eBook Submission Guidelines

Well our eBook is starting to take shape now! The goal is to keep it really concise and consistent so here is the parameters that we talked about in class for everyones submissions. Sorry it took me so long to post this I couldn't find any Wi-Fi. Enjoy!

Guidelines for Submission

Prompt
     Meaningfully discuss the literature of your primary text and how it relates to writing in the digital age.

700 Words or less.

Should include
     1. Narrative
          The process that led you to your conclusion.
     2. Address Primary Texts
          The primary text should be the cornerstone of your content.
     3. Secondary Texts

How Long Should an eBook Be?

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
  ~Thomas Jefferson

With my class contemplating writing an eBook there has been a few questions that have come up such as, what should our eBook be about? How do we publish it (and here)? Where could we publish ours? So we decided to divide and conquer to find the answer to our questions and write a good eBook. I decided to look at what a good length is for an eBook.

There is a certain pride when you read bring home a thick print book from Barnes & Noble or Borders, take it home, finish it, then put it on the shelf like a trophy for all to see that you can read thick books. That same draw isn't there with an eBook. There is no display shelf for the size of your eBooks. They may have different file sizes but that can be due more to multimedia content than to actual text.


So I began my search at amazon.com and ebooks.com trying to find out how long their eBooks generally are. Then I started to look at different publishing forums and blogs to see what was being said about eBook length. There were some recommending 10 pages, others who were recommending 35-50 but the general consensus was that they should be relatively short, and that the actual page number sare mostly irrelevant.  With an eBook content is king. I don't think that we should have a page goal for our eBook, but rather with all of our topics guidelines on what we should address and write concisely about them. Our value is going to come from content not from length.

Creating our eBook

As a class my English 295 we are contemplating writing an eBook for our final project. I think that this is such a great idea for a final project for a couple different reasons. I think that writing an eBook is a project that could be divided up pretty equally and easily. We all already studying a literary work and writing criticism for them. We could easily all write up our findings in an interesting light and produce worthwhile content. We also could all contribute to other aspects of the eBook. Splitting into smaller groups we could have a committee that is in charge of design, one in charge of editing, and other specific projects that we would need to complete to publish this eBook. Why I like this set up is that it is a project that we all get to work on together, yet, by being split into smaller groups with specific tasks we would be accountable for our specific responsibilities.

As for a topic I am most enamored by Alymarie's idea that she proposed in class about doing something focused on our LDS faith. We could look at our literature through an LDS or religious lens and write accordingly. We go to a very special university and that presents us with an opportunity to work with a group of talented individuals who have very similar beliefs. I think that is something that we knowledge in and would be valuable to a tangible audience. My ideas is still in a formative process but I really like this direction.