Archives for the eBooks category

Huge news coming from Adobe in the last week. After 10 years of service, it will be dropping its Creative Suite product entirely, in favour of pushing the Creative Cloud service that was introduced last year.

Here at Silicon Beach, we’ve already updated to Creative Cloud and so all our Adobe Courses, including our Photoshop Courses, will be completely up to date.

This is a massive shift in focus from Adobe, whose business model had until the release of Creative Cloud, followed the ‘traditional’ software licencing model. So what exactly does all this mean for consumers and what’s new?

What is Creative Cloud?

Last year Adobe released Creative Cloud which at first appeared to just be an alternative payment option for existing Adobe products, rather than an entire product in itself. As it has transpired, Creative Cloud will be the sole focus of Adobe from now on.

The next release in June will see them scrap the ubiquitous CS (Creative Suite) moniker that has been attached to Adobe programs since 2003 and instead each product will be branded as CC (Creative Cloud).

There will be no ‘full’ update system in place as their is currently (CS4 to CS5 to CS6 etc) but rather more frequent, less substantial updates each remaining under the CC brand.

Read the rest of "Adobe Drops Creative Suite to Focus on Creative Cloud"

Posted by Aaron Charlie in eBooks, Illustrator, InDesign, News, Photoshop, Print Design on May 13th, 2013| 1 Comment »

After coming on our InDesign eBook course you’ll be able to create and publish your eBook; but what’s the next step? Ideally you want people to read it, which means that it’s time to begin the marketing process.

As much as you’d like to think you’ll have people queuing at the virtual door to download your book, the likelihood is no one will know about it unless you tell them about it.

So how would you even begin to go about marketing an eBook? Let’s assume you have a decent site and blog (if not you ought to come on our 1-day Blogging and Content Marketing course to find out why it’s essential!) as a base from which to ‘flaunt your wares’.

A good start, especially for a product like this, is to embrace social media. Used alongside content marketing and email marketing, social media marketing can be an effective tool to market an eBook.

Read the rest of "Marketing Your eBook with Social Media"

Posted by Jackson Rawlings in eBooks, News on February 27th, 2013| 1 Comment »

eBooks are everywhere. If you don’t have a kindle, iPad or some other brand of e-reader, I bet you know at least a few people who do.

As with all technology that becomes commercially successful; eBooks and eReaders are providing a service that makes the user’s life easier – in this case, the ability to access millions of books without so much as peeling themselves away from the sofa.

In a previous post, we looked at why eBooks are so useful as a marketing tool for businesses. In this post we move away from the hard business and look at how eBooks are being used for public service with the expansion and development of both dedicated eBook libraries and the uptake of the eBook platform within traditional, print-based libraries.

If you’d like to learn how to create and publish professional eBooks, come on our eBook Training with InDesign Course or if you don’t yet have the skills in InDesign, take a look at our InDesign Workshops. Both courses can also be booked together for just £595! (normally £790). Read the rest of "Are eBook Libraries The Future?"

Posted by Aaron Charlie in eBooks, News on February 6th, 2013| No Comments »

Content Marketing is the in thing. Businesses are beginning to realise that in order to appeal to their target audience, they need to have a strong presence and content output on the web.

The trouble is, it’s all too easy to get bogged down in posting to a blog or sharing ‘inspiring’ images on facebook. A really successful content strategy employs multiple platforms and varied media.

eBooks are a perfect part of this.

You might think that creating eBooks isn’t right for your business but you’d be surprised at how effective they can be at driving engagement with an audience. If you’re already convinced then try our eBooks Training with InDesign to get you making expert looking eBooks in no time, otherwise, read on to find out more about why you really should be creating eBooks to maximise your business’ marketing potential.

Quality Content

Blog posts, images, videos – they’re all essential parts of a content strategy, but eBooks offer up something different to the user. In a time when most content on the web gets a few seconds’ gaze, an eBook stands out out as a more permanent, tangible offering.

To put it simply – an eBook is better content than a simple article or funny gif. Time and effort are often reflected in the quality of the end product and better quality content means a more interested and engaged audience. Read the rest of "Make eBooks Part of Your Content Strategy"

Posted by Aaron Charlie in Blogging & Content Marketing, eBooks, Marketing, News on January 23rd, 2013| No Comments »

With a new year comes a new course, and one we hope you’re excited about! Today we launch eBook Training with InDesign, a course we have developed to meet the demand for guidance on creating eBooks from scratch and publishing them – ideal for writers and marketers alike who want to self-publish digital content that meets the industry guidelines.

Our InDesign eBook Training Course is a 1 day course and costs £295 + vat. To cover everything you need to create eBooks in 1 day we assume prior knowledge and experience with Adobe InDesign. If you’re an InDesign beginner but still want to come on the course then you can also book our 2-day InDesign course as a package for just £595 + vat (normally £740 + vat)!

