Write, Publish and Market Your Ebook: Step-by-Step Tutorial

There are many reasons to write an ebook, including selling it for a profit, as a creativity project, to share your knowledge with others, to increase traffic to your blog or web site, or to establish your expertise in a given area.

Today, one of the best businesses in the world is information publishing, and you can take advantage of this trend by publishing an ebook.

Ebooks are the perfect information product because there’s no inventory, near-zero overhead, high profit margins, no printing costs, no shipping costs– ebooks are delivered as an electronic .PDF or .EXE file over the internet–, and they’re quick and inexpensive to produce.

In addition, if you have your own information product you’re immediately recognized as more of an expert in your field. Writing an ebook can also help you to build your brand and make your ideas spread.

You can even create an ebook simply to express yourself; for example, you can publish your poetry or a short story you’ve been working on as an ebook.

Although this article is mostly directed toward bloggers who want to sell an ebook, whatever your purpose for writing an ebook may be, below you’ll find lots of information, tools, and resources you can use to get started creating your ebook right away. Join the ranks of self-published authors such as Henry Thoreau, Upton Sinclair, Anaïs Nin, and George Bernard Shaw.

You can download this article as a free ebook here: “Step-by-Step Tutorial: Write, Publish and Market Your Ebook”.

photo credit: smith

The Basic Formula

Here’s the basic formula for creating your ebook:

1. Brainstorm different topics you could write about based on your experience, interests, and knowledge. Keep in mind that you’re looking to solve a problem for others.

2. Conduct market research to make sure that there’s a market for your topic, and that the market is not overly saturated.

3. Once you’ve chosen a topic, write your ebook.

4. Publish your ebook.

5. Promote your ebook with enthusiasm.

Some Things to Consider

Some of the things you’ll need to consider during the process of creating your ebook are the following:

1. What should you write about?

2. Who will be your target audience? Is there a market for your ebook? Is that market overly saturated?

3. What will your ebook’s title be? How about the subtitle?

4. How long will it be?

5. Will it contain graphics, pictures, and charts?

6. What about ebook design? Will you do it yourself or hire someone?

7. What will the cover look like?

8. How will you turn it into a .PDF, .EXE, or other type of file which you can easily distribute to others; that is, how will you compile your ebook?

9. Will you offer it for free?

10. If you’re going to sell it, how much will it cost?

11. Will you offer a money-back guarantee?

12. How will you deliver your ebook to buyers and get paid?

13. How will you launch it?

14. How will you promote/market it?

15. Will you also publish a hard copy version?

photo credit: Svadilfari

Step 1: Have a Brainstorming Session to Create a List of Potential Topics to Write About

When deciding on a subject matter for your ebook, you should choose a topic you have a great deal of interest in and which you will genuinely enjoy writing about.  You’ll be spending a lot of time researching and writing about your topic; you’ll also have to spend a lot of time promoting your ebook. The entire process takes a lot of work, and if you’re not passionate about your topic, you’re much more likely to give up.

Charlie Byrne from Early To Rise explains that it’s not really about selling information–these days people are bombarded with information all day long–, it’s about selling advice, ideas, original concepts, analysis, expert guidance, how-to pieces to help people solve their problems, and opinions people can trust.

In general, people buy ebooks to:

1. Make money.
2. Save money.
3. Save time.
4. Learn how to do something with the least amount of effort.
5. Attain fuller health (diet, exercise, and so on).
6. To learn more about their hobbies.
7. To have better relationships.

You’re going to start out by generating a long list of possible topics to write about, as described below.

Brainstorming Session

While brainstorming keep in mind that your objective is to come up with as many ideas as you can (think quantity, not quality at this stage of the process), that you shouldn’t judge, evaluate, or criticize the ideas that you come up with at this point, and that you can come up with a lot of ideas that are closely related, as well as ideas that initially may seem farfetched.

