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1992-05-15
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********************** WRITER'S DREAM ***********************
This chapter is going to be a surprise! In addition to the
multimedia presentation program you have been studying, there
is another program on this disk which you can use to create
your own super-professional text tutorials. In fact, it is
the same program that's being used to display all that you
have been reading! In addition to the run-time program on
this disk to present The Multimedia Workshop instruction
manual, we have also included BUILD.EXE, so you can make your
own tutorials with WRITER'S DREAM.
We'll start out with another look at the shareware
market as it might apply to you. You can skip a few
paragraphs ahead to the technical stuff if you wish.
Judging by the correspondence that comes to Another
Company, we have found out that most of our customers are
good writers. Most of you also know something very useful and
possibly unique. Perhaps you are a retired glass blower, or
know everything about training seeing-eye dogs, or could
teach people how to cook nutritious foods. Perhaps you could
write a course in industrial grinder safety, or volleyball,
or advanced electronics, or elementary geology. Maybe you
would be good at writing science fiction or children's
stories.
But why bother? Becoming a published writer is nearly as
difficult as becoming a rock 'n' roll star. Self-publishing
costs money and requires marketing skill.
GUESS WHAT? There is another way to be published that works
for absolutely everybody! Yet, almost no one knows about it.
Using this technique costs almost nothing, yet literally
millions of people will read your book! You can make
unlimited money! What am I talking about? The Writer's
Dream. The Writer's Dream is a way to put your information
on IBM-compatible disks. If you can operate any word
processing program, you can do this:
Let's say you have written a disk about house cats. You
release it as a shareware product. This means you send copies
to some shareware distributors.
There are 72 million IBM-compatible computer users in
America. Almost all of them are frequent shareware buyers.
Some of them will get your disk, and they will make
copies, which will in turn be read and copied by others.
Eventually, one person out of every ten is likely to read
your disk-based cat book. You, with your own little
computer, will be an author with 7.2 million readers! And
that's not all. You can put a commercial in your disk which
causes some of the readers to send you money. For instance,
your commercial could introduce another disk-based book you
have also written, called Dogs. Dogs is not shareware. The
only way the readers can get your excellent dog disk is to
send you $19.95! If only one out of every 100 of these 7.2
million people send you money, you'll make over one million
dollars! No doubt you see the potential!
In fact, since you can put text on a disk and therefore
create information of interest to others, shareware is only
one means of distribution. You might like to use it for
in-house training or disk-based conferencing within your
company, or you might like to create and sell a retail
disk-based book product.
Do Electronic Books Work?
One of the hot selling titles in shareware is ALMANAC
1992. It is not a video game or a spreadsheet. No, it is just
text files! I have also written several non-shareware
electronic books that sell very well through mail-order
distribution. Some of these are GARAGE SALES FOR FUN AND
PROFIT and THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE HOME-OPERATED BICYCLE
BUSINESS. In fact, even though I am now a programmer, my
single best selling 'program' is not a program, just a
text-based tutorial, an electronic book. And, as you can see,
I am not a professional writer! All I do is write my stuff as
if I were writing a letter to a friend.
But Really?
Well, I haven't made a million dollars yet. And, the average
first-time shareware author reports lukewarm results. Like
any business, you have to develop your skills and products.
But even a failure is a success. Let's say your disk about
apple tree pruning only brings in $30 per month. That's $30
per month extra pin money that you wouldn't otherwise get.
But you can try again. You can write about "Organic Pest
Control for Orchards" and perhaps you'll start making $100
per month. And you can try again and again. I think the
average author who persists will eventually make at least
$40,000 per year.
But how do you present your text on a disk? How do you make
it look like a professional electronic book?
There is a super-easy way to make your presentation as clean
and professional as this one. In fact it is the same program
as provided on this very disk. The WRITER'S DREAM is called
DREAM.EXE on this disk, and allows anyone to make their own
text files into a disk-based book. You can configure the
opening screen to contain your own chapters, title and
byline. So, instead of what you are reading, this same
program could be used for your own book.
Here's how to use it for your own work:
1. Write your chapters with your favorite word processor.
2. Use BUILD.EXE which is on this disk to build your own
book.
3. Copy your chapters and DREAM.EXE onto a blank floppy.
4. Make some copies and pass them around.
More detailed instructions are at the end of this file.
There are some things you can do to make sure you get more
readers and that they are more likely to send you money.
* Consider your title carefully. It must attract attention.
* Make sure your first 100 words are very powerful.
