28 Free How-To eBooks For Self-Publishers

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Or perhaps you just need some direction, inspiration or technical help with your book? We’ve put together a list of 28 totally free ebooks you can download right now that should help you get going!

Writing

How To Write Fiction
Award winning writer, trained journalist and qualified trainer, Gurmeet Mattu, brings you a 15 Module Complete Creative Writing Course aimed at those who’d like to learn the nuts and bolts of writing fiction. The Modules include instruction on how to develop characters, write believable dialogue, how to vary tempo and how to ‘find your voice’. Includes Excercises and Tasks to help you hone your skill. An indispensable resource for the novice writer.

Your Guide To Scrivener
Learn to use the ultimate writing software: Scrivener. Allowing you to combine the various elements that make up your writing project, from outlines to research to note, Scrivener helped author Nicole Dionisio write two novels in a single year. This guide to Scrivener outlines how to use Scrivener to make your writing better, and is useful for writers of all stripes – which includes you.

Macro-English
Few people realize there is a special, important technique of studying grammar: to look for the reasons behind the rules. The author suggests that learning English is a process of mind-training. A learner should approach English as an active thinker, not a thoughtless reader.

How To Be A More Confident And Productive Writer
Whether it’s to become more productive or to get the creativity flowing and bring the passion back to their writing, the tips in this ebook will help any writer.

Unofficial NaNoWriMo Guide
Taking part in NaNoWriMo? Thinking about it? This book provides dozens of helpful hints and writing prompts that are sure to make your novel shine!

Editing

The Rules of Copywriting
Within these pages you will learn the art of good copywriting, a vital part of selling regardless of the type of product you are promoting.

The Complete Newbie’s Guide to Effective Copywriting
The basic aim of every business is to enhance stakeholder value. Whether you are keen on generating a huge response from a newspaper or magazine ad, a direct sales letter, or an Internet site, the basic fact you need to realize is “What is it that makes your business tick?”

Formatting

Make Your Own 3D Book Cover Using Word or Paint
A pretty awesome way to make a quick 3D cover when you have no real skills in design.

Smashwords Style Guide
The Smashwords Style Guide has helped thousands of authors produce and publish high-quality ebooks. This free guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create, format and publish an ebook. It’s required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, Oyster & Kobo. Revised September 24, 2014.

PERFECT PAGES: Self Publishing with Microsoft Word
Topics in this book include speeding up Word, avoiding file corruption, optimizing Word for print, handling custom page sizes, structuring your book with Word sections, using templates, using styles, using print vs. typewriter typography, choosing fonts, formatting your text, setting up hyphenation, smoothing your paragraphs, controlling page endings, evening your pages, preparing and placing graphics, inserting text boxes, adding borders and backgrounds, using alignment aids, producing printouts for scanning, preparing PDF files, converting color for print, placing crop marks, creating a simple book cover, and many more.

Creating eBooks
A quick and simple guide on how ebooks differ from their printed cousins, how you can create your own, and how you can cover pretty much the whole market using Smashwords and Amazon.

Publishing

Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish And Why You Should
It gives you practical, hands-on advice, sharing the very latest best practices on editing, cover design, formatting, and pricing. It gives you proven marketing strategies that won’t eat into your writing time and are actually effective at selling books. It also shares tips on platform building, blogging, and social networking, and explains which approaches are best for selling fiction versus non-fiction, and what writers should really focus on.

3 free e-book guides, including Self-Publishing Simplified
This e-book shows the differences between traditional publishing, independently self-publishing all by yourself, and publishing your book with the full-service support of Outskirts Press.

Sheridan Free Self-Publishing Guide
The Self- Publisher’s Step-by-Step Guide to Successfully Managing the Book Printing Process covers items such as: obtaining your ISBN, Bar Code, and Copyright Registration; establishing credit and how to get the best pricing; preparing your manuscript and cover; submitting your files, reviewing proofs, and book productions; shipping and receiving your books, and much more.

Publishing Basics
Publishing Basics takes all the mystery out of self-publishing and helps steer you in the right direction. The book is organized in a simple, to the point, question and answer format.

How to Publish Your Ebook as a Paperback on Amazon
This FREE, ready-to-download eBook provides you with easy to follow step-by-step instructions on how to publish your eBook as a Paperback on Amazon. It also includes a Bonus Video that shows you how to submit your book to Amazon for FREE!

How To Easily Write, Publish, Market and Sell eBooks
Everyone can write an eBook, or information product, and distribute, sell, or give it away, on the Web. Ordinary people, like you and me, do it with success, and some are selling and making thousands every month. Here are some of the advantages of being an eBook writer: You have total control over your work. You are your own boss, you decide what, when and where you will write, and no publishing company or editor can put you on a deadline.

BookBaby Free Publishing Guides
Bestselling authors and industry pros offer tips on how to make it as a DIY author in today’s eBook marketplace. All these guides are free and easily downloadable as PDF files.

Marketing

How To Market, Promote And Sell Your Books: Proven Book Marketing Tips From Best Selling Authors and Book Marketing Experts
This book contains interview with best selling authors and self publishing experts like Rachael Abbott,Hugh Howey,Trevor Young,Jane Dixon Smith,Brian Cormack Barr,Steven Lewis and so many others authorities in the self publishing world.

Unofficial Guide To Goodreads Readers And Writers
I am digital marketer who works in traditional publishing, and I am also a writer. And though I am not self-published (yet?), I have two words for those who are: Goodreads STAT. So basically, I really like Goodreads. I use it for business and pleasure and this guide will talk about both of these perspectives.

Unleashing The Idea Virus
Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer, rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to- customer dialogue the ideavirus, and cheerfully eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

AIMING AT AMAZON: The NEW Business of Self Publishing
Aiming at Amazon is not about getting your book into bookstores. Instead, it lays out an innovative approach that targets sales on Amazon.com. It reveals how to make a book sell well online, with tips never before offered. And it doesn’t stop there—it gives you a way to publish your book that can double your profit per copy.

Secrets of Successful Writers
Writers speak about how to write, publish and promote your book in the age of digital publishing. Contains interviews with John Locke, Gordon Ferris, Stephen Carpenter, Dakota Banks, Linda Wisdom, Matthew Reilly, Loucinda McGary, David Lender, JR Rain, Jack Dann, Dale Brown, Stephanie McAfee, Andy Briggs, Kat Martin and many, many more.

Blogging

The Easy WordPress Guide
The Easy WP Guide gives you all the information you need on updating your WordPress site, in simple easy to read language. The Guide is constantly updated, keeping up with the latest WordPress version, so you can be assured that you’ll find out about all the latest features in the world’s most popular blogging and content management system.

The Unofficial Beginner’s Guide To Tumblr
By now you’ve heard of tumblr. The blog building website was sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion, and is the number one social networking site for people under 25. Clearly it’s important, but it’s a bit mystifying. It’s less a blog than it is an anti-blog.

Set Up Your Blog With WordPress
Want to start your own blog, but don’t know where to start? You should really look into WordPress, the simplest and most powerful blogging platform available today. Powering over 50% of all blogs, and more than a few other websites, WordPress makes the task of content-management easy for anyone.

Reading

Project Gutenberg: More Than Just Free Books
When it comes to books, one of the major players is Project Gutenberg. With an army of volunteers scanning, proofreading, and editing public domain works, being able to discover obscure works of literature is now easier than ever.

Miscellaneous

How To Work For Yourself
One of the fastest paths to success is starting a new project like a business, blog, book or some other creative endeavor by creative endeavor expert Bryan Cohen. Includes 75% off voucher for his video course.