How To Write and Publish Ebooks

Many authors think they need a "publisher" for their ebook in order to make any money. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, having a "publisher" could actually hamper your sales and leave you making a lot LESS money than you otherwise could with a little knowledge.

First, let's define "published." To me, "published" means:

1. Your ebook is available for sale to anyone who wants to buy it

2. People can automatically get your ebook when they pay for it (no interaction by you)

3. You get paid automatically for each sale you make

If that is the definition of "published" then you have 2 main options for getting your ebook up for sale. I suggest doing BOTH of them (not one or the other).

1. List your ebook for sale on Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and other outlets listed at Smashwords.com

2. Set up a simple website to sell your ebook from your own domain and process that sales using ClickBank.com or PayPal.com

Let Amazon and other outlets promote your ebook for you through their channels and send all the customers you generate through to your website so you capture more of the sales price of your book.

Also, offer a free newsletter from your own site (and mention it in your book) so you can build a list of people who can buy your NEXT book when you release it.

Myth: Having a publisher is necessary to make sales!

Here's a reality of who sells books. Publishers print books. Authors sell books. The term best-selling author means the author who sells the most. Publishers do NOT sell books - they put you in a catalog and list you in a few places and that's it. Frankly, this is something you can do yourself just by listing your book for sale on Amazon's Kindel, Barnes and Noble's Nook and a few other places. The reality is that publishers don't do much of anything to sell your book particularly an ebook.

In short, you're better off publishing your ebook yourself and keeping all the profit.

If you want to SELL your ebook, you need to actively market it using several SIMPLE, PROVEN methods that will only take up about 30 minutes a day.

"How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook... in as little as 7 Days" is still the #1 BEST guide online to writing and publishing your own ebook in as little as a week (or faster). You can check it out here www.7dayebook.com

How long should an ebook be?

This seems to be the $64,000 question for a lot of people. Too long? Too short? Just right?

The answer of what makes a good length for an ebook really depends on the "3 P's" of ebook strategy.

Side note: when I say "page" in the discussion below, I am referring to a single-spaced, 12-pt type, 1-inch page margin, 500 word page in your word processor.

#1 P = Purpose

What's your purpose in writing your ebook? If it's to build up a list by giving it away for free, you can go with a "report-length" ebook of 5-15 pages. Though you may call it a "special report" it's still an ebook.

If your purpose is to create a "lead generation" ebook where people pay an entry-level price for the ebook, then your ebook would typically be around 20-40 pages.

If your purpose is to create an ebook that's a major profit center for your business and sells for $20, $30, $50 or $100, then your ebook typically needs to be around 50-100 pages.

#2 P = Promise

What's the promise of the ebook you've written? How much content do you need to fulfill that promise and a little bit more (over-deliver)? I think the promise is as important, if not more important, than the actual content of the ebook anymore. If you have a great promise and fulfill it, I don't think people care nearly as much about how long the ebook is (within reason).

The key however, is to fully deliver on the promise AND make people feel good about having made the purchase. If your ebook is too short, people feel gypped or short-changed. If it's too long, they want you to just "get to the point" already. So promise and length of ebook are as much about feeling as anything else. Put yourself in the shoes of your typical audience member and ask yourself "Based on the promise and how I fulfill it, what feels like a good length here?"

#3 P = Price

Price is tricky. One man's deal is another man's rip-off. A 12-page ebook for $100? I don't think so - at least not for a general audience! A 100-page ebook for $100? Ok. I might buy that based on the promise and a few other factors. $10 for a 1,000 page ebook? Probably not - I'm sure it would wander aimlessly.

Bottom line on price and length of your ebook: based on your promise and your purpose, price your ebook about where others have theirs priced and make your ebook long enough to make people feel good, but short enough to avoid frustrating them.

You can't really go wrong if you get very clear on the purpose of your ebook, make a compelling promise, and charge a fair price. If you focus on making your ebook and the purchase of it a great experience for your customers, then the length of your ebook will just take care of itself (literally).

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Once you've picked a topic to write your ebook about, the next hurdle is what to write. In other words, what words and what perspective do you use to create the content in your word processor that will turn into an ebook you can sell, use as an opt-in bribe, or give away as a bonus.

The following 3 positions will help you understand the various perspectives you can take in creating your ebook so, no matter what your experience level, you can create an ebook worth buying and reading.

Ebook Author / Writer Position #1 - Be the Expert

If you know more than the average person about any topic, you can be an expert compared to them. The easiest way to create an ebook based on your expertise is to simply answer questions and compile them into an ebook. Go out and look on the forums for popular questions people ask. Look through your help desk or customer service emails to find questions people need to know the answers. Look at the questions other experts in your niche answer on their blogs, emails, and articles. Go look at ezinearticles.com to see the most popular articles in your niche and see what questions they answer. Being the expert is easy once you have a basic level of experience that is higher than your audience.

Ebook Author / Writer Position #2 - Be the Reporter

When I started out writing my newspaper column, I purposely named it "The Net Reporter" so I could write about anything. The name of the column gave me permission to report on anything on the Internet, whether I previously knew anything about it or not. Over the course of reporting on things, I learned and increased my knowledge%u2026 which enabled me not only to report, but comment and give my insights on what I saw and what it meant. If you take the position of the reporter, you don't have to be the expert. Since you don't have to be the expert, you can release your fears about not knowing everything and keep your ego out of the way. This is probably the easiest position for a new ebook author to take.