InDesign eBook Training Course Dates

Our upcoming Brighton dates for the eBook course are:

• 25th March 2013
• 10th May 2013
• 19th June 2013

If you can’t make those dates or wish to arrange in-company training then don’t hesitate to ring 01273 622272 to arrange a quote for a private course.

Why InDesign & ePub?

On our eBook training course you will be using Adobe InDesign to create eBooks in the ePub format. While there are a number of free tools to use to quickly create eBooks, nothing gives you the freedom of control over your work that InDesign is capable of. As well as being the industry standard tool for document layout, the latest versions of InDesign (this course runs on CS6) are full of features for making sure your eBooks meet the best practice guidelines for digital publishing. Read the rest of "New InDesign eBook Training Course"

Posted by Craig Charley in eBooks, InDesign, Marketing, News, Print Design on January 10th, 2013| No Comments »

One of the great things about PDFs is that they work with assistive technology like screen readers to allow people with disabilities to access your documents. Those with blindness, low vision or limited mobility do not always have the same access to the web that general users take for granted.

Using Adobe InDesign CS5.5 you can create and format your documents so that they are machine-readable for screen readers and assistive devices.

Not only does this make your documents accessible to more people but it also helps search engines successfully index your content – something you SEOs should be fully aware of!

Adobe InDesign is the industry standard document creation tool. However, it isn’t the easiest to get to grips with. That’s why our InDesign Training course is popular with those who wish to move away from basic Word documents to creating professional looking PDFs and eBooks. In fact, InDesign is steadily replacing Word as the de facto program for creating documents in businesses, therefore it is essential to upgrade your skills to meed demands. We also offer courses in other Adobe Creative Suite products including Photoshop Training, Illustrator Training and Premiere Elements Training.

Think of this guide as SEO (search engine optimisation) and AO (accessibility optimisation) for your documents.

As more people come online it is important to make documents accessible

Creating accessible documents is something that rarely comes into consideration these days, but if you think of it as a web page then you may be alarmed by how little thought goes into accessibility.

When building websites, developers think carefully about assigning tags and marking up the page for readers, and this is something we should start to do for PDF documents also. After all, if you want Google to index them you need to make it easy.

Here is how Adobe describes the workflow from InDesign to Acrobat:

Here is the step-by-step to creating accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CS5.5: Read the rest of "Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign"

Posted by Aaron Charlie in eBooks, InDesign, News, Print Design on April 5th, 2012| No Comments »

Six Sigma Training eBook for your mobile

This is an excellent free Six Sigma Training revision guide for your mobile.

Six Sigma is a methodology, a statistical analysis tool and a management system designed to streamline business processes by eradicating defects. The implementation of Six Sigma aims to improve and sustain quality, eliminate waste and raise profits. Silicon Beach Training provides a range of Six Sigma Training courses in Brighton, Sussex, including Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training, Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Training and Six Sigma Black Belt Conversion Training.

This what is Six Sigma eBook provides a comprehensive summary of what Six Sigma is, what Lean is, the key benefits of Six Sigma and the differences between the Six Sigmas belt levels.

Download  – What is Six Sigma?

Here are your Free Six Sigma eBook download options -

EPUB (For iPhone, search the above URL in your iPhone’s Safari Browser and then click on the EPUB link)

or use your iPhone to scan the matrix code below -

(Note- You may have to open the page in Safari then follow the download instructions, doesn’t always load in Google Goggles)

.MOBI (For Amazon Zindle) – For Android

LRF (For Sony Reader)

PALM DOC (PDB) (For Palm Reading Devices)

You can also download our free Six Sigma ebook in the following formats:

HTML (Read online)

Javascript (Read online)

PDF (For PC/ Mac)

RTF (For PC/ Mac)

Posted by Andy Trainer in eBooks, Lean Six Sigma, News on March 4th, 2011| 1 Comment »

PRINCE2 Training Ebook for your mobile

This is an excellent free PRINCE2 Training revision guide for your mobile.

PRINCE2 is a structured method for effective project management. It is the standard used extensively by the UK Government and is widely recognised and used in the private sector, both in the UK and internationally. Silicon Beach Training provides a range of PRINCE2 Training courses in Brighton, Sussex, including PRINCE2 Practitioner Training and PRINCE2 Foundation Training.

Did you know we also run regular ISTQB / ISEB Software Testing Training, ITIL Training and IOSH Health and Safety Training courses?

PRINCE2, the method, is in the public domain, offering non-proprietary best-practice guidance on project management. PRINCE2 is a registered trademark of the Office of Government Commerce.

This e-Book will take you through the PRINCE2 methods of managing a project from start to finish. A great PRINCE2 revision guide.

Here are your Free PRINCE2 Ebook download options -

EPUB (For iPhone, search the above URL in your iPhone’s Safari Browser and then click on the EPUB link) Read the rest of "Download Free PRINCE2 Ebook – Managing a Project"

Posted by Andy Trainer in eBooks, News, Project Management on November 18th, 2010| 1 Comment »