Purpose – Think about what
you want to write. You should be an expert. You should have an audience.
Your eBook should have a purpose. Is it to entertain? Teach? Help? Why
should your reader buy your book?
Write an Outline – Before you
begin, write an outline or table of contents. Planning is essential to a
great eBook.
Research – Library,
interviews, online. Find statistics, quotes, news, charts. Research
thoroughly, but don’t use this stage to procrastinate. Get what you need
and move on. If you don’t have enough, you can always go back for more.
Write – Every day. Write
until you’ve completed your first draft. Don’t stop. Don’t edit. Just get
it done.
Pictures – Whether you choose
to illustrate with charts, graphs, or full color photographs, just make
sure that you have either chosen graphics to which you own the copyright
or is in the public domain. This includes whatever you choose for your
cover.
Rewrite. Then Rewrite Again –
A first draft is not a publishable draft. Clip the extra words, insert
examples and explanations where information is unclear, and take out
irrelevant information. Your goal is tight, clear writing in which every
word is necessary, active, vital, alive.
Test it – No company would
just put a product on the market without doing a few tests first. Have a
couple of people read it, preferably not someone to whom you are blood
related or who owes you money. You want an honest opinion of what is clear
and what is not. On the other hand, weigh carefully the input you receive.
Some of it may be worthwhile but much of it won’t.
Lesson 2: Pick Your Publisher
When it’s time to publish your eBook, you have so many more options than for
traditional print publications. Here are a few:
Self publish - You can
compile the pages, buy an ISBN number, and selling your eBook through your
own web site.
Choose an eBook publisher to
help – These eBook publishers want you to compile the eBook yourself, but
they sell it on their site and process all the payments. You keep all
copyrights and pick the price. Your royalties are usually about 70% of the
cover price.
Choose a publisher who will
do everything – Some eBook publishers will do it all. They compile your
eBook, sell it from the their site with the price they choose, and market
your book, and you still keep all the copyrights!
Lesson 3: Marketing Your eBook
You have a world of choices when it comes time to market your eBook. Even if
you choose a publisher who wants to take on the whole process, any little bit
you can do to promote your book will boost your sales.
Most eBooks are nonfiction, how-to books for people to learn something.
These are generally more profitable than fiction. To promote these, you need to
make yourself into an expert. Here’s how:
Write short articles and post
them on every site that will let you. If you offer them for free to
editors of newsletters, webmasters of blog sites, and other sites related
to your topic, your field of expertise, you have a good chance of getting
them published. Look at it as free advertising.
Sell your eBook through as
many online stores as possible. There are a multitude of sites who focus
on selling eBooks or sell them as a sideline. Wherever eBooks are sold,
pitch your book to the webmaster.
Invest in pay per click
search engines. It will be well worth your while to invest in your
visitors. You can compare the number of visitors you get to the number of
books you sell and figure out a ratio to apply to future advertisement
investing.
Ask webmasters to link to
your site. Or ask them to link to any number of sites where your book is
sold. If you have your own web site, offer to post their link as well to
make the relationship mutually beneficial.
Write a newsletter and
distribute it for free. This is a great way to cull a list of live email
addresses for people who are interested in your topic. Plus, you will be a
welcome guest in their inbox every week or month, free to pitch teasers to
them that will entice them to purchase your eBook and contribute to your
status as an expert in your field.
Start an affiliate program
for your eBook. This way, other webmasters have an incentive to post your
link – a commission from your book! For every sale that you get from their
site, they receive a commission. Good for every body involved!