I tried an experiment last year with an ebook. I was an architectural designer by trade before I went into the ministry full time and had quite a bit of knowledge in the house plan drafting field. Aside from a full blown drafting course I had created some years back I made a course in drawing a simple house plan on the drafting board complete with illistrations. I compiled it into an ebook and gave it away as freeware. Man did it ever get downloaded. So much so that it overwhelmed the bandwidth on that particular website. I may even put that rascal back online now that I have a bigger site with more bandwidth.
One of my best sellers is an ebook on how to draw house plans, called House Plan Drafting 101, How to Draw House Plans in a No Nonsense way. I'd already had this online in HTML format for years as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I spent hours and hours proofing, checking, and refining it until it became a complete course. The website became massive with all the downloads and navigation needed to complete the course and the drawback to it was the amount of time needed online to complete the course. The solution? Compile it in ebook format so that there was one download for the student and all the resources were contained in the book. This way the student didn't have to be online all the time to learn.
To sum this up, you probably already have some of the material needed to write your first ebook. You just need to remember what you did with it and polish it up.
Tim Davis is a Baptist pastor and a trained Architectural Designer & Web builder/programmer who has been building Architectural and Christian websites since 1995. He also has several ebooks published: "House Plan Drafting 101, Learning to Draw House Plans in a No Nonsense Way" at http://homedesign.8m.com/101ebook/ - "The Almost Forgotten Church" at http://parsonscorner.org/almost/ - "Humor on the Christian Side of the Fence" at http://receivedtext.org/humor.htm and "Bible Version Comparision" at http://receivedtext.org/bible.htm
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( 3 / 225 )This article wasn't written to tell you how to write or compile your ebook. Shoot, there are more ebook cover & compiler programs out there than you can shake a stick at on the net. What I'm hoping to do here is get you on the right road to letting folks know you have an ebook.
Here's the deal. There are some of the so called guru's out there telling you that you really must start with a publisher. Well, I don't disagree except that reviews take a long time to complete and you probably aren't getting any younger. You're most likely wanting to get your information out there and start earning a dollar or two in the process.
So here's what I suggest:
Get yourself some web space. If you haven't got two pennies to rub together, start with a free web hosting service like Freeservers.com or Freewebs.com. If banner advertising bugs you and you have a couple of bucks to pay every month, they'll remove the banners so you don't have to look at them.
Most all of these types of services have a member control panel that you can edit your site with if you haven't a clue how to do it yourself. Build a one page website. If you don't know how to build one yourself, there are plenty of hosting companies that offer a website builder with their package. Also, if you have a program like Microsoft FrontPage or know how to use a word processor, you're a step ahead.
Make sure you have a gif or jpg book cover on the page. It'll give the potential customer a feeling of substance. Get one of those ebook cover makers I mentioned earlier and build one. Or if you are good using a paint program, go for it. This is important.
Along with the image, place your ebook title right next to the book image. Make the title at least double the size or make it bolder than the rest of the text on the page. Then a brief description of your ebook. Maybe even a sample chapter to give them an idea of what they're getting with the entire ebook.
If it's a free ebook, emphasis should be placed on the word Free. Just don't make it too bold. If the book has a price, place it plainly on the page along with a method of payment like a PayPal button. PayPal and services like them are as handy as a hay rake in a freshly cut field. They offer an instant payment option that makes life simple.
On your page, make sure there is an email link so folks can ask questions. Not doing this makes customers uneasy. Would you want to buy something from someone who didn't want you to even know how to email them? No, you want your customers to trust you and see you're willing to communicate with them. I often times even put a postal address on the page along with a phone number.
Meta Tags are another important feature of your page. Do a search for META TAG builders on your friendly neighborhood search engine. Along with tools to build these very important tags, you'll probably find helpful hints on how to add them to the code of your page. Just to be sure, look up a free website optimizer on the web to see if they have any suggestions that would improve your pages appeal to the search engines and directories.
So once your site is up, you'll want to start advertising. First place to go is to the free search engine submission sites like submitexpress.com or freewebsubmission.com. Also manually submit your site to ebook directories like OnlineEbookDirectory.com or ReceivedText.org who will link directly to your ebooks website.
Once this is done, then you can start the task of submitting your ebook to all the other ebook sites. Try submitting your ebook to software sites if your book is an executable file. Make sure you also get a Google Blog and post some short articles pertaining to your ebook. That'll really get you some exposure.
