A Beginners Guide to E-Publishing

by Mervyn Love

OK, Merv, you’ve got me to this page of your fabulous web site, so tell me, just what is “e-publishing”.

Well, Valued Visitor, it’s like this: the “e” in “e-publishing” stands for “electronic”. It simply means a way of publishing your work so that it can be read on a computer screen and transferred over the Internet or by e-mail.

So, can I start “e-publishing” my short stories and poems?

Absolutely! You can also publish full-length novels, and non-fiction books - complete with diagrams and pictures if you wish. They are called “e-books”.

What do these “e-books” look like?

They are just like ordinary computer files - like your Word or WordPerfect documents -  but are usually converted into either an .EXE file or a .PDF file.

Strewth! What on earth are they when they’re at home?

I’m glad you asked. An .EXE file (pronounced ‘eksi’) is a file which your computer will ‘execute’ when you double click on it. It is usually made with special software that takes your Word or WordPerfect document and converts it into an “.exe” or “executable” file.

Now, dear Valued Visitor, this is where it gets just a teensy-weensy bit more complicated when it comes to explaining exactly how you do that, but I’ll come back to that when we’ve talked about .PDF files.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, there’s something I don’t understand!

Really? I thought my explanation was lucidity itself?

Oh, sure, but what I want to know is why are you putting full-stops in front of  EXE and PDF. Perceived wisdom is to put them at the end.

True, and if I may say so, it’s very perceptive of you to spot that. OK. They are not full-stops actually, but the dot between the name of the file and its extension. So mydocument.doc would become mydocument.pdf when converted to PDF. So, Valued Visitor, let me now explain...

Look, can we stop this “Valued Visitor” stuff. It’s pathetic.

Oh. Really? Just thought it was sort of welcoming.

Well it isn’t.

Right. What about “Dear Friend”?

Whatever, just stop faffing around and get on with it.

Tell you what, why don’t I write all this and more into an e-book and let you read it at your leisure? How would that be?

Brilliant idea!

Your word is my command, just click on the link below which will open it in your Acrobat Reader, and you can read it or print it out as the mood takes you... Dear Friend.

(Sigh!)