A long time ago, on the desk-top far, far away...

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

Well, you will get it done for a $99 charge and some cybernetic elbow grease. This site will show you how I did it, and chances are you can perform it too. I've been reading for many years about Print On Demand, the awesome new techology where you devote PDF files on one end (One for the address, one for the interiors) and a lovely, perfect-bound, bookstore-quality book happens another. I have also seen the technology in motion at an document imaging tradeshow (that is my job, by the way.)

I have known as an easy way to self-publish, including my very own father other folks who have used Print On-demand (POD). My problem with that is I've no place within my garage for books, I do not need to get involved in the process of selling and shipping books, handling earnings, etc.

Suddenly, while Googling anything a week ago, I came across some great Goo. Amazon, the online bookstore, has consumed a POD founder called BookSurge, which makes it another Amazon division. Now I can upload it to Amazon/BookSurge, take my book project, pay a price, and VOILA! my book is o-n Amazon for everybody to purchase. It delivers within 4-8 hours, BookSurge gives a-25 royalty to me within 60 days, I will also 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 inquired about the details of writing a book. For $599 I could get the hand-holding, send us your manuscript version of the publishing, or if I was bold, bold, and could format my own PDFs, for $99 I could utilize the Author's Express plan to publish my book projects.

Since my book design project was made to be the precursor of numerous more games, $99 seemed just like the way to go.

I ran all over the site, downloading example PDFs, submission guidelines, and anything else I can find. Your website recomends applying Adobe -something or another- for text formating, and Adobe Acrobat 6 (not 7!) for PDF creation.

I decided in the git-go that Microsoft Word and PDF Factory Pro will have to work for me, since that is what I'd o-n my desktop, and I do not need to spend months studying another desktop publishing software, although I am sure it is a great one. For more information, you may have a gander at: http://www.amazon.com/glass files.

Besides, I was already thinking about writing these pages, and I wanted to come back up with an activity most anybody would be comfortable with.

The only real short-cut I took is that my cover is plain-text, without pictures onto it. I figured my first book will probably sell mostly if not entirely o-n Amazon, and quite a cover is not that impor-tant there. Whatever the case, I could always go back and update my model (The excess fee for resubmitting after the book is published.), either the interior or even the cover is $50

Test records and an entire step-by-step description of how I formatted and published my three books (so far!) reaches http://www.actasif.com/bookproject.