You can upload your book in a number of file formats but I recommend that you stick with PDF.  This is the format of encrypting (read – can’t be edited by others) a file which was developed by Adobe and can be read by either their free Reader or a number of other readers. 

The main reason for using this format is that anyone with a computer can read a PDF because there is a version of the Adobe PDF Reader for that operating system.  In addition you have options of several different levels of security, personally I don’t use too many of these as I don’t like to restrict the end user too much.  I just prevent editing and leave the rest.

You can download a PDF printer for your computer so you create the PDF just by printing to the PDF printer, adjust the settings and away you go. 

I use OpenOffice, a free replacement for Microsoft Office.  I prefer it as I think it is cleaner to use and can read/write in any MS Office format you like as well as many others, including PDF.  You get OpenOffice from http://www.openoffice.org/ and with 100 million downloads in a year it has to be pretty good. 

Once you have created your PDF and tested that it’s working properly the next step is to create a cover for your book. This is an area in which there are good tools to help you.  The most common is Photoshop or one of the derivatives.  This is seriously expensive software.  If you can say “it only cost $1,700″ and think it was worth it then go get Photoshop.  Otherwise you might like to spend the $200 or so to get either Photoshop Elements or other derivatives. 

If you don’t like spending that type of money just to make a couple of book covers then you might like to use the software I use, it’s called Gimp and it is (shhh, don’t tell anyone – free).  Download it from http://www.gimp.org, read the tutorials and enjoy.

OK, you now have a PDF of your new book, you have a stunning cover and you’re ready to publish right? 

Almost, you need to write a couple of summaries of your new book.  You’ll need one for the sales page on Bearly Books.  Have a look at what is already there, this page is the one you will use for all your linking.  I’ll get back to that but a review of the book is the best type of sales page. 

You’ll also need to put a couple of summaries on other sites around the internet, I’ll get back to that as well, but you really only need 3-4 summaries to get things really going for you. 

Log into your account at Bearly Books, click on the My workspace link in the LH menu and select a User book to create.  It’s pretty much follow the bouncing ball and fill in the blanks here.  Click on the switch to rich text editor under the Description box so you can set out your formatting more easily if it is turned off. 

If there’s nothing in the Catalog list which matches your book you need to let me know, use the contact form, and I’ll add it for you.  For now just get it online, you can edit the settings later. 

Upload your book, the field for that is about 1/2 way down the page and called File Attachments.  Upload your cover image and set the retail price the customer will pay, this can be $0.00 if you want to just give it away.  Press the Tab key and your commission will be calculated for you.  Make sure the Products are shippable box is turned off.  Ignore everything else, click save. 

Click on the Features tab and add File Download as a feature of your book or no-one will be able to get it.  Save that and you’re done.

Congratulations, you are now a published author.  The search engine robots will now find your summary page and you’ll be listed in the next day or so.  Now you need to help them find you from a number of other places so you need a link to send them to. 

You’ll be still in My workspace, and you should see your new book listed.  Hover the mouse over the link to the sales page, right click and copy the link.  Open a text file on your computer and save this link into it. 

Click on the My account link, click on the Affiliate Center tab and scroll the page down to the Affiliate Links.  This is the most important link for you.  Copy this and save it into the text file as well. 

Just like any other author you now have some promotion to do.  Don’t panic, this is easy.  The key to the Internet is links.  Yep, that’s it.  Didn’t know it could be so easy did you but there it is.  Why do you think it’s called the World Wide Web?  Now pay close attention because this is the hard work – go to your favourite forums, go to your profile and add your affiliate link to Bearly Books into your sig.  Now keep visiting and joining in the discussions.

Don’t have a favourite forum?  Search in your favourite search engine for writing and publishing blogs.  Have fun reading the posts and commenting on them.  Make sure you put your affiliate link where it asks for your web site.

Expand a summary to about 200-300 words, add a profile about you and put your link in it.  Post it to Ezine Articles, and then search for more article directories in Google, Yahoo, Bing or any of the other search engines.  Put this in the search field ‘submit articles’ I found about 81 million pages but that isn’t how many article directories there are.  Post the same article to as many as it fits.

That’s probably enough for now but I will put a report together with a lot more information about link building, including using existing sites like Facebook, My Space, Twitter, Hub Pages, Squidoo and many others.  For now though I have put together a quick report you can download from the Catalog called Mr Bearly’s Guide to the Fastest, Cheapest Traffic and it’s free.

Here’s a promotional idea for you, if you use your affiliate link from your Account and in the Affiliate Center which looks a bit like this

< a href=”http://www.bearlybooks.com/affiliate/Mr Bearly/”>Bearly Books</a>

and add the link to the traffic report which looks like this

mr-bearlys-guide-cheapest-fastest-traffic

you’ll get this

<a href=”http://www.bearlybooks.com/affiliate/Mr Bearly/mr-bearlys-guide-cheapest-fastest-traffic”>Fast Traffic Report</a>

which is pretty long but fine for forums and blog posts.  If you want to shorten that you can replace the /affiliate/Mr Bearly/ with ?a=1/ that is a number and is your affiliate number which you can find when you hover your mouse over the Workspace link.  The number on the end of the link is your affiliate/user id number.

You should promote your book in the first instance in the same manner but there is nothing wrong with adding a second link to the traffic report.  The benefit to you is that you will then have one more person who is an affiliate of yours.  When they come back to buy you will be credited with the sale and get the commission.  How about that, give something away and make money?

So that’s the tools, a way to make a PDF, a way to make a book cover and your brain.  Of these the one which gets used the least by most people who want to sell something on the internet is their brain.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Stay focussed on what you want to achieve and keep doing these simple things.  Write content, spread it around, build links to your pages with your affiliate link in them.

OK, now for the resources:

http://www.openoffice.org/

http://www.gimp.org

Ezine Articles

Mr Bearly’s Guide to the Fastest, Cheapest Traffic

I am in the process of developing a tool to hep with the link building process, when it’s done it will be linked to here.

As I find other things wich can help I’ll add them here as well.