boards where buyers and sellers of different freelance talent can come and find
each other. You can hire freelance writers there, as well as coders and graphic artists. They will allow
freelancers to post their profiles online and to bid on projects posted by buyers. You can take a look at any
number of projects that are up for bid, and also at the profiles of those who are bidding on them. Once a
project is completed, the person is rated by the buyer, and so you also have that feedback that can help you
determine whether the person might be a good match for you or not.
TAKE A LOOK AT PROFILES
Take a very good look at each seller profile.
They will offer samples of their work so that you can see what their specialty niches are and whether their
writing style is close to what you want. It will also give you an idea of how long they've been doing this type
of work and what their expected pay rate might be. The pay between freelancers varies greatly, as some have more
years of experience and/or specific knowledge of hot niches that puts them in high demand.
START WITH A SMALL PROJECT
Start with a small project that you can post and
determine who might be available and who will bid on it for you. Or you can email people whose profiles you like
and ask them if they would like to do a private project for you. You don't have to start by putting something up
to bid if you find a few profiles that work for you. If you do put it up to bid, you can invite the people you
like to bid on it. If they're available, they're more than likely to bid on it. If the project shows that they
can handle a larger project, then you can ask them to do the ebook. By doing a smaller project first, you'll get
a good idea of whether they will work out for you with a larger project or not.
Locking Your Content
Away
You will receive editable content from
ghostwriters, from speech recognition software, and even from using PLR. It will be in a popular word processing
format that you will not want to sell as is. You have to lock the content away so that people can't take it, use
it without paying for the rights to use it, and steal portions of it to put on their websites, to use in their
own ebooks, and so forth. You do have to use some safeguards to keep your content safe; after all, it was your
money, your time, and your hard work that went into it. If anyone stands to profit from it, it should be you and
no one else.
ADOBE ACROBAT READER
This software program is the standard for ebooks
and allows anyone with the reader to view .pdf files from their personal computer. The reader itself is free,
but the actual Adobe software to create your own .pdf file is expensive. If you intend on doing many books and
want many of the features of the Adobe Acrobat line of products, then it can be a sound investment. However, if
you just want a straight .pdf file format, there are a variety of ways you can produce the same thing for
nothing.
ONLINE PDF CONVERTERS
There are free online .pdf converters available
that will allow you to post your content to them and they emailing you back the .pdf version. They may or may
not be that compatible with Adobe Acrobat Reader, and you should check to see how the final product looks when
opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader. You also want to be sure that it opens in the latest version of the Reader, as
this can differ too. It may be a trial-and-error process, as many things can shift in the formatting of the
ebook when you convert it from a word processing format to a .pdf format. Be sure to load it and then proofread
it for orphaned titles and such on pages that were formatted incorrectly. Much of this can be fixed just by
adding additional spacing into the original document and then converting it again.
OPEN OFFICE
If you don't want to go through the trouble of
doing things back and forth online, and you don't want to pay for Adobe Acrobat for .pdf file creation, you can
still use an open source product called OpenOffice to get the option to export to a .pdf file. This is loaded
directly onto your personal computer; it has a suite of products similar to Microsoft Office, except that it
requires no licensing or sales fees. You can get Openoffice for free at http://www.openoffice.org.
Using the word processing program, you can open the file that was sent to you or that was created in another
program, and then using the File menu, you can choose the “Export as PDF...” format to get the right kind of
file. Once that's done, your file will be protected from people who want to try and copy and paste the
information to their sites or products. It won't be possible to do that operation anymore, so they will have to
pay you or notify you if they want the copy in text format.
I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.
What do you think about the information about creating your first
ebook? If you have any comments, please let me know.
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