It has never been easier to self-publish your own book, ebook or magazine. The days of being held back from publishing what you want to publish are gone.
The choice of tools to use to publish your 'content' to the world have exploded beyond the free blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger which are widely used and still popular.
There are specific systems to help you publish ebooks easily. Systems which help you publish magazines, microsites and presentations alike. Some are free; some are paid for. Here is a selection of ten publishing platforms which you may not have seen before:
Liberio is a free, online ebook publishing system which connects your copy stored on Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, Github and your Amazon Kindle account to enable you to publish directly into formats which can be used on ebook readers (namely .epub, .mobi and .zip).
It has a very nice interface and it is very easy to use. When logged in, you upload content from where you have it stored into the 'creation' area of the website. From there you can set up how you want your ebook to be categorised on Amazon's Kindle store, insert keywords to help it be found more easily and upload a cover image.
There are more options for customising and preparing your ebook such as including an ISBN, inserting a table of contents and page breaks before headings.
If you want an alternative to WordPress, then take a look at Ghost. It is a very simple but elegant blogging platform which is a lot less fussy to set up than WordPress.
There are two options for Ghost, namely using their hosted system, or downloading the software and installing it on your web server. The latter might be a bit techie for most people but the process looks pretty simple for those who want it on their own web server.
Setting up Ghost is very simple (on the hosted version) and the interface is intuitive and focuses on getting the basics set up quickly. When you write your first post the interface is split vertically in two providing the raw post on the left and the preview on the right. You write the post in Markdown, which is easy to learn but might put some people off.
Changing the theme is easy enough by downloading a free or paid-for template from their marketplace and uploading it into the system.
Ghost provides a free trial (no card needed) for the hosted version. The Pro version starts at $10 a month for one blog. The self-hosted version is free.
Rainmaker is a relatively new blogging platform which is built on the WordPress content management system but which already comes pre-loaded with many of the plug-ins that make WordPress so powerful.
Rainmaker takes away all of the fiddling about with plug-ins and the installation of self-hosted content management systems.
Rainmaker is very easy to use and makes optimising your website straightforward. It is aimed at 'content marketers' and 'internet entrepreneurs' who are selling digital products, for example.
Rainmaker costs US$95 per month.
Readymag is a 'simple to use' platform for creating online magazines, microsites and presentations.
Its user interface is very simple to use, allowing drag and drop design to easily add elements to your magazine or web page. A series of free templates make it easy to set up a good looking website or magazine quickly. Each of the free templates also shows you which devices it designed to work well on. You can also create your own templates.
Readymag has a free version for you to set up a magazine and test it out.
Not so much a platform, but a tutorial on how to make money comes from Nathan Barry with his 'Authority' tutorials and book which is designed to help you self publish your books and understand how to generate some lucre from them or it.
The choice of tools to use to publish your 'content' to the world have exploded beyond the free blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger which are widely used and still popular.
There are specific systems to help you publish ebooks easily. Systems which help you publish magazines, microsites and presentations alike. Some are free; some are paid for. Here is a selection of ten publishing platforms which you may not have seen before:
eBook Publishing
Liberio
It has a very nice interface and it is very easy to use. When logged in, you upload content from where you have it stored into the 'creation' area of the website. From there you can set up how you want your ebook to be categorised on Amazon's Kindle store, insert keywords to help it be found more easily and upload a cover image.
There are more options for customising and preparing your ebook such as including an ISBN, inserting a table of contents and page breaks before headings.
Blogging
Ghost
There are two options for Ghost, namely using their hosted system, or downloading the software and installing it on your web server. The latter might be a bit techie for most people but the process looks pretty simple for those who want it on their own web server.
Setting up Ghost is very simple (on the hosted version) and the interface is intuitive and focuses on getting the basics set up quickly. When you write your first post the interface is split vertically in two providing the raw post on the left and the preview on the right. You write the post in Markdown, which is easy to learn but might put some people off.
Changing the theme is easy enough by downloading a free or paid-for template from their marketplace and uploading it into the system.
Ghost provides a free trial (no card needed) for the hosted version. The Pro version starts at $10 a month for one blog. The self-hosted version is free.
Rainmaker
Rainmaker takes away all of the fiddling about with plug-ins and the installation of self-hosted content management systems.
Rainmaker is very easy to use and makes optimising your website straightforward. It is aimed at 'content marketers' and 'internet entrepreneurs' who are selling digital products, for example.
Rainmaker costs US$95 per month.
Magazine Publishing
Readymag
Its user interface is very simple to use, allowing drag and drop design to easily add elements to your magazine or web page. A series of free templates make it easy to set up a good looking website or magazine quickly. Each of the free templates also shows you which devices it designed to work well on. You can also create your own templates.
Readymag has a free version for you to set up a magazine and test it out.
Make Money from Writing
It is good to have a platform to help you publish but, if you want to make some money from your creation, it is wise to learn how to do so.
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