Shareware buyers often buy 20, 40 or even 100 disks at a
time. As you would expect, each individual disk is not
regarded as particularly important to these folks. They will
put each one in the slot and give it five minutes. If it
doesn't grab their attention, out it goes! If it does get
their interest, they'll read it from one end to the other!
* Make sure your advertising is well written. If you simply
ask for a donation, you won't get much. One of the best
things you can do is use your disk to sell something else. A
same-subject, volume 2, or another disk-based book covering a
different but related subject will be easy to sell.
* If you are already in a business, consider using a
disk-based book to sell your product. For instance, if you
sell seeds, you could write a book about gardening and tell
your readers to call or write for a free catalog. You could
even include your catalog as a chapter in your disk-based
book.
* If you send out many copies, you'll get more readers
sooner. A good idea is to send to as many shareware
distributors as you can. Most distributors will gladly list
your program in their catalogs.
Remember that shareware has a lot of inertia. It can
take over a year between the time you introduce a shareware
product and the time you start getting money. This is because
it takes that long for distributors to get it into their
catalogs, and for friends to make copies for friends, etc. It
takes most users quite a while to switch from considering
sending you some money to actually doing it. Shareware also
has a long burnout period. If you put your phone number in
your disk, you may be answering requests for orders or free
catalogs for years into the future!
Now is the time to write that book you've always dreamed
about!
WRITER'S DREAM is shareware. If you use it to produce a
disk-based book, no matter what mode of distribution you
choose, you must become a licensed user. This simply means
you must pay for the program. The cost is $19.95 for a single
disk-based book, or $59.95 for a "one-author, unlimited
number of books" license. Any use of WRITER'S DREAM without
a license is illegal. However, as soon as your check is in
the mail, you may begin distribution.
To register please phone:
**************
1-800-444-5457
**************
or 503-826-8082
Visa and MasterCard accepted
Or send $19.95 / $59.95 plus $3 US postage (Canada - $5,
Overseas - $7) to:
Software Excitement!
6475 Crater Lake Hwy
Central Point, OR 97502 USA
Or via Compuserve: type GO SE, or fax: 503-826-8090
MORE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUILD.EXE
1. Make your chapters. Use any word processor. If your word
processor is one that normally makes non-ASCII text, use the
ASCII mode (or 'non-document' or 'print to disk', depending
on your word processor). All standard word processors can
make ASCII files, but you may have to read the instructions
that came with your word processor for details.
You can have up to 44 chapters and they can each be as
long as you like.
2. Copy DREAM.EXE and BUILD.EXE onto a blank, formatted
disk. Then copy all your chapters files onto the same disk.
There must be at least 2000 bytes (2k) free space left on the
disk.
3. Type BUILD and press [Enter]. This is the setup program
for Writer's Dream. It will allow you to enter the title,
your name, and your chapters as they will appear in the
'menu'. The menu is a 'live table of contents' - the first
screen the user will see when they start to read your book.
It will look just like what you see if you press the [Esc]
key now, except it will have your chapters instead of mine.
4. After a welcome screen, the BUILD program starts with
the title box. This resides on the left side of the user
menu. You can enter up to 3 lines of text here. My little
book currently looks like this:
THE MULTIMEDIA WORKSHOP - Instruction Manual
by
Jeff Napier
To edit any line, just move the highlight bar with the arrow
keys to the line you want to edit, then press the backspace
key or hold [Ctrl] and press [Y] to delete what's there. Then
type your own line. Your lines must be less than 35
characters long. Do not center your lines, the program will
do this automatically later.
When done editing the lines to contain your title and
name and possibly sub-title, just press the [Esc] key. The
program will remember your changes.
5. Now you will be shown a bigger box. This is the Table of
Contents. In the left of this box you will enter your
chapter names as you want them to appear on the menu. Just
delete my example chapters, and type in your own.
On the right side of this same box are the files that
contain your chapters. In other words, if you have written a
chapter called INTRODUCTION and it is in a file called
INTRO.DOC, you would type INTRO.DOC on the right side. This
is how the program knows to display the text in INTRO.DOC
when the user selects INTRODUCTION.
Do not precede filenames with a drive or path. If you
were to put C:\MYBOOK\INTRO.DOC, the program will not work
properly on other people's computers, unless they also
happen to have a sub-directory called MYBOOK on their C:
drive. Do not type A:INTRO.DOC either, for the same reason.
Someone might purchase your electronic book and put it in
their B: drive, and it wouldn't work.
You can use the [Bksp] key and [Ctrl] + [Y] to delete
mistakes. You can also use [Ins] and [Del] to add or remove
lines.
Do not leave blank lines between your chapters. Each
chapter must have a corresponding file where the text is to
be found. You have a limit of 34 characters for each chapter
name. (24 characters, if you have more than 20 chapters.)