Here are some ways to start brainstorming about topics you could write about:

• What are your innate talents (your information product can be based on explaining a process you normally perform very well)?
• What skills do you use in your job?
• What did you study in college? What additional courses/seminars have you taken?
• What do you enjoy reading or learning about? What types of magazines do you like to read?
• What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? What are your hobbies?
• What types of major purchases have you made?
• Do you have pets? How do you care for them?
• Are you a parent? Can you provide valuable insight into some aspect of parenting?
• Do your friends and family generally ask you for help in any one particular area?
• If you have a blog, which are your most popular blog posts? Can you elaborate on them?
• Again, if you have a blog, what questions are your readers frequently asking you in the comments section or through emails? Consider polling your readers and asking them what they would be interested in learning more about.
• Visit web sites people go to in order to learn how to do things, such as ehow and Quamut. Which are popular topics in which you either have expertise, or you’re willing to do the necessary research to be able to write well about the subject and provide value? (Some more “how-to” web sites include: HowStuffWorks, SoYouWanna, WonderHowTo, and  How To Do Things.)  Here are some examples of problems people might be trying to solve:

Discover How to Avoid Credit Card Scams

How to Incorporate Your Small Business

A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Own Herbs

The Comprehensive Guide to Managing Your Time in College

Little Known Ways to Reduce Your Debt

The Bachelor’s Guide to Cooking Quick, Healthy Meals

• Find topics for ebooks–or even printed books–that people are buying right now, and enter the market yourself. To find popular ebooks visit the Clickbank Marketplace (they let you sort by popularity). And, of course, to see which topics are selling well in printed books, visit Amazon.com.

photo credit: KaiChanVong

Step 2. Conduct Market Research

Once you’ve created a list of potential topics, use your critical thinking skills to narrow it down to a few topics you think have the most potential.  Then it’s time to conduct market research.

If you’re going to write an ebook and your objective is to make a profit, then you need to find a market of people willing to pay for your knowledge in the topic you’ve chosen to write about. Before you get started on your ebook, you should conduct market research in order to determine the following two things:

1. Is there adequate demand for the subject you want to write about?2. Is there too much competition?

You want to find a subject matter that is in high demand, but that doesn’t have too much competition. The last thing you want to do is spend time and resources writing, publishing and marketing an ebook, only to discover that there’s very little demand for the topic or that the market is already overly saturated.

Naomi Dunford from the blog “Itty Biz” offers some excellent advice on how to conduct market research in this blog post: Finding and Wooing the Market for your Ebook.

photo credit: jurvetson

Step 3. Write Your Ebook

By now you’ve chosen a topic you’re passionate about, you’ve verified that there are people out there looking for information on your topic and willing to pay for it, and you’ve concluded that although there’s some competition out there, there’s enough room for your product.

Structure Your Ebook – Create a Table of Contents

“How to Write and Publish Your Own Ebook in 7 Days” is co-authored by Jim Edwards and Joe Vitale. The reviews the book received on Amazon are less than stellar, but one reviewer mentioned that an idea offered in the book is to write the sales page for your ebook first.  This will help you focus on what your ebook needs to include to appeal to its target readership. That is, begin by keeping in mind the benefits your ebook will provide to your readers.

To structure your ebook, create an outline–which is basically your table of contents–with chapter headings and the points you want to make under each chapter heading. Some people prefer to create a mindmap instead of an outline.

A mind map is a graphic technique for representing ideas, using words, images, symbols and color. Basically, you write down your ebook’s topic at the center of a piece of paper. You draw branches leading out from the central issue, and smaller branches leading out from these. The branches are organic and free flowing, instead of being structured and rigid. The first level of branches represent the main benefits your ebook will provide to your readers and each will correspond with an individual chapter. Add only a few words per branch.

Then, from each main benefit you’re going to branch out into supporting facts, anecdotes, resources, and so on. It’s important to use color and images when creating mind maps to further stimulate both memory and imagination.

One way to brainstorm a table of contents is to once again visit Amazon and use their “Search Inside This Book” feature to get an idea of the content provided in books in your niche. You can also visit “Google Books” and take a look at the table of contents for the books in your niche for which a preview is provided. Of course, you’re just getting ideas here, you’re not copying somebody else’s table of contents.

Conduct Your Research

Here are five tips for doing your research:

1. The amount of research you’ll have to do depends on your level of expertise in your subject matter.

2. If you already have a lot of knowledge in your subject area, write down everything you know–under each chapter heading–and then do supplemental research to fill-in the blanks and to make sure that your information is up-to-date.

