Summary of Bucharest eBook

Buy our eBook – Four Days in Bucharest at:

Amazon (Kindle) for the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia

Smashwords (EPUB). Smashwords also distributes to Oyster, Scribd, Yuzu, Blio and Inktera (formerly Page Foundry) and reaches OverDrive (world’s largest library ebook platform serving 20,000+ libraries), Baker & Taylor Axis 360, Gardners (Askews & Holts and Browns Books for Students), and Odilo (2,100 public libraries in North America, South America and Europe)

Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble (Nook), and Kobo

Writing about themes

Street Art will be a key theme during our Athens visit. By researching Athens street art beforehand, a draft chapter can be written. This draft chapter will inform our visit by enabling us to question tour guides and locals about specific pieces of street art and artists. Subsequently, the chapter on Street Art can be enhanced with our newly gained knowledge.

We will repeat this approach with as many of the themes as possible to strengthen our eBook content.

As mentioned earlier, we have posted articles about our research and planning for the Athen’s trip. This material, while informing our visit to Athens, will constitute an appendix in our eBook. This is an example of drafting an appendix ahead of the visit. We can add to this material by reflecting on the posts and analysing our work. Importantly, this will improve future research and planning.

Preparing a Table of Contents

Preparing a draft table of contents (TOC) is another activity which can be undertaken once the research and planning are well advanced. A draft TOC is a handy conceptual tool: it can help organise your thinking about inclusion/deletion, sequence, and emphasis of the eBook content. It is only a draft and inevitably it will be changed. However, it can be printed and sit on the table as you work. You just never know when you want to think about the table of contents.

For example, the TOC for our Athens eBook may look like:

Six Days in Athens

Introduction

Overall impressions

Our eBook

Athens Culture

Cuisine, Markets

Street Art, Architecture

20^th/21^st Century History, Greece, and the European Union

The Acropolis

Religion, Language

Concerts

The Visit

Highlights, Disappointments, Lessons Learnt, Doing it Again

Summary

Appendices

Arrival

Day 1 – Day 6 (Activities)

Departure

References

Planning Photographs

We regard photos as an essential ingredient of our ebook content.

Changing the nature of our photographs

With a travel eBook, this is also a good time to think about the nature and number of photographs to include in the eBook and to keep aside for a potential photo album. In the past we have included 20 – 30 photos within the eBook and these have largely related to icons of the city.

This must change, and there are two important reasons: first, the photos need to reflect the overall goal and themes of the eBook more closely; and secondly, with the increasing quality of eReader screens (tablets and Kindles etc) the quality of the photos must be better. However, this increases the size, and in the case of Amazon costs the author more to have the eBook delivered.

Changing the number and size of our photographs

My testing suggests pixels dimensions of 1600px * 1066px and a file size around 300Kb is a good compromise. In the past, I have used 1152px * 768px and a file size between 100-200Kb. The impact of these new specifications means a reduced limit on the number of photos, say 15 – 20 for the eBook and perhaps the same for a website photo album (these albums are popular with website visitors and I need to produce them). Note, our past experience suggests our inclusion of photos has cost us 50 cents per eBook.

Returning to the nature of the photographs, I plan to take photos of street scenes (2), architecture (3), street art (3), The Acropolis (2), markets (2), cuisine (2), and other icons (3); for a total of 17 eBook photographs. Such planning provides the basis for further analysis regarding the exact nature of the photographs to be taken.

The 15-20 photographs planned for the online photo album can include more Athens icons or images normally found online.

Conclusion

Naturally, we undertake far more pre-planning and drafting now than we did five years ago when we were just beginning. But, we are confident that this extra planning is reflected in the quality of our eBook content.

Six Days in Athens will be our first eBook to focus on culture and this has ramifications: first, the structure of the eBook content will change; secondly, the nature of the photographs will also change; and thirdly, the level and nature of the pre-planning will change. Nevertheless, we find these changes exciting and a step forward.

Other parts of Our eBook Self-publishing Approach

More eBook Self-publishing Articles