I recently took the #1 series of posts here and made it into an ebook! (see it below).

What’s great about this, is how sharable/portable it is. Everything is clickable and fully hyperlinked. Put it on a memory stick or with a click, send it around the netiverse. Further, I was through this process, able to clean up the posts, make them more attractive and accessible and finally, use this as a means of asking for a donation to support our community of teachers – EFL Classroom 2.0 (the costs in time and money are mounting considerably but get it free by registering and supporting our video job site – TEFList [just register and turn your profile off until looking for a job]).

So let me related what I went through to make my blog into a book – my own experience and tips.

1.  I made each blog post into its own html page. I took the code from each post and put it into EFL Classroom’s free htlm editor (open source and amazing!).

2.  I formatted the page using the visual editor. Some photos needed to be reuploaded / resized. Text needed to be resized and formatted. Also, during this step, I reread all posts and edited once again. Usually cutting out all irrelevant text or any writing that was about other people or referring to something in a particular context that was no longer relevant.

3.  Save the html page and create your hyperlinked pdf document. I used PDF Online’s beta converter. I literally spent 8 hours searching and testing many, to be able to find this perfect beast (you’ll need to make an account).  I uploaded the pages from my computer and then downloaded them as a pdf, each time checking and changing/redoing – mostly to get the right page length.

4. Make a title page, table of contents and other pages. I made these in microsoft word. Just do so and then convert to pdf. Easy to do but you’ll need a plug in (here’s what I downloaded and installed). Go to print and then select Abobe Printer from the drop down list (not your normal printer). Also, hit properties to set other variables in detail. Check the conversions and if any problems, edit the word document and reconvert until you get what you want.

5. Assemble the book. Very easy to merge multiple PDF pages. Go through the steps here.

6. Post to various social media libraries like Scribd, Docstoc, Slideshare, Authorstream etc….

I choose to “sell” the book. There are many options for this. I used the very simple – Upload And Sell Just upload and set the price and get the link! Those who pay, will get a 24 hour timeset download link after payment.  You might also take your pdf and make a hardcover book on Lulu! See how I did this in this blog post - Zen and the Act of Publishing a Book.

There are many services which will make your blog into a book – however, the product you get won’t be that professional and it will also be “flat”, meaning, the links will be dead. That’s fine if you have a blog that doesn’t refer to other documents/resources. It will in most cases, cost $$$$$. Blurb, BookSmart, FastPencil, SharedBook and Blog2Print are some of the notables you should visit if interested.

Here’s a sample of the final product below. If you’d like to support EFL Classroom 2.0 – please purchase the whole enchillada HERE with a small $5 donation. Every penny will help us (it costs me about $1,100 / year to run EFL Classroom, not counting the hours and hours of time).

If you liked this post – you might like this one, “Making a Hard Copy of your Blog”