Introduction: The Ultimate Guide To Writing an eBook
Welcome to the world of Internet marketing! You might be wondering how to get started if you're new here. One of the most effective ways to establish yourself and generate leads is by writing an eBook. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from idea to publication.
The Importance of Digital Products in Internet Marketing
Before diving into the guide to writing an eBook, it's essential to understand the role of digital products in internet marketing. Digital products like eBooks, video courses, and membership sites are not just additional offerings but the backbone of an effective marketing strategy. They are valuable lead magnets and can be upsold into higher-ticket items like coaching and consulting services.
The Roadmap: Different Types of Digital Products
Writing an eBook is just one of many digital products you can create. Others include video courses, audio programs, membership sites, and software. Each of these products serves a different purpose and appeals to various audiences. The key is to choose the one that aligns with your skills and business goals.
Know Thyself: Aligning Your Skills with Your Digital Product
Consider your skills and preferences when deciding what type of digital product to create. For example, if you're an extrovert who loves interacting with people, a webinar or teleseminar series might be more your speed. On the other hand, if you enjoy the writing process and can spend hours crafting content, writing an eBook could be the perfect fit.
The Power of Testing Before Creating
One advanced tip for newcomers is to test your product idea before fully committing to it. You can set up a website, create a sales page, and even add a "buy" button to see if your product resonates with your target audience. Use tools like Google Analytics to track clicks and gauge interest. If the data looks promising, you can create your eBook or other digital product.
Guide To Writing an eBook: The Step-by-Step Process
Planning Your eBook
Before you start writing an eBook, plan out its structure. Decide on the chapters, sub-sections, and key points you want to cover. This will serve as your roadmap during the writing process.
Crafting the Content
Once you have a plan, start writing. Focus on providing valuable information that solves a problem for your target audience. Use a conversational tone to make the eBook more engaging.
Editing and Proofreading
After the initial draft is complete, take the time to edit and proofread your eBook. This step is crucial for ensuring the quality of your product.
Design and Layout
The next step is to design the eBook. You can either do this yourself using software like Adobe InDesign or hire a professional to do it for you.
Publishing and Promotion
Once your eBook is ready, it's time to publish and promote it. Use your website, social media channels, and email marketing to get the word out.
Conclusion: Your Next Steps in Digital Product Creation
Writing an eBook is just the beginning. Once you successfully create and market your first digital product, you can explore other types like video courses, membership sites, and more. The sky's the limit!
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By following this guide, you'll be well on your way to writing an eBook that establishes your authority and is a powerful tool for lead generation and internet marketing.
Writing an Ebook
Today's lesson is going to be a guide to writing an ebook. It's the simplest of them all. Ebooks or PDFs, when I first got into this idea of digital products, ebooks were like fucking game-changers. People were charging $37/47 for a PDF download from a website, which was revolutionary. That was, well, 14 years ago, 12/14 years back then. And then Kindle came out with an E-reader, the ugly Kindles, the ones with the keyboards, but it revolutionized digital reading. So now there are Kindle books, iBooks, and a lot more.
The idea of digital books is commonplace, whereas before, you had to in the confirmation email where you sent the PDF. You had to link to Adobe Reader, a free program everybody could use to read a PDF. But you had to link to it because the software wasn't native on a PC yet. Browsers didn't have it automatically embedded in their browser. You had to download it to read it. And now, you can open an ebook no matter your device.
Writing an ebook is the least complicated information product in the world to create. It's short in form, like reports. They're brilliant for lead generation, little eight to 10-page PDFs, meaning you can give them away and easily collect email addresses.
The process or guide for writing an ebook is a PDF that you sell and distribute from your website, allowing you to charge more and keep 100% of the sales price. That's what any book is; an ebook is something you sell. It's a digital file you sell. You can keep the money. Ebooks typically sell for $37/$27 if you're selling from your website.
Right now, many people are selling for $4.95 as tripwire offers or as low ticket introductory lead generation, buyer qualification type offers, and they work well there. That's the idea for these digital files. You can also sell them on Amazon Kindle or iBooks. However, you will be making less per sale due to Amazon and Apple's extensive distribution network, so you have to pay a percentage because of their distribution. But first, let's talk about putting them together.
1. Structure
Typically, in writing an ebook, you need to have a structure.
- cover page
- table of contents
- a bio
- introduction/story
- body
- conclusion.
