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Create Digital Children's Books
By Stephen Bucaro
They say, if you can't figure out how to do something with
your computer, ask a teenager. While computers intimidate
adults, they seem to pique the curiosity of children. This
computer curiosity starts at a very young age.
Some Web entrepreneurs have learned how to profit from
this young audience - by creating children's ebooks. If
you can tell stories that are interesting to children,
you can tap this market too.
An important component of a children's ebook is the
pictures. If the ebook is written for preschoolers, the
artwork should be built from basic shapes with bold colors.
If written for older children, the pictures don't have to
be of professional artist quality, but they must
be interesting.
Children's ebooks should be designed to teach reading.
Woven within the story should be additional learning about
history, geography, mathematics or science. Most
importantly, your story should teach a moral lesson. This
will please the parents, who are, after all, the ones who
will pay for the ebooks.
How to start a children's ebook business:
- Create a Web site that is attractive to, and usable by
children.
- Provide free access to the beginning of each story. This
gets the child involved and curious to learn what happens
in the rest of the story. Curious enough, we hope, to
convince mom or dad to pay a small fee to download the
entire story in an ebook.
- Each ebook should contain the beginning of another story
and a link to the download page for that ebook.
- Include extra free goodies with each ebook, for example,
cartoons, games, puzzles, coloring pages, and patterns for
making crafts or toys. This will make the child and the
parent anticipate what kind of goodies might come with the
next ebook purchase.
- Place ads for child-related products on your Web site
and in your ebooks. Select toys that are interesting for
children, and have an educational element that justifies
purchase by mom or dad.
There is a wide variety of ebook formats and ebook
compilers to choose from. I recommend Help Workshop, a
free download from Microsoft's Web site. With this
application you can develop your ebook as regular web
pages, and then compile them into a standard Windows help
file.
You can have static pictures in your ebook or visit the
Design section of bucarotechelp.com to learn how to use
Java Script to easily add animation, sound, and music to
your ebooks (and your Web site).
You can sell ebooks individually for the low price of $4
or $5 each. This is a digital download product, so you
have no manufacturing, delivery, or overhead cost.
After you have created eight or ten ebooks, you can sell
a subscription that lets the child download any ebooks
they want for one year. The subscription fee should
represent a cost savings over purchasing the ebooks
individually.
You can accept payments online through PayPal. Place a
link to PayPal on your Web site. The customer logs in (or
signs up for a free account) at PayPal's Web site. Using
your email address, they deposit money in your PayPal
account. PayPal sends you an email notification of the
payment, along with the customer's email address. You
email the customer a password to download the ebook.
For examples of successful childrens ebook Web
businesses, visit the links below:
http://www.themoplady.com
http://www.mrmomsoftware.com/story.html
Resource Box:
Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain
your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web
site and make money on the Web visit
http://bucarotechelp.com
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