Create Your Own Digital Cartoon Book Or Comic Book

Self-publishing your own book is easier thanks to services such as those offered by Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Through either service you can create a book which is printed on demand, thus saving you the upfront cost of printing and storing copies. Better yet you can create ebooks, digital versions of your book which can be downloaded and read in the reader's favorite device such as Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, ipod, IPAD, iphone or android devices.
Anybody can create their own ebook, in fact I was told there are 17,000 new titles produced every year. For some good information on how to do this I recommend an ebook I downloaded, entitled Formatting Comics for the Kindle and Nook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Images and Ebooks by Niki Smith. If you don't have a Kindle or a Nook reader it's no problem. At Barnes and Noble you can download a Nook application for your PC and it's free. Amazon offers a similar application for the Kindle.

Very simply, here is how it works. You upload files in the sizes recommended by Amazon or Barnes and Noble. These companies take orders for the ebooks and provide them for downloading to the customer. You get a royalty on each one sold, which varies from about 35 percent to 70 percent. This royalty is determined by the sales price of your book and the territories where it is marketed. You set the price on your ebook, according to guidelines provided by these book publishing sites. Here is where you can get more information about their programs:

Amazon.com
If you click on the link for "CreateSpace" you will find information about creating printed books. If you click on the link below for creating for the Kindle store you will find information about creating an ebook.

PubIt by Barnes and Noble

Both sites give requirements for the format in which books must be submitted. Barnes and Noble requires an epub file, for example. I found it very hard to understand their instructions on how to create this file and this is why I so strongly recommend Formatting Comics for the Kindle and Nook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Images and Ebooks by Niki Smith. It made it a lot simpler for me.

Because images create large file sizes most cartoon and comic books are relatively short (40 to 60 pages). Cartoonists may also want to consider teaming up with writers to create text-based books with cartoon illustrations.

Once you understand the instructions you can do your own publishing without too much difficulty. If you have questions, feel free to email me and I'll answer them if I can.
-Ron Coleman
email ron@colemantoons.com

Home Introduction to Magazine Cartooning Where To Get Cartoon Ideas The Business of Cartooning
Slanting Your Cartoons For More Sales How To Find Markets For Your Cartoons Market List Gagwriting Tool About Ron Coleman Contact