Unlock the secrets of creating and selling profitable eBooks. Discover the steps to eBook success on your journey to becoming a digital authorpreneur.
IE 362: Your Path to Ebook Success: How to Create an Ebook to Sell
Research & Plan Your Ebook
The first step that we want to take is we want to research and plan your ebook. You want to get an idea of what kind of eBooks are already out there in your niche.
What is it that your audience is looking for?
What problem do you solve?
How can you potentially dive in deeper into a topic that you already have content on your site about and is getting traffic for that.
It’s going to be easy to be able to market that ebook because it’s on the same topic.
These are some of the questions that I want you to ask yourself so that you can get a better understanding of how you’re going to create this ebook and who you’re creating it for because you have to know specifically the problem that you’re solving for your audience, when you are putting your ebook together.
Outline Your Ebook
The next thing that I want you to think about is how to outline your ebook.
One of the simplest steps that I take anytime I’m creating a product is I start with post-it notes and on each of the post-it notes, I write down one word or a string of words that comes up when I think of that topic.
I put all of those words onto post-it notes, and then I can slowly start to group them.
Then, based on those groups, I create my outline for a book, for a course, for a membership, whatever the content is that’s how I start.
Now you want to have that kind of outline already done so that as you create it and are thinking about the pieces that need to go into it, you have a better idea.
Structure Your Ebook
The next step that we have to talk about is how to structure your ebook.
The most important thing that I want you to take away from this episode is that if you are a food blogger, you’re a DIY er or you’re a parenting blogger you cannot simply take content that you already have on your site, slap it into an ebook, and call it an ebook.
I need you to find a way in which you are the expert about that topic.
This can often be hard for my food bloggers because food bloggers see themselves as I’m creating a recipe ebook.
It might be specifically Italian food well, if that’s the case, you have to have something in the ebook in the beginning that is going to show you as an expert.
Give me all of the tips that you have for making the best pasta ever.
What do I have to do to the water?
What do I need to make sure time wise?
Give me those tips and tricks specifically about making pasta.
Then give me the recipes that are going to come after that.
When you are structuring that ebook, I want you to think about how am I going to show that I am going to set myself apart?
- Cover Page – The first thing that you want to have is your cover page or title page. You want to have an image on there. It wants to be something that’s going to be able for you to easily mark it and have out there. So make it beautiful. Have it be those bright colors that your photography is known for.
- About Page – The second part of your ebook should be your about page. This is going to tell me about you but also about your site and what I’m going to get out of this ebook. What am I going to learn from it? How are you going to set yourself apart? Like we talked about in the very beginning of this piece talking about structure.What is it that’s going to set you apart? I want that to be part of telling me that on your about page.
- Content – The third piece of the structure is going to then be your content. This is where you’re going to want to make sure you really hone in on the way in which you are different, the way in which you are an expert. So like that food blogger, I gave you that example. I want you to really start to think about what do I do differently that someone’s going to have that aha moment over. If you are creating recipes that use, let’s say avocados, teach me how to make sure that I’m cutting the avocados and keeping them to last as long as possible. Have that way in which you’re going to set yourself apart.
- Next Steps with a Call to Action – Then the last step that you want to have in your ebook is a next step with a call to action. That next step is, how do I continue to learn more from you? Whether you have a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, have a call to action that is hyperlinked and lets them know how and where they can continue with you. If you have a course that dives even deeper into the topic that you have now created an ebook to let them know that that would be the next step for them to go deeper. You want to make sure that they understand how they can continue to learn from you after having read your ebook and benefited from it.
Proofread & Edit
The next step that we’re going to talk about is to make sure that you proofread and edit.
You also are going to want to possibly think about having someone else make sure that they proofread and edit.
One of the things I used to do as a blogger in the very beginning, especially is even when I would put out content, My mom should have been an English teacher and I would always have her proofread my content because she would catch all those little nuances of little tiny mistakes that I would make.
So make sure that you’re proofreading and editing whether you’re doing it yourself or you’re asking someone else to help you.
You want to make sure that it is a professional representation of you and if there are mistakes with the way that the content is written or the way that things are formed is going to reflect on you and you want to set the best example you possibly can of how they then, of course, can move forward with you because you did such a professional job on this ebook.
Delivery of Your Ebook
The last piece of what we need to talk about is the delivery of your ebook.
How are you going to have this delivered?
And this is what’s going to come, it’s going to be important because you need to determine what it needs to be written as a PDF.
Is it going to have to be in a different file format?
If you have a strong email marketing service that can deliver for paid products, you need to have a way to check out.
For example, ConvertKit does this where you can have a checkout through ConvertKit.
ConvertKit will deliver the PDF right into their inbox and take their money for you.
We’ve also talked about MiloTreeCart.
You can use MiloTreeCart as well.
They can deliver your PDFs.
So that is a simple way in which they can have it there.
They have that cart, that processing payment.
Another place, of course, is Amazon, getting it up onto Amazon as an e book.
That gives you another market of people potentially Googling within Amazon.
Within Amazon are looking for certain products.
So if your book is listed there as part of their marketplace, then you have more potential of getting eyes on it, that is another option as well for you.
But you want to have a way in which you have a cart and then can have it delivered.
So whether, whichever way you’re going to do that.
You will see is one of the best ways is to make sure that it is connected potentially to your email service provider so that you can continue to email them and potentially upsell them to your course, your membership, whatever your next steps are for your content.
So when you are looking at platforms, making sure that you have that way in which you can continue to have that conversation with these people that are buying your ebook is going to be key.
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