You've read books; you know what books look like. The important thing is figuring out the hook and transformation you will make for your reader. At the end of this, we will talk about mind mapping and putting together your ideas in a book form because the software is pretty straightforward.
2. Word Processor
All you need is a word processor to write an ebook.
- Google Docs
- Microsoft Word
- Apple Pages
You can export all of those word processing software as a PDF, and then your PDF is good. Then you're done. They all have a native inbound table of contents, scripts, and stuff. The software takes care of all of that stuff for you.
3. Brainstorming the Topics
The hard part is brainstorming the topics, the table of contents, and the things you want to discuss. The hardest part of the guide to writing an ebook is figuring out what your case will be and what you want to talk about. Because once you have that, you can go through and fill in the paragraphs between the content.
You can also record audio or video and then have it transcribed to quicken the process using software like rev.com, which is precisely how I create these podcasts. I Livestream these things, then send them to a transcriptionist, pay a buck for 25 minutes, so they transcribe the content into texts. And then, for me, I can use it however I want. I can put it in an ebook if I want, and I have. I can add it to the blog, and I do, so there are many different ways once you have the content that you can use or write it. And then, when it's done, you export it as a PDF, and you upload it to your website.
You export it, a PDF file, and you put the PDF file in your WordPress site, or on Amazon Cloud, or in Dropbox, or whatever. However, you want to send that PDF out, and then you link to it. And then boom, you have a digital file that you can sell for 27/37 bucks, five bucks, ten bucks, whatever you want to sell it for.
4. Ebook Cover
Now, I recommend putting together an ebook cover. It can be a digital cover like this where it's standing up. It's pretty, it looks like a book, and that's fine. It conveys that it's got a tangible feel to it: trust. Then there's some mental imagery there and all that stuff.
I have found lately that having an image in an even block, a flat photo works just as well because even on Amazon, people are used to buying books with just a flat idea. It doesn't need to be all this, although it can be if you would like. I use a piece of software called CoverActionPro to create that. I'm sure there are a million other ones. I don't even know if CoverActionPro is around anymore, but there are Fiverr people who will do it. Even though people understand that they're downloading a document, they like to see it. We have some graphical representation for the book. It doesn't have to be a book, but we want to have some imagery representing it because they want to see a cover.
Having an image also increases conversions three or four times. If it's just a straight-up text-based sales page, then it won't convert as well as it would if it had an image that did represent the book. You can get ebook covers designed on Upwork and Fiverr. As I said, you can use a Photoshop plugin. I'm sure there's standalone software you can use for it. And if you're using Upwork and Fiverr, post a job on the job boards and choose a bidder. It's going to end up being pretty cheap.
5. Ebook Format/Length
Now, there are a couple of different formats when you're writing an ebook that you should be familiar with. They're not formats; it's more terminology about different ebook lengths. So, I think of 30 to 100 pages for an ebook. That is something that somebody's going to sit down and read and go through and all that. Now, a guide, in my way of thinking, is 10 to 30 pages, so it's enough to get into a specific topic but not enough to go nuts with it. Do you know what I mean?
A report is usually given away for free, and it's 8 to 10 pages, or you charge a couple of bucks forward, or it's in addition to membership or something very concise, very particular. It's 8 to 10 pages, meant to solve one problem. So, it's just how I view digital downloads. There are lots of other ways. You can call it white paper. You can call it a one-pager or two-pager if it's super short. So, there are lots of other things you can call ebooks, but those are the ones that tend to resonate the best.
Also, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be the norm. Many people use the words temporary or interchangeable. So a report is something you give away for free, a guide has punchy, quick value, and an ebook is meatier and should be less expensive. It's one of the reasons why we like our Funnel Factor Report. I call it a master guide because it's 274 pages long. It's not even an ebook; it's way more than just a guide to writing an ebook. It should be a textbook.
6. Ebook Pricing
Several titles, manifestos, blueprints, and video reports. I have heard that before. Typically, pricing for your books, if you're downloading it from a website or enabling to download it from your website, let's say, you're going to charge 27 to $37 for it, 47 to 67 is less common. You can get away with that for a digital download if it's highly specialized, like a particular tech procedure. Something will have a very high transformative effect on your user if it's technical.
