This year I met over 30 people who told me they wanted to publish and sell their ebooks on the Internet. Yet since early January 2006 I seem to be the only one doing it.
Of course they have their “reasons”, which are actually just lame excuses to stay in their comfort zone and do nothing. Here are the common excuses:
- My English is bad
- I’m not good at writing
- I don’t have the time
Ok, let’s work with those excuse in mind. Here’s the simple way to do it:
- Get a topic – Find a topic you want to write about. Research this topic to see if there’s a demand
- Create 10 main chapters – write out the 10 most important things you want to include in your ebook
- Create 4 sub-chapters - Divide each chapter into 4 smaller topics, so now in effect you have 40 topics
- Write two paragraphs for each – Content, not words. Write it out in point form to keep it simple. It doesn’t matter how many words each paragraph is, as long as it’s a complete sentence.
- Give the draft to a ghostwriter – Pay $100 – $300 and the ghostwriter will take your existing framework, and create an ebook out of it.
Now you’re saying “It can’t be that easy” 
Why not? It doesn’t HAVE to be difficult, does it? If you’ve been saying to yourself that you want to write an ebook, just do it now. Chances are after you’ve drafted the 10 chapters and 40 subchapters, you’ll keep on adding another paragraph here and there.
And after 5 days you’ll find that your ebook is done.
-gk-
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
lot of good stuff here.
furthermore i’d recommend to restrict ebooks to 80-120pgs.
what happens if you have 200 pgs?
break it up into 2 ebooks:
1) basic (subject topic)
2) advanced/more/insider secrects (subject topic)
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include lots of examples also.
a lot of time i discover i know what i am talking about, but not everyone else does. so some example to illustrate how a particular concept is used, is helpful also.
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lastly, always remember the crosssell and upsell to other associated/higher-end products (i dont know why a lot of internet marketers call it ‘back end’). back end to me as a ex-technology journalist refers to things like servers, ERP software…frankly i think it’s wrong use of the word…
ghostwriter? while it is a simple and fast way, but is it a “good way”?
I get my ebooks done by ghostwriters. As long as you are specific in what you want, they will produce what you are looking for. It usually cost me about $500 – $1000 to produce an entire ebook written by a ghostwriter via elance.com and guru.com
Ghostwriter is good if you have money..Better way is write by yourself.You can understand more about you write.
yes, a ghostwriter is the way to go if you don’t have the time. I personally wrote all my ebooks so far, but i don’t plan to do that in the future.
writing is very time consuming, and you should focus more on marketing
some advice on writing, cos i do a lot of ghostwriting project management.
consider this:
1) farm out the project on elance, or to a friend
2) make sure you edit it, insert your backend in there
3) add another 5% more content in there to make it really powerful for your list. especially if you had a campaign where you increased opt-ins by 60% over a 2 week period for your list, it will make a powerful case study (can be additional 10page PDF or inserted into your ebook – but extra ebooks increase the perceived value for your product).
it’s a fact that most products will have the same 80% as a foundation (after all how many ways can you describe tagging, wordpress, adsense?). the critical difference is the 20% difference.
every product will have the ‘trivial 80%’ which is the same foundation that everyone else is doing.
applying the pareto principle where you are focusing mainly on the ‘critical 20%’ will make your product stand out.
I’m prefer to wrote by my self. It may take time but it worth it. Satisfaction..I’ve wrote RajaAdsense ebook, i’ll release a new version soon.
I gain more knowledge by writing by my self. It’s took time to make some study to do it. This is chalenging part,to make other people understand what i wrote to them.
For those active writing ebooks, you can sell your ebooks at my website. We do everything (except typing) for FREE, but you have to sell it via our website. This is a win-win situation. So why not give a try? Visit my website.
This is some excellent advice Gobala.
Many people don’t understand that, as humans, we tend to over-complicate things.
If you don’t have the initial investment, then it may be a good idea simply to write the book based on the outline you’ve created and have a friend who’s good at English proofread it.
If you don’t have the time or the money, then you better find the time.
I’d just add that one should make sure there is a market for the ebook before outlaying the cash for a ghostwriter. (I know, a topic for another blog entry.)
~ Teli
Hi Teli,
Nice to see you here! I agree with you on the time vs money part..
If you don’t have the money, you better find the time. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t bother at all…
BTW Teli, I’ve secretly desire your OptinNiche ebook and membership, but didn’t seem to get to it yet. Looking forward to being your customer soon!!
Thanks all for your great information. I’m planning to write an ebook about DIY Crystal Beading in English or even Malay.
In the market, there are many beading books written in Chinese but could hardly find English (expensive), and none for Malay.
Hope to get more ideas from here….
The ebook might not for sales, may be used as free gifts for marketing campaign optin purpose. What do you think?
Hi ahwong5,
You should research to see it it’s viable to sell this as an ebook. If not one else is already doing it, there must be a reason why.
One of the mistakes I made in the past is writing ebooks on a topic simply becasue no one has done it yet. It’s better to get into a market where people have already written a book / ebook on the topic, and creatively imitatetheir work, while adding your own USP.
I like your information stop by
and join my site for more information
about starting your business.
Hi Gobala,
I am planning to do an ebook regarding pregnancy for new mother.Do u think it is possible?