Creating an eBook

You realize that this posting is Debby Mac's fault! She created a
syllabus with a topic that included I was going to teach how to
publish to a PDA. It has been a couple of years since I had
researched that topic, so I have ventured out today to explore. Since
I have an iPhone, I began with publishing resources for the iPhone.
Reader for the iPhone
I needed reader software to view an eBook on a Smartphone such as an iPhone or PDA. I went to the iTunes store and found 2 free apps:

• Kindle for the iPhone
• Stanza

Kindle for the iPhone was free today, so I downloaded it. After the download, I was prompted to log-in to my Amazon account. To get a better perspective of how the ebook worked, I also downloaded Pride and Prejudice (free) from Amazon. The book was very easy to read. All I had to do was tap the iPhone window to get the pages to turn.

Creating the eBook Content
Patient education resources available for an ebook could provide just-in-time healthcare information at the point of need. The next step is to assemble all of the parts of a book such as a book cover and chapters. For patient education, the book might be really simple
like how to take care of you picc line, or managing your care when on Coumadin. In the Coumadin example, there could be "chapters" on interpreting the INR, when to call your healthcare provider, foods to avoid, medications to avoid, etc. In other words the chapters might be one or two paragraphs.

After creating the content, the next step is to run readability statistics to make sure that the reading level is no higher than 6^th grade level. You can do that using Microsoft Word Readability Statistics. To make sure that the Readability Statistics show, go to the Microsoft Office icon -> Word Options -> Proofing and make sure that there is a check mark in the box next to Show Readability Statistics located under the heading When Checking Spelling and Grammar in Word.

The next step is to do a spelling and grammar check for the entire document. The readability statistics will be the last display.

Note: For more information on information literacy and readability statistics, review Chapter 11 – The Internet: One Road to Health and Evidence-based Information (Thede & Sewell, 2010).

Software to Create the eBook
The final step is to generate the ebook. The web site http://www.lulu.com/ provide a
step-by-step process for creating an ebook free. Well, you know that a .com site can't really be free. A basic do-it-youself book is free. There is a fee schedule for varying levels of help such as editing, graphic design, etc.

Thede, L. Q., & Sewell, J. P. (2010). Informatics and nursing : competencies & applications
(3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.