--- title: How to Write and Publish an Ebook Over the Weekend author: Tris date: 2018-06-26 url: https://www.trishussey.com/how-to-write-and-publish-an-ebook-over-the-weekend/ --- ## How hard could it be to publish an ebook in a couple days? Actually, not that hard. As I’ve been freelancing more, I’ve been thinking how to get more business—a rather important part of the whole freelancing thing. A lot of people have downloadable giveaways like templates, worksheets, and *ebooks* on their sites. I figured an ebook would be good. I could do an ebook. I’m already working on an ebook for a client, and writing more makes cranking out content easier. Late Saturday night—it technically was Sunday—I got an idea for an ebook. I scribbled a quick outline in my notebook and went to bed. The next morning I got up and wrote it and turned it into a “real” ebook with pictures and formatting. On Monday I released it to the world. In less than 24 hours I went from “hmm, that’s a good idea” to “hey would anyone like to read the ebook I just finished writing?” Pretty cool I think. I still can’t believe I pulled it off. Here’s how I did it. ## Quick! Write down that idea! The first step to getting a ebook done in a weekend is *writing down the damn idea when you have it*. Simple, right? I *almost* didn’t do it. I *almost* went to bed thinking I’d remember the idea and the points I’d make. I’m glad I didn’t. I had recently *lost* a great idea and post flow that week to “oh I’ll remember it later…”; I wasn’t going to let this one slip away into the cobwebs of my brain. I went to my office, opened my notebook, took out a pen and scribbled the title—10 Tips to Level Up Your Posts—and the 10 tips. Oh the ink smudges? I write with fountain pens and I’m left-handed and I forgot how *long* Mont Blanc royal blue ink takes to dry on the page. Oops. [perfectpullquote align="right" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="#1738b2" class="" size=""]When you have a good idea (or what you think is a good idea) stop and write it down.[/perfectpullquote] That’s step one: **when you have a good idea (or what you think is a good idea) stop and write it down**. I have a notebook and pen in my nightstand if I get a flash of brilliance in the middle of the night. After this weekend’s success, I’m going to write more ideas down more often. ## Figure out some of the ebook mechanics Truthfully I should have gone straight to bed, but since I had the house to myself Saturday, Sunday, *and* most of Monday, I was in no rush to go to sleep. Actually I was too excited about the idea to go to sleep. I needed to figure out if Apple’s [iBooks Author](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ibooks-author/id490152466?mt=12) would be good enough to crank out an ebook and if there was a suitable template for me to use. [perfectpullquote align="left" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="#1738b2" class="" size=""]Because I knew iBooks would work out, I could sit down and start writing when I got up.[/perfectpullquote] Turns out, yes iBooks Author is more than capable and between the templates that came with the app and two sets I downloaded—[Books Expert ($14)](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/books-expert-templates-for-ibooks-author/id497704085?mt=12) and [DesiGN for iBooks (free with in-app purchases)](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/design-for-ibooks-templates/id527161787?mt=12)—I was more than prepared. I goofed around for a few hours finding the right portrait-orientation template and when I thought I had something workable, I called it a night. I *could have* waited until morning to do this goofing around, but **because I knew iBooks would work out, I could sit down start writing when I got up**. ## Start writing and don’t stop [caption id="attachment_5144" align="alignleft" width="205"] Photo by [Florian Klauer](https://unsplash.com/photos/mk7D-4UCfmg?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on Unsplash[/caption] Because I had the house to myself, I had no interruptions and no one else to worry about except me. This let me sit down to write and be able to *just go*. I don’t get the chance very often to sit down and write undisturbed for an entire day and I was not going to waste it. I started writing about 11:00 AM and wrote until about 5 PM. I wrote in [Ulysses](https://ulysses.app/) ([Mac App Store link](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ulysses/id1225570693?mt=12)), but could have used [Scrivener](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) or even Word. The tool isn’t really important—okay it kinda is when we get to the iBooks Author part—the important part was sitting down and writing. When I called the ebook draft “done” and ready to edit, it clocked in at about 4000 words (roughly 15 pages). To pull *that* task off I needed to be organized. My page of notes and outline from the night before gave me a structure to follow. I wasn’t writing blindly. I knew the beginning, middle, and end. No, my notes aren’t detailed—to you—but to me the phrases triggered the ideas I had for each section. *Those* ideas I could remember. I ran through the opening lines of each section in my head and liked what the internal voice was saying. [perfectpullquote align="right" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="#1738b2" class="" size=""]Step three: sit down and start writing.