Tim Davis is a trained architectural designer and web builder/programmer who has been building Architectural and Christian websites since 1995. He also has several ebooks published, including architectural drafting courses called "House Plan Drafting 101, Learning to Draw House Plans in a No Nonsense Way" that you can find at http://homedesign.8m.com/101ebook/
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( 2.9 / 248 )After a client contacts me to draw their home, I ask them if they have an idea of what they are wanting. A vast majority of these clients have already given a great deal of thought as to what they are looking for in their new home. Even a greater number have sketched out their floor plan on graph paper and taken pictures of homes they are wanting theirs to look like. This is one of the bests starts a designer or drafter can have and will save you pounds of time and review from the get go.
When you discuss your sketches and photo's with him or her, make sure that you go into depth about your likes and dislikes. Matter of fact, it's a good idea to make what is called a wish list of things you would like to see. For instance soffit over your kitchen cabinets, a built in ironing board in your utility room, or arches in your cased openings, etc. No detail is too small if you want your home to be designed and drawn your way.
Here is a biggey. If you have chosen a drafter, his job is to draw your home exactly the way you want it within reason. Therefore he or she needs as much information as you possibly can give them. If you've hired a designer, you need to keep an eye on how much creative license you've given them. Otherwise you may not be receiving what you really desire in a home. On the other hand, if you don't have a clue about looks, style, and function, hiring a designer is by far your best way to go.
Tim Davis is a veteran Architectural Designer who teaches architecture and drafting over the internet at http://houseplandrafting101.net. His Home Design site is located at http://customhouseplans.8m.com.
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( 3 / 199 )I’ve been drawing residential homes for the better part of 20 years and the majority of those homes were drawn on CAD programs like General CADD, (Generic CADD) AutoCAD, or CADVance. And of all things that collect over the years are not only the sets of drawings but the special details and sections included in those drawings. Shoot, by my second year I had drawn so many different types of homes that my details and sections varied twenty fold in materials and method of construction.
So what is a smart drafter to do with this type of resource? Recycle! It was pretty simple when I was drawing homes specific to my area of the country. Why? Well because most every builder was using the same method of construction. So, a builder would order a set of plans, I’d draw the Floor Plan, Exterior Elevations, and the Foundation or Basement and then pop in one of my previously drawn sections from another similar type house.
Then, when the internet caught on and I started drawing houses all over the US, I had to start again from scratch. The methods used in other parts of the country weren’t always the same as the ones used in the southeastern US. But the plus side in all this is that all I had to do was alter the existing details that I had to fit the methods common to the region I was drawing the house in. If I hadn’t, I can only imagine the extra hours I would have had to spend drawing new details and sections.
So, if you want to save time in your efforts to draw houses, save those details. You’ll be glad you did. Catalog them if you can. But even if you can’t, by all means don’t discard them.
Tim Davis is a trained architectural drafter and designer who teaches residential drafting over the internet at http://houseplandrafting101.net. He also offers a package of CAD symbols for download at http://homedesign.8m.com/details/.
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( 2.9 / 216 )New house plans are a necessity when you are ready to build your new home. Whatever kind of home you are hoping to build soon, you will need a good set of floor plans to do it with.
House Blueprints Are A Necessity
Whether you are planning on building a luxury home, a summer home, a condo, a country house, a custom log home, an investment property, or a new green home, the house plans will have to come first. Getting your blueprints for your new house does not need to be difficult.
The Time Is Good to Get Ready to Build
Listening to the news may make you wonder about whether or not it is a good time. Recent news says that mortgages have not changed in the past couple of weeks, and may not change much in the future. While that may not change much, you probably should not expect the cost of getting a set of house plans to get any cheaper, either. So, even if you are not quite ready to build, now is still a good time to get your new home house plans ready. Minor alterations can be made later - if needed.
Avoid Mistakes with a Professional Home Designer
Consulting with an experienced custom home designer will enable you to avoid a lot of potential mistakes, too. You can gain a number of tips and insight into what works well - and what may not - if there is a poor design feature that may need changing.
You will definitely want to make sure that whoever makes your new home plans has the experience you need. You will need to have elevations, foundation plans, the floor plans, cutaway drawings, basic electrical, and various views. It is also possible that you can get a 3D rendering of your custom home plans so you have a very good idea of what your new home will look like before you build.
Go for Experience and Custom House Package Plans
If you already have a good idea about what kind of new home you want, then now would be a good time to start finding an expert for your new house plans. Some architects offer convenient package plans to help fit your budget and enable you to know what you are getting up front with your floor plans. For a look at my custom house plans packages, click here to get started.
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