Regardless of which self-publishing company you use, you will need to export your book’s interior as a PDF.
What is a PDF?
PDF stands for the Portable Document Format and is used to display documents in an electronic (or digital) form independent of the software, hardware or operating system they are viewed on.
A PDF displays the exact same content and layout no matter which operating system, device or software application it is viewed on.
How to create a PDF
Many word processing applications (including Microsoft Word and Apple Pages) make this a very simple procedure.
As always, think about what you want to do and then look around for a way to do it — and perusing the application’s menus would be a great place to start.
You can then follow visual cues to methodically complete your current task at hand.
In this example, the procedure is…
File menu –> Export –> PDF –> Publish
NOTE: “Publish” in this context simply means you are ready to save your manuscript as a separate Portable Document File.
When the “Save as” window appears, select the folder you wish to put the PDF in, verify the file type and type in a descriptive file name.
In this blog post’s accompanying video, we demonstrate how to insert a photo from the “Pictures” folder on a Windows 10 computer into a Microsoft Word document.
Specific procedures for inserting images into documents will vary between computers and word processing applications.
But regardless of which computer you are using and which word processing app you are using, you will simply need to…
Think about what what you want to do (e.g. insert a picture into a document) and look around for a way to do it (e.g. the “insert” menu)
Proceed methodically while following visual cues (e.g. the “Pictures” icon on the “Insert” toolbar)
It also helps to know where your files are (e.g. all of your pictures being in the “Pictures” folder or perhaps within your computer’s “Photos” app).
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, meaning it’s an internationally recognized identification number. This number registers and identifies a book worldwide and associates the publisher, and other essential information, to one book alone, because every single ISBN is unique.
How much does an ISBN cost?
At the time of this writing you can purchase 1 ISBN for $125, 10 for $295 and 100 for $575.
Where to purchase ISBNs
If you live in the USA, you have to get an ISBN through myidentifiers.com, run by Bowker, the only company that is authorized to administer the ISBN program in the United States.
The short answer is yes. You can get a free ISBN if you publish your book through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. But if you do so then you cannot publish your book outside of KDP.
And your book listing in Amazon will also say “Independently published”…
Write your manuscript in plan text. Do not think about formatting . Focus on just your words. Trying to format as you go along can cause a lot of headaches and wasted time further in the manuscript creation process.
To put it simply, plain text is any text that isn’t formatted. It does not take any special formatting, such as varying fonts, font sizes, font colors, bold font, or italics.
Recently I was browsing for a recipe for spaghetti marinara sauce when I was informed that my computer was at risk and that I needed to call a toll-free number right away because this was really serious!
Legitimate system notification messages will never try to scare you.
Never engage with scary messages that appear on web pages. Simply close your web browser window and clear your web browser’s cache:
When people speak of “viruses” they are actually referring to malware which is defined as…
Malware, or “malicious software,” is an umbrella term that describes any malicious program that is harmful to computers.
People often infect their computers by…
1. Opening malicious message attachments.
Rule of thumb: If you do not know the sender of the message, do not click on any message attachments.
Also if you do know the sender of the message and their discourse seems off, do not click on any message attachments as it is very easy to fake things (including people) on the Internet.
Message attachments are often designated by paperclip icons — stop, look and think before you click or tap
2. By downloading applications from outside their computer’s App Store.
Websites which offer free software download will often try to unobtrusively attach bloatware (an unnecessary, resource-hogging application) or malware to the application you actually want to download.
Rule of Thumb: Only download new applications from within your computer’s App Store whenever possible and stay clear of websites that offer free downloads
3. By using “Obsolete” computers and mobile devices
Technology ages faster than dog years 🐶 At some point, companies who create operating systems (e.g. Windows and macOS) will stop supporting computers they consider to be obsolete and cease issuing security updates to those computers — which results in them being very vulnerable (if not wide open) to malware infection.
Rule of thumb: Contemporary computers have a shelf life of roughly 7 years (although you can use some computers for much longer if you do not connect them to the Internet)
If you ever suspect your computer or smartphone or tablet or wearable has been compromised…
You can stop by the Library every Tuesday from 12pm to 4pm and ask for Tech Wizard Mike. If you can’t make it to the Library, Technology Help is also available by phone, email, and Zoom.
Once your photos and videos have been copied from your tablet or smartphone to a computer (read that blog post), you can back them up to an external storage device such as a flash drive.
Any computer related task or objective begins, continues and ends with conceptual understanding.
In this example, we are going to “copy some stuff” from Point A (a pictures folder on a computer) to Point B (an external storage device).
Physical connection
It begins with a physical connection, which in this example, is inserting a USB flash drive into a USB port on a computer.
It’s important to make sure you have inserted the device or cable into the correct port on a computer (which usually is a matter of Cinderella’s slipper)
Find the external storage device
If the external device is in good working order and there are no compatibility issues, you should be able to open it on your computer.
USB flash drive circled 🖍️
How you can open a flash drive will depend on which computer you are using or more accurately which operating system is on the computer you are using.
Search for what you need
On a Windows 10 computer, you can access an external storage device (and all the other storage locations on your computer) through the This PC window.
As a side note, you can search for anything on a computer through its search box 🔎
(Very) basic procedure to back up files
Once you can open a flash drive on your computer, you can simply select and then copy and paste whichever files you want to back up.
Nuts & bolts will vary
The nuts and bolts of how to do this will vary depending on which computer you are using and how you elect to do it (e.g. through window menus, context menus, keyboard shortcuts) but a clear objective and methodical procedure will always serve you very well.
Think about what you want to do and then look around for a way to do it.
Navigate to the folder on your computer that has the files you wish to back up, select the files you wish to back up and then copy them (proceeding methodically while looking for visual cues such as icons and menu selections).
Quick tip: you can select all the files in a folder with a menu selection or by holding down the ctrl key on your keyboard as you single-click each file that you wish to select.
After you have selected and copied the files that you wish to back up, you can navigate to the external storage device and paste them:
Context matters! It’s important to know where you are (in this example within the USB disk) or which folder you actually have open before you do anything.
Eject the external storage device
You should eject a flash drive (or any other storage device) before physically detaching it from your computer (in order to prevent damaging the storage device).
Using a context menu (right mouse click) to Eject the external storage device.
Bridgeport Public Library Technology Help 