[/perfectpullquote] For a lot of people this step, the writing part is hard, which is why I wrote the ebook in the first place. If I wanted to help people create better content, what would I tell them? Hell, what have I *been telling people* for the ten or so years I’ve been on-and-off teaching about blogging? While writing is hard for a lot of people—oh it’s still hard for me sometimes, I just have practice at writing faster—you *can* get the words out. Maybe you can’t finish the text of a 15 page ebook in six hours, but I bet you could make a serious dent in it. I’d be willing to bet—especially if you follow some of the tips in the ebook—you can get a good chunk of a draft started. **Step three: sit down and start writing**. Take breaks now and then. Stretch. Have a coffee or four. Do whatever you need to do, but keep going until your brain, fingers, or arms give out. ## The publishing part I used iBooks Author for this because I don’t have (or want) inDesign. I have iBooks Author (it’s free) and I had played around with it a few years ago. When I got the idea for writing an ebook, I was *pretty sure* it would be the right tool for the job. Both Ulysses and Scrivener have ePUB and PDF publishing options, but I was a little wary of those. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the page layout right in either of them without a lot of screaming at the computer. As it was, I screamed a good bit at iBooks, but I figured out some of its quirks enough to finish. Speaking of quirks, in iBooks there are templates you can directly import an ePUB book into, and some you can’t. I haven’t delved into how this is done or set up, but the template I picked couldn’t import ePUB. However, once you start a new book with a non-ePUB template, you *can* import a Word or Pages file in as chapters, sections, and pages. I exported the text from Ulysses to Word and Word into iBooks Author. It worked pretty well. I had to do a lot of formatting—and that took a while—but you should expect that. Yes, you *could* write in iBooks Author, but I don’t think I would. It’s not designed for that and doing a big, first pass edit would be hard to manage. Edit in your writing tool of choice, polish in iBooks Author. For structure I did a title page, one section, and pages. I could have made each of the tips its own section with page(s) beneath as part of a single chapter, but I found that cumbersome (I tried). I might have cranked out one ebook in iBooks Author, but I’m no means an expert. I don’t even know if I did it “right”, but I’m proud of the result. And if you’re wondering I used the “Shock Therapy” template from Books Expert. If you look at the template you’ll see it’s *very* yellow. I like blue. I figured out how to change the template to be more to my liking—figuring that out took a bit of reading an experimenting, but I managed to pull it off. [perfectpullquote align="full" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="#1738b2" class="" size=""]Step four, find a template, learn its quirks, and get to formatting and polishing.[/perfectpullquote] ## And done. After editing in Ulysses, formatting in iBooks Author, polishing, adding graphics, and polishing a final time I turned that baby into a PDF to share with a few people. I *did* learn that publishing it as “Best” for images doesn’t make much of a difference visually versus “Better”, but “Better” is *seven times smaller*. The version I sent out first was “Best” and clocked in at 22.2 megs. Ouch. The “Better” version is only 3.3 megs. Much better. Late Sunday night I shared the completed ebook, less than 24 hours after I had the idea. I worked for a while on setting up a Hubspot lead flow (didn’t work so well) and finding a couple plugins for WordPress to handle the form and download part ([Contact Form 7](https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/) for the form and [Before and After](https://wordpress.org/plugins/before-and-after/) to trigger a download after I got an email address). I had a few hiccups with Hubspot and the plugins, but that’s a minor detail. I could have just emailed it out to people or posted it as is, and it would still be done. That’s the story. That’s how I got an idea, wrote it out, and created a 15 page ebook over the weekend. And if you’d like a copy…here’s a form to download it: [goal id="5147"] Feature image by: Lukas Blazek