beginners

Guest Post By Stephanie Zia

In a perfect world you'd consult and employ professionals at every stage to produce an ebook – from copy editing to formatting, proof reading, cover design and beyond. But not many of us have the resources to do that. I certainly didn't.

I was blogging my discoveries as I learnt until, in July 2010, I decided to gather everything into an ebook for other writers with little publishing and technical knowledge. Here is a quick run-down on my methods of producing an ebook with little or no initial outlay.   When you've finished writing, put the work away, had another look, re-edited etc etc. and find you really have reached “The End” and are ready to publish, the next stage is to copy edit.

1. A copy editor corrects grammar and spelling mistakes, looks for consistencies in spelling, capitalisations and spacings, and checks facts, names, dates, references, timescales in fiction, and so on. This is obviously a