A long time before, on a desk-top far, far away...

That has not imagined not only writing their very own book, but seeing it in publications o-n Amazon.com, having a copy for their shelf, getting 'five copies for my mother'?

Well, now you can do-it for a $99 fee and some cybernetic elbow grease. These pages will show you how I did it, and odds are you can perform it too. I have been reading for many years about Print On Demand, the awesome new techology where you put in PDF files on one end (One for the cover, one for the insides) and a lovely, perfect-bound, bookstore-quality book happens the other. I have even seen the technology in action at an document imaging tradeshow (that's my job, by-the way.)

I have known other folks who have used Print On Demand (POD) as an easy way to self-publish, including my own father. My problem with that is I've no room within my garage for books, I do not need to get involved in the act of attempting to sell and transport books, handling results, an such like. In case people need to identify more about http://www.amazon.com/glass files, there are lots of online resources you could pursue.

Suddenly, while Googling anything yesterday, I stumbled on some wonderful Goo. Amazon, the internet bookstore, has absorbed a POD founder called BookSurge, which makes it a different Amazon division. Now I could publish it to Amazon/BookSurge, just take my book project, pay a price, and VOILA! my book is o-n Amazon for all to purchase. I-t delivers within 4-8 hours, BookSurge gives me a-25 royalty within 60-days, I will even buy five copies for my mother at a discount!

I sent BookSurge and was given an account manager, who I'll call Joseph (because his name is Joseph). I asked about the details of publishing a book. For $599 I could obtain the hand-holding, mail us your manuscript version of the publishing, or if I was brave, bold, and could format my own PDFs, for $99 I could make use of the Author's Express program to distribute my book projects.

Since my book design project was designed to be the precursor of several more games, $99 looked just like the approach to take.

I ran throughout the site, getting case PDFs, submission guidelines, and other things I may find. The site recomends applying Adobe -something or another- for text formating, and Adobe Acrobat 6 (not 7!) for PDF creation.

I decided from the git-go that Microsoft Word and PDF Factory Pro would have to benefit me, because that's what I'd on my desktop, and I don't need to spend weeks studying another desktop publishing software, though I'm sure it's a great one.

Besides, I was already considering writing this page, and I wanted to come up with a process most anybody will be comfortable with.

The only real secret I took is that my cover is plain-text, with no pictures onto it. I decided my first book will probably offer mostly if not entirely on Amazon, and a pretty cover is not that important there. Regardless, I will always go back and update my version (The additional fee for resubmitting either the interior or even the cover is $50, once the book is published.)

Test documents and a complete detailed description of how I formatted and revealed my three books (therefore far!) reaches http://www.actasif.com/bookproject.