3. If you don’t know much about your subject matter, then you’ll have lots of research to do in order to provide value for future buyers of your ebook. Use a three-ring binder and begin collecting and organizing your information.

4. Make sure you carefully record where you found the information. You may want to go back to certain resources and you’re going to give credit to others for their ideas.

5. Your research can include online research, books, magazines, interviewing experts, conducting your own experiments and reporting on the results, and so on.

Writing Your Ebook

Here are some tips for writing your ebook:

• Break up the length and structure of your sentences and paragraphs to make sure that your writing does not become monotonous.

• Give your readers’ eyes a break by leaving sufficient white space.

• Will images and/or diagrams help you get your point across?

• Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered.

• Find a font that’s easy to read and stick to that font family.

• As William Zinsser advices: “[T]he secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.  Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.”  Of course, another way to say this is: “Omit needless words” (Strunk and White).

• Don’t make your subject-matter too broad or general: give your readers specifics they can apply right away.  Here’s a quote from Jack Hart, author of “A Writer’s Coach”: “Shrink your subject. Most of us are way too ambitious when we set out to write. So we end up with a Missouri Basin phenomenon—a flood that’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Give your readers some depth so that they can enjoy the water. Pick the most interesting, unusual, or surprising aspect of your subject and dive in.”

• Make sure you edit your work.  Check for grammatical, spelling, or stylistic errors. Here are three books you’ll probably want to own: The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition, The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers (14th Edition), and On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction.  Also, get a good dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus.

• Look for more writing tips in my blog post: “54 Tips for Writers, From Writers”.

Create a Schedule

Instead of simply leaving “write ebook” as an open-ended project on your to-do list, create a deadline for each step of the project. Then make sure that you set a specific time slot in your daily calendar to devote to your ebook.

Darren from “Problogger” interviewed Leo Babauta about Leo’s ebook “Zen To Done”.  Leo explains that when he was writing his ebook he had a full time job and he had to keep up with his posts at “Zen Habits”; in addition, he has a wife and six kids.  Basically, he set aside two hours each morning during which all he allowed himself to do was work on his ebook.  (You can read the interview here.)

Step 4. Choose Your Ebook’s Title

Your title has to be catchy in order to capture your readers’ attention, and it should contain the keywords that people use to search for information on your topic. Use the Google Ad Words Key Word Tool to find the best key words to use for your title. This will help Google searchers find your ebook. It will also bring more traffic to your site.

In addition, make sure you test both your title and subtitle. A great example is Tim Ferris’s book, “The 4 Hour Work Week.” He intended to call it “The Vagabond Millionaire.” However, after testing the market online, he found that “The 4 Hour Work Week” is what his target market wanted. Here’s an interview Leo from “Zen Habits” did with Tim Ferris in which Tim talks about selecting his title: Publishing 2.0: Tim Ferriss on Using a Viral Idea to Create a Best-seller.

The YouTube video below shows an interview with Ian Ayres, author of the bestselling book “Super Crunchers”, in which he explains that he wanted to name the book “The Death of Intuition”. However, he ran a randomized test using Google ad words and discovered that the title “Super Crunchers” produced 68% more click-throughs than “The Death of Intuition”. That is, the majority of consumers responded better to the “Super Crunchers” title.

Step 5. Compile Your Ebook

Once your ebook is written (this can be in HTML or Word), you need to “compile” it. Basically, you can choose between two formats: .EXE and .PDF (there are others, but these are the main ones). The advantage of .PDF books is that they can be read on any computer, including Macintosh computers. All you need to read a .PDF file is the free Acrobat Reader software.

Ebooks in .EXE format can only be used by Windows users–so anyone with a Macintosh computer will not be able to open the file–but the software that creates these kinds of Ebooks can be handy if you want to personalize or customize your ebook.

PDF Files

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It’s a distribution format developed by Adobe Corporation to allow electronic information to be transferred between various types of computers. Adobe Acrobat is a full-feature PDF maker, although it may be out of some people’s price range.

If you’re not ready to purchase Adobe Acrobat, don’t despair. There are several free PDF makers out there. Keep in mind that some free PDF makers don’t hyperlink text. In addition, they may have some other shortcomings, such as limiting the size of the document that can be converted into a PDF.