Kindle, iPad, and Digital Reader are usually 10 to $12. They can go up to 40, but if it's a digital download through a different marketplace, they're usually 10 to 12, 10 to 14, somewhere in there. Ours are typically priced at 9.95 for digital readers, and then the books are generally 14 bucks like the paperbacks. So, that tends to be where it is.
Mind Mapping
Now, I wanted to walk you through that the idea behind writing an ebook isn't revolutionary. It's a Word document you export and put on your website as a PDF. That part's not complicated. The hard part is getting through the creation of a table of contents and thinking through the idea. So we're going to go in mind map just a little bit. I want to introduce you to mind mapping. I did this a couple of weeks ago, and everybody liked it. So we're going to do it again.
Now we're going to go to MindMeister. MindMeister is my favorite mind-mapping tool. And then, we're going to go through, and we're going to create a mind map from scratch. Let's say... I need to show you my screen, don't I? That would be very helpful. All right. I will stop this screen and share my next screen, the other application, so that will be my mind mapping application. All right. Okay. You can see my screen now. Now I'm going to make it big. There we go.
When brainstorming your book, usually start with a mind map. Let's say the book is How To Create Digital Products. It is kind of what we will discuss this week, but How To Create Digital Products. Well, the first thing you want to know, this will be chapter 1, is. We're going to call it Discovery.
Usually, the book's first few sections are Discovery or some introductory material to ensure everybody's on the same page.
Chapter 1: Discovery
Discovery is going to be skills and talents. We want to ensure you're talented and know what you're doing. Goals and aspirations: your digital product in your book must fit into your goals and how you want your life to look.
Proficiencies
Then we get into proficiencies. I probably didn't spell it right. But the experience, what you're good at, and then transformation, what you can help others with, will be your Discovery. You'll go through an introspective journey and maybe figure out what you can help others with.
Chapter 2: Product Types
Your next chapter, chapter 2, is going to be Product Types. And so once we know what we're into or can help other people with, we will talk about how to package that stuff. It can be found in the guide to writing an ebook, building video courses, membership sites, or associations. Then, once we know what kind of products we will create, how about we discuss designing those products?
Chapter 3: Marketing
We're going to do marketing: Marketing Those Products. Now that we know the next chapter is Marketing, we will need a website, not a webinar.
We don't need a webinar for this. We will need a website, Google Ads, Facebook Videos, etc. And then, after that, we're going to talk about upsells, let's say. So will all those other services we can sell as a companion to that front book. Companion offers. That might be consulting, coaching, and so on.
What we did was we just basically brainstormed what our book could be or could look like. You can take yourself through a similar process, a similar brainstorming process. We started with nothing and said, "Okay, we want to create a book on digital products.". If you look at any book, your first chapter is usually introductory material. What it's doing is bringing everybody to the same point, to the same understanding, the same level of experience.
Everybody picks up a book with different messages in their head and different ways of thinking, education, backgrounds, and experiences. They pick up this book, and now you're trying to push everybody into the same train of thought.
The first chapter usually sets the baseline for that train of thought. So Chapter 1: Discovery, generally. You need to know these things to get to Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is where the actual meat of the book starts. Chapter 2, in our case, will be "In writing an ebook, video courses, membership site," whatever. And your chapter 2's going to be different. Chapter 2 might be.
If you write about business development, it will be one thing. If you're writing about how to make money online, MLM offers, or real estate investing, your chapter 2 will be different. Chapter 3 typically builds on chapter 2, and chapter 4 builds on chapter 3. And then, in the end, you recap the entire book, and before you know it, you have an ebook that A, you can sell, and B, will transform somebody's life.
It will be a work you can then use to generate more business, create more revenue, unlink time for money, live a placeless life where you can do what you want, work with who you wish to, and all that stuff. So, that is the idea behind digital products. That's why writing an ebook and creating video courses, membership sites, and everything else are influential. Now, we went a little bit over today. Does anybody have any questions in the comment box? Just let me know.
Okay, cool. So today, we talked about writing an ebook. Let's look at a roadmap here.
Tomorrow, I think we're going to talk about video courses. We might do audio programs. We might tie it in with video courses. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to do it yet. We'll probably do video and audio together because you rarely see audio without the video.
Usually, video is created, audio is stripped out, and we'll discuss that tomorrow. Still, I will put together a course video, slides, and everything. Tomorrow, we will discuss different video software and getting in there.