Hi everyone,

I am wanting to write an ebook, just wondered if anyone had any guidelines to offer.

1. How long approximately should they be in words/pages?
2. How do you handle copyright, ie protecting your content?
3. step-by-step order/plan.

here is another thread about ebooks  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/clubs/small-business/forum/topic/selling-digitsl-products-ebooks/  @jomcnz

Freetango is another site that you might want to check out.  There is a wide variety of services that you can choose from. There is a basic account that is free and the other two are for a fee. 

Freetango offers book cover design, promotion, your work would fit across all platforms and this is the current special”. If you publish your e-book by July 4, 2012, you’ll receive 100 percent of every dollar sold through the Booktango bookstore and 100 percent of royalties when you make a sale through any of our distribution and retail partners. You pay nothing and keep everything for the life of your Booktango e-book.
Here’s the link to the site Freetango.  
Please let us know if you discover other sites. I would like to check them out to make a comparison of services.

There are a lot of options.  I have a board on Pinterest that has free tools as the topic and I just happened to come across Freetango.  I would also suggest that you take a look at the website Make Us Of because they may also have links to other sources.  I’m going to write an eBook myself and it always helps to know what is available once it’s time to publish.

I know this will only be partly useful, but have you tried Copyblogger’s “Premise” plugin? I just bought it for my own use and unfortunately have not been able to test it out and give you any really good guidance yet. But it’s supposed to help you build landing pages and sell digital products easily right on your own site. At that point you get 100% of the sale so when your book is ready – even if you decide to distribute it on Amazon or elsewhere as well – I would think you could also sell direct on your site and keep the profits.

@deairby that is an interesting article, you just assume a ebook should be approached like a paper book, its thinking outside the square!