You can play around with the ones listed below and choose the one that works best for you: copy some of your eBook into a sample document–about ten pages long–and use your sample document to test how different PDF converters will present your ebook.

• Pdf995: You can download this pdf maker for free. I was told on twitter by @nitropdf that PDF995 is filled with lots of annoying ads, although the end result is generally good.

• Google Docs: If you create a document on Google Docs it gives you the option of downloading the document as a PDF; the problem is that there’s a limit to how large the file can be.

• PrimoPDF: I’ve read several positive comments about this PDF maker.

• 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS.  This download allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats if you have Microsoft Office Word 2007. (I found this tip on Dave Navarro’s blog; I’m using it for a free ebook I’m working on and so far I think it’s great).

• Cute PDF: This one was recommended by @CaroHealthEd on twitter.

• Open Office is free software that basically does everything that Microsoft Office does. You can create your document using Open Office and then convert it into a PDF. (This one is recommended by Seth Godin).

Ebook Compilers

Instead of a PDF Maker you can use an ebook compiler. Most ebook compilers will create an ebook by compiling an HTML page as an .EXE file. The one you select will depend on how many features you want and how professional you want the product to look.

Ebooks can be created as web pages using HTML. You can set up an ebook as a collection of web pages which a customer can view after receiving a password and login code. In effect, this method turns your ebook into a password protected web site.  If you’re looking for an ebook compiler here’s an article that rates several of them: “Rating Ebook Compilers”.

Step 6. Choose Your Ebook Cover

“Your cover matters. Way more than you think.” — Seth Godin

The best thing I can do for you in this step is provide the following three links:

• Tutorial: How To Create An Ebook Cover With Photoshop: This is a simple tutorial on how to create a fantastic looking ebook cover for your latest project using Photoshop.

• Ecover Generator Software: This software creates high quality ebook covers (you have to purchase it). I asked Dave Navarro for his opinion on the Ecover Generator Software and he answered that he uses it, but that he recommends that you get your first cover made by a professional. Then you can tweak the source Photoshop file for future ecovers using the Ecover Generator Software.

• Consider hiring a graphic designer.  Here’s “The Men With Pens” and their article “Does Your eBook Design Stand Up or Fall Flat?“.

Step 7. Copyright or Creative Commons?

If you’re offering your ebook for free consider getting a Creative Commons license. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit – and only under the conditions you specify.  I’ll let Seth Godin try and persuade you to go down the free ebook route: “You Should Write an Ebook”.

For information on how to copyright your work, if you’re in the United States, you can visit the U.S. Copyright Office’s web site.

Step 8.  Set up a Paypal Account

Even before you start writing your ebook you should create a Paypal account.  Paypal is an e-commerce business which allows money to be transferred between e-mail addresses.  You don’t have to pay anything upfront, although you will be charged a small fee for every book you sell (for example, my ebook “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” costs $25.00 and Paypal keeps $1.03 each time I make a sale).

Don’t wait until you’re ready to sell your ebook to open your Paypal account because they verify your bank account information, which takes a few days.

Step 9.  Get Your Shopping Cart at Ejunkie

You can get a shopping cart and “buy now” button at E-junkie for $5.00. They’ll charge you $5.00 every month thereafter.

E-junkie even provides you with a URL where your affiliates can sign-up; you get absolute control over affiliate percentages.

Step 10.  Market/Promote Your Ebook

Here are fourteen ways to market your ebook:

1. Create a compelling landing page for your ebook. Your landing page should clearly communicate the problem your ebook will solve, or the need it will fill. Make sure that you take the time to write a benefit-rich headline that speaks directly to the reader’s self-interest.

In addition, your landing page should direct your prospects to take action. That is, to purchase your ebook, opt-in to your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, and so on.

For a great series of tutorials on how to create killer landing pages, click here.

2. Get testimonials. This tells visitors that someone other than you found the content of your ebook to be useful.

3. Give away free copies to bloggers in exchange for reviews of your ebook, or interviews with you about your ebook. This will give your ebook more credibility, expose your ebook to other bloggers’ audiences, and provide backlinks to your ebook landing page. Jonathan Mead from “Illuminated Mind” did that here.

4. Create a squidoo lens about your ebook. My squidoo lens, “How to Be More Creative”, was created to market my ebook, “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists”.

