Writing, painting, cooking are very similar in the sense that they are all skills that most people do not feel confident
practicing unless they have had some teaching or years of
experience. How many times do you hear people say I am not a writer, or I
cannot paint for the life of me, or I can make toast and boil an egg but that’s
about it!!
The great thing about the internet is that it acts as an equalizer and allows many who would never dream
of writing a book to share their information and ideas in the form of articles,
blog postings, short reports or full ebooks. The choice is yours and the world
are your potential customers browsing your shop window or checking out
your ebook! If you are not comfortable writing a full
ebook why not compile a series of short reports on a
topic and later put them together to form an ebook?
Others group their articles into one topic and produce an ebook.
Everyday millions of people
all over the world surf the Internet looking for information. It may be
information on how to do something, solving a problem, or information for the
sake of satisfying curiosity. Whatever the reason, people are willing to pay
for information they want to know. You might logically ask,
why would anyone pay for something that they could easily get for free? The
answer is simple: finding the information you want on the Internet is much more
difficult than it seems. There are billions of pages out there and far too many
of them are filled with useless and misleading information. The service that
the ebook writer provides and deserves to get paid
for is the gathering, distilling, and presentation of useful, desired information.
It may be original and entirely written by you or compiled and revised from
other sources into a unique product.
There are basically two approaches to creating an ebook. One is the do what you
love and the money will follow philosophy, and the other is the find out what
people want and give it to them. If you can find a hungry market and meet the
demand in a topic that you already know or are interested in then all the better. Start with the subjects that interest you or
that you have a good knowledge of and try to find a niche. Most ebooks
provide information. The key here is to find a topic that people need
information on, or, find a topic in which you have a unique angle, and can
sell! The most popular and searched for categories are Health, Home Business,
Travel, Relationships, Hobbies and Sports.
Once you have chosen your
topic based on research and are confident that you have enough people who will
be interested in reading and buying it, write a sales/squeeze page to promote
it. Yes write this BEFORE you start on the ebook as
this will focus your attention and act as a guideline when organizing the book
ensuring that you fulfill the promises and cover the
areas mentioned in the sales letter!
Get the book written -
Whether you write the book yourself, or find a freelance writer to ghostwrite the book for you, it needs to get written.
Generally speaking, the cost for a freelancer to write your books is about $10
to $15 per page. This process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a couple of
months depending on the writer and the size of the e-book. If you do not feel
confident writing so much use a format to separate the
book into sections and make your index. Examples can include 10 tips on how to
improve your diet…….or 8 ways to fast track your home business success etc. You
get the idea. Use short paras, bullet points, bold
and short sections to break up the book and maintain reader interest.
Transfer to a PDF file with a
table of contents. You can use Word but I use Acrobat for the security features.
Decide on what kind of restrictions you want to put in place or if you want the
book to have full master resale rights etc. This is a whole separate subject
that needs to be covered in a future posting. Also decide if you are going to
sell the book or give it away for free. Many give away part of the book or
write a special intro that will entice the reader to buy the complete ebook.
Why would you consider giving away the ebook? Maybe it is your first one or you feel it is more
like a report that also helps sell some products you offer or leads to your
site and possible sales (in other words also a sales vehicle). Making it free
means that the ebook can GO VIRAL! The goal of this approach is to have an ever-increasing number of copies
of your ebook in circulation. You profit from this
approach, not through ebook sales, but through sales
generated through your affiliate links which are embedded throughout the text.
It also helps to get your name known so that future ebooks
are easier to sell as you already have a reputation and possible market.
Perhaps also you have been able to build a list of subscribers by offering the ebook FREE once the visitor OPTS IN on your sales page or
site.
Set up an e-book merchant account - The one that comes to mind is called Clickbank.
This Internet site lists your book by category, and it also facilitates payment
for the e-book when a customer clicks through. So, when a customer goes to the
sales page, they can click on the merchant link and then you have yourself a
sale!
Write at least 5 articles to
promote your book on the Internet. Some authors just use parts of each chapter.
Make sure you have a brief line about YOU and the link to your book or sales
page in the author signature box at the bottom.
An alternative to a full-blown ebook is the special report. Special reports are generally
shorter and more limited in scope than ebooks. Their
purpose is to provide short, quick doses of desired information. Special
reports can be presented in many forms, such as articles, list, bullet points,
and faq. Later you can
assemble a group of similar special reports into a full ebook.
Getting an e-book up of the ground may take a little bit of time, but it has great potential as a
work-at-home opportunity. Once the book is finished, all you need to do is
market it the way you want, and you will start seeing
the sales roll in. If you are new to ebook writing
and promotion I suggest getting started by writing articles or useful short
reports on your chosen topic. This will give you confidence and can mean you
already have an archive of writings that can be used to help you produce a full
ebook.
Stay tuned for
further postings linked to your HOME BUSINESS success and the use of EBOOKS to
help you along the way.
David
Fowler
Ebooks that can make a difference to your life!
· http://www.a2zebookshop.com/
· http://www.celebrity-star-portraits.com/