Your filenames must be ordinary DOS-legal filenames. You can
have as many as 44 chapters or as few as 1. When done with
this section of the program, just press the [Esc] key.
6. The program will ask you some questions. The first is
about sound effects. If you like the sounds, answer [Y] and
the same sounds will occur for your readers. (The readers
can optionally switch off the sound effects from within the
DREAM program by pressing the [T] key.) If you answer the
question about sound effects with [N] then there will be no
sound effects in your book unless the reader presses the [T]
key.
Then you have a choice of centered or left-justified
table of contents. The normal choice is [C], but if you want
all your chapter names to be shifted to the left, press [L].
Finally, the program will ask you if you want to create
a new book. This is your last chance to cancel by pressing
[N]. If you press [Y], then whatever previous book setup
existed on disk will be lost and a new one written. The BUILD
program creates a file called BOOK.CFG. This is where the
table of contents information is stored on your disks.
So, before you create a new book, if you'll ever
want to read this example book again, make a backup copy.
7. You will probably have to experiment with the BUILD
program several times before you fully understand it and can
create the perfect product of your dreams with your own text
files. That's ok, in fact, just fine. Each time you restart
the BUILD program, it will show your previous configuration
so that you can edit only the parts you want to change.
When done with BUILD, type DREAM at the DOS prompt and
test your whole book. If you have accidentally misspelled a
filename, or put the a filename next to the wrong chapter
name, you'll see the problem.
8. HINT: To make your disk easier to use for beginners (and
everyone) rename DREAM.EXE as BEGIN.EXE or GO.EXE. Then, on
the disk label you can type this line: "Type BEGIN and press
[Enter]."
9. HINT #2: If you want your text to look better on-screen
- just like this text - in your word processing program,
set your left margin to 10 and your right margin to 70.
10. DELETE BUILD.EXE from your final disk. This program is
only the setup utility of Writer's Dream. The only program
required for your distribution version is DREAM.EXE, and of
course the configuration file called BOOK.CFG.
TO INCORPORATE EXECUTABLE PROGRAMS IN WRITER'S DREAM
New for version 3.00 is the ability to list .EXE, .COM or
.BAT files in the menu as if they were text files, but when
the end user selects a program, it will run, and then return
to the Writer's Dream menu. The possibilities that this
opens up are endless. You can use a small graphics
presentation program or even MSHOW.EXE to present more than
just text in Writer's Dream. You can hook in a database
program or automated catalog ordering program. You can even
use Writer's Dream as a menu program and forget about text
altogether.
To put a program on the menu, simply list it as if it
were a chapter in the BUILD.EXE program. On the right side
of the menu box do not use drive or path designators, but DO
use the extension. For example:
PACMAN.EXE - is ok
C:\GAMES\PACMAN.EXE - will not work (and it won't fit)
PACMAN - will not work
If your program requires parameters at the command line,
then use a batch file in it's place. For instance, if you
want to use MSHOW to display a single picture called CATTLE.1
then you could do this:
1. Make a batch file with any text editor which works in
ordinary ASCII mode. For this example we'll call it M.BAT.
In the batch file is one simple line:
MSHOW CATTLE.1
2. In BUILD.EXE, on the appropriate line of the menu for the
left side you make a description, perhaps something like
this:
PICTURE OF CATTLE
and on the right side you put:
M.BAT
Then, when the end user runs DREAM, and selects PICTURE OF
CATTLE, MSHOW.EXE will start and show the CATTLE.1 picture.
Of course, you can also make more complex batch files,
like something to show several pictures then allow the user
to place an order:
MSHOW CATTLE.1
MSHOW CATTLE.2
MSHOW CATTLE.3
MSHOW HORSE.1
MSHOW HORSE.2
ORDER.EXE
Keep in mind that DREAM.EXE reserves about 60k of RAM for
it's own use, so if you incorporate programs which use lots
of RAM, you'd better test them to make sure they will run
under Writer's Dream, especially on computers which have
limited memory.
ORDER.EXE
What is this ORDER.EXE, mentioned above? It is supplied on
this disk and registered users can distribute it along with
DREAM.EXE with their presentations. It finds a text file on
disk which must be named ORDER.FRM and prints the first five
lines to paper. Then it prints the user's name, address,
phone number and preferred disk size. Then it prints the
remainder of ORDER.FRM. Take a look at the example on this
disk. More information comes with the registered version of
Writer's Dream. Also, registered users get a couple of
optional programs which can modify text files for even
greater results.
_____________________________________________________________
end of chapter