5. Write guest posts on the topic of your ebook. This exposes you to a wider audience and also builds backlinks to your ebook landing page.  Here’s an article I wrote for “The Jungle of Life” to promote my ebook: Flip It.

6. Include your ebook in your email signature box. My email signature now reads as follows: Marelisa Fábrega, Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online, author of “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists”.

7. Use Twitter. Tweet about your topic frequently so that people identify you as an expert in that subject-matter. Remember that social networking is about helping others first, and then they’ll want to help you.

8. Create an affiliate program so that others market the ebook for you. Make sure that you offer affiliates a nice percentage of the commission and that you give them marketing tools to help them promote your product. You should have at least a 125 x 125 banner to offer affiliates, and preferably give them a selection of banners to choose from. Alex Fayle from “Someday Syndrome” has a well-put-together page explaining his affiliate program, which you can visit here.

9. Build a mailing list. On average, people need to see a marketing message seven times before they’ll take action and buy your product. A newsletter is a great way to keep your message in front of your audience. At the same time, by giving them quality information on a continous basis you build your credibility and create trust.

10. Write articles about your topic and send them to article directories. Three of the best article directories are Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Article Dashboard. In addition, here’s a list of the top 21 article directories.

11. Publish excerpts from your ebook. Giving people excerpts of your ebook is the equivalent of Amazon’s “Look Inside This Book” feature. Excerpts let people get a feel for your ebook, the quality of your writing, and the type of information they can expect to find inside. You can also create a “teaser” ebook and give it away for free. In your “teaser” ebook you should provide lots of value and leave people wanting more.

I published the introduction to my ebook in the landing page, and I also published an excerpt that didn’t make it into the ebook because of length considerations. You can also also offer tips related to your ebook’s topic, offer a free ecourse, or create a video.

12. Find a Joint Venture Partner. Joint venture partners are basically the big players in your niche who you can really leverage to boost your ebook sales. Your joint venture partners should get perks such as higher commissions than your affiliates, exclusive marketing tools, and so on.

13. Create scarcity or a limited-time offer. For example, you can offer your ebook for 20% off during the first 60 days after it’s first launched in order give your offer some urgency and encourage people to act now rather than later.

14. Offer freebies. People like to feel that they’re getting a lot of bang for their buck, so see if you can offer a bonus or something extra to anyone who buys your ebook. This can be a free report, a free consultation, and so on. Again, you can offer a free report to “the first 50 people who purchase” in order to encourage quick action.

photo credit: quartermane

photo credit: Arturo de Albornoz

Some Additional Considerations

Once you have your ebook in the form of a PDF, you can use a “Print-On-Demand” service to turn it into a print book. Lulu.com is one option, but there are many more, such as Booksurge, Createspace, Wordclay and Blurb. Print on demand means that books are printed as they are ordered, rather than in advance. For example, you can use Lulu.com print-on-demand and sell your books on Amazon.com. When someone orders the book from Amazon, the order goes to Lulu, they print the book and ship it to the customer.

If you don’t have a blog or web site you can create an ebook and sell it online for free using Smashwords or Scribd.

In addition, you can think of back-end products you can sell which are related to your ebook, such as teleseminars, one-on-one coaching, a higher-end product which includes audio, workbook-pages, videos, and so on.

Conclusion

I hope you found this tutorial helpful.  Any tips from people with knowledge on how to create ebooks are welcome in the comments section.

So, what’s your ebook going to be about?

Editor’s Note: You can download this article as a free ebook here: “Step-by-Step Tutorial: Write, Publish and Market Your Ebook”.

Related Posts:

• 35 Creative Ways to Market Your Blog: Blog Business Plan
• Blog Business Plan – Monetization

Recommended Products:

Learn to meditate, increase your focus and concentration, boost your creativity, and augment your brain power with the Silva Life System, the world’s most popular meditation program.

Visit the Silva Life System web site and get a free course on the basics of the Silva Life System, which includes their famous 30 minute guided meditation.

My ebook “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field, from medicine to business, and from engineering to developing a creative solution to a negotiation impasse. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe for free by RSS or e-mail and you’ll always know when I publish something new. (What’s RSS?).

Also, please share it on the social media site of your choice, thank you.