Being able to learn how to write an eBook
online and then sell it has revolutionized the publishing
industry. Instead of waiting one to two years to write and
publish your work, you can now have an eBook written and
ready to sell on the internet in a matter of a few short
weeks, or even less, in some cases. However, many writers actually don't understand how to
write and eBook and make the same mistakes over and over,
resulting in their eBook not selling like they had hoped that
it would. Here are three mistakes people make when figuring out how
to write an eBook or other information product.
- Not doing the research ahead of time to find out how many
people are looking for information of your niche topic. It does
not matter if you think your idea will make a good eBook or not.
What matters is that thousands of other people are searching
regularly for your topic. Use Wordtracker or one of the other free
keyword search tools to see how many people are looking for the
words that describe what you have written about.
- Trying to sell an eBook that tells people what they need
instead of what they want. People do not want to be told to eat
their vegetables and to discipline their children. Instead, write
about which foods will help them to lose weight and how to
effectively communicate with their children. Just change needs to
wants and more people will be interested in your information. You
can find out what people want by simply asking them.
- Writing an eBook that does not solve a problem. When people
are searching online, many times they have a problem they want to
solve immediately. That is part of the magic of selling your
information on the internet; someone can search for an answer to
their problem, find your eBook, and purchase it right away. This
can be done even if you are fast asleep halfway around the world.
By avoiding these 3 mistakes, you will have a greater chance of
success when selling your eBook or other information product on the
internet.
So you want to create your very own digital
product. Good! I believe it's a huge step in achieving success
online. It's a big deal though, right? A ton of work!
Daunting...
Have no idea how to write an eBook?
Relax... it's going to be much easier than you think!
Before you can create your product you need to do a little
research: find out what other people are doing, find out what's hot,
and what will work well.
Select a topic that is marketable.
This can be a tough chore because many people have unique
interests that they are emotionally attached to, and therefore want
to do an information product on. While this is admirable, and in
theory a good idea, in the competitive information product market it
will not work. You must find a topic that people want to read,
better yet, a topic people must read.
The more you fiddle with topic ideas the more clear it will
become that a lot of topics will not be very marketable for many
different reasons. For instance, perhaps there isn't really any
interest in it or perhaps there is so much interest that the topic
is saturated. Saturated markets are difficult at best to break into
and you should ask yourself if it's worth the frustration when there
are so many good niche areas available to you.
So where to begin, how do you find a topic that will sell like
hotcakes and how do you know a hot one when you think of it?
I typically do all my research at either Ebay or Amazon.
These are two great starting points for researching practically
any product.
You can research a topic you have in mind (to gauge the
popularity of it), or you can use these websites to discover new
niche topics.
Let's use the example "Crocheting".
If you go to Ebay and do a search for "Crocheting" you'll see
currently there are over 8,000 items listed. Also you'll see on the
left hand side, sub-categories in that topic area: crochet patterns,
crochet thread, crochet hooks, etc. etc.
This tells me that there is a good amount of interest in this
subject... and also tells me that I stand a good chance of finding
affiliate programs that sell Crochet stuff that I can make a
commission on!
Once you have 4-5 good "niches" take that short list to Google
and do some deeper research around to see what you can find.
How popular is the topic? Look at the number of results.
How much competition is there?
Again: check out the number of results returned.
Is there any money in it? If there are four or more
paid ads within the results, then it's likely at least somewhat
profitable.
Now click on some of the results and check out some forums,
websites, and blogs related to your topic. You'll get some more free
advise on what to include in your E-book.
You see where I'm going with this? I'll spend a fair bit of time
going through these steps looking for further information that'll
help me determine the content of my product. I take notes, writing
down the questions and responses and other related topics (as these
can influence the chapters to cover in your book).
Through using these methods it should be pretty easy to come up
with a Title and a Chapter list for your new E-Book.
Once you have done your research it's time to get writing. You
basically have two options:
Option #1: Hire someone to do it. You will still have to do the
research but there are companies that specialize in this sort of
thing:
• Do a Google search for "EBook Ghostwriting" to find
companies that offer these services.
• You can also post a
thread (for free) over at the Warrior Forum.
• Another good
place to post a thread (for free) might be at ELance. Simply post a
description of what you are looking for, what the topic is, roughly
how many pages you would like it to be... and watch as the bids come
pouring in!
It should cost you roughly $8-$10 bucks per page for good
content: so a 30-page E-Book might cost you roughly $300 bucks to
have created.
Make sure that you ask for examples so that you can verify the
quality of the work, and make sure to not pay the entire cost until
you have the finished product!
Option #2: Do it yourself! It's not that hard
to learn how to write an eBook. Think way back to high school. Did you
ever write a book report? Okay... now think about all the free
information available through the Internet! All you really need to
do is write an outline and fill in the blanks!