Ebook Author / Writer Position #3 - Be the Student

You can always write about what you see as you take action in a certain area. If you are doing something or embarking on a journey of discovery, it's fine to document what happens and then publish it. You should be careful, however, of not treading on the toes of people you learn from. If you learn a technique in a book or class that is obviously proprietary to the person you learned from, then you need to give credit where credit is due%u2026 without divulging proprietary methods (and running the risk of alienating the person who taught you). The better way to approach this is to write simple about what you DO. A killer tip here is to keep a daily journal or blog as you go through something and then use those daily entries as the content for your ebook.

If, like most people, you choose a topic you know some things about, but not everything, then do a combination of all three. Write as the expert in your ebook for the things you know all the details. Report on the things you see going on related to the topic of your ebook. And, for the things you're learning, let people know what you're figuring out as you go along. This balanced perspective actually makes for some of the most exciting, engaging, and entertaining ebooks for both you and your audience. The number one thing to remember: no matter what your skill level, you CAN write an effective ebook with plenty of content once you decide which ebook author position(s) you'll take!

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This is another thorny issue that can create a lot of problems for any ebook author, newbie or veteran, if you're not careful. When it comes down to writing about someone else, their site, their life, their business or anything else, you need to be careful. It's one thing to write a book that includes your experience with a particular site or individual, but it's quite another to write an entire ebook ONLY about one site, tool, company, or person.

Though this is not legal advice and you should consult an attorney if you are at all unsure, hopefully my thoughts on this question of "Do I need to get permission from a company or website to write an ebook about them?" will help you.

The first thing to consider is what's your intention with writing the book? Are you profiting from the ebook with no real benefit going to the subject of the book. Or, are you writing negatively about the person or company in your ebook? Are you using their intellectual property or disclosing trade secrets that any reasonable person would consider harmful to the subject of your ebook? If so, proceed with caution.

Let's look at a couple of examples to help shed some light on the issue.

First, consider Microsoft. Countless books, ebooks, dvds, VHS tapes, online webinars and more have been done with regard to Microsoft tools, their websites and their search engine. So many, in fact, that Microsoft has written, public instructions on how to include detailed information about their intellectual property in your ebook or video program. You can access it here on the Microsoft website. http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/intellectualproperty/

Microsoft encourages people to write ebooks and create other products that boost sales and use of their software and tools and actually make it very easy to do so. The only thing they ask is that you not dilute their trademarks and right to publicity or cause confusion about who created the product - meaning you don't make people think you, your products, or business are endorsed by Microsoft, in partnership with them, etc. Other than that, they'd love to have you create an ebook about their products, especially if your ebook helps people use Microsoft products.

On the other hand, writing an ebook where you detail the methods, secrets, techniques and tools a specific person uses to get a specific results is NOT a good idea. It could lead to some serious hard feelings and a lot worse. Nothing good can come from riding the coat tails of someone else's hard work.

Finally, I won't go into detail on this, but let's just say that an "unauthorized biography" of any person or company just seems like a BAD idea to me. Too many things could go wrong and it's just not worth it.

Bottom line: the best thing to do is just ASK the person or company if it's okay to write an ebook about them. I've mostly created products (including ebooks) about how to use specific software rather than about companies or individuals who created the software and, without exception, they've been 100% receptive to the idea. This includes direct contact with Microsoft and Techsmith, among others.

If you ask for permission and they say no, move on. You might be able to write it anyway without their permission or even over their objections - but why? Why open yourself up to the potential headaches and negative energy when there are so many other great topics out there you could write about for your ebook topic? There's no reason! Make it a "win-win or no deal" proposition no matter what the topic of your next ebook! And if you liked this article and you're an ebook author (aspiring or veteran) who wants more sell ebooks for HUGE profit margins, you'll LOVE this Free Report because it answers the question once and for all "Can you still make money with ebooks in today's market?" Grab this Report FREE here: http://7dayebook.com/free-report/

Ah, the free ebook! Nothing has been more touted and more maligned in the ebook world than the free ebook. The temptation of the "freemium" model to bring in new throngs of customers who eagerly read your free ebook and then buy from you once they see your genius. The titillating draw of tens-of-thousands of new subscribers eagerly opting in to download your free ebook which they can't wait to devour. The throngs of bright-eyed affiliates handing out your free ebook branded with their affiliate link and the promise of enriching you with no effort. Even Amazon and their mighty Kindle hand out free ebooks like candy on Halloween, making authors think the road to riches is paved with "free" ebooks!

Please, don't make me hurl!

Well, okay, maybe it's not that bad, but making money with free ebooks is just as hard, if not harder, than actually selling ebooks. Why? Because when you publish a free ebook, you need to work at getting it distributed just as much as you would a paid ebook. Now, there are probably more ways to make money with a free ebook that what I'll cover here, but these are enough to get you started.

Product / Affiliate Links

The primary way anyone really expects to make money with free ebooks is with links to related products, either your own or through an affiliate link (which earns you a commission if someone buys). In theory, someone reads the ebook, sees the light, and buys the product. In fact, the theory works! People who read the ebook (or special report) and want more help, automation, the rest of the story, or whatever the end-run product offers will click the link and buy. What percentage of them do that depends on a LOT of factors, including: competition, urgency, and how good your ebook is.

If you're just getting started with free ebooks, this strategy is hard to screw up.

Building a List

Having an email list you control is one of the primary building blocks of online business success (along with a GREAT product and some original content). When you have a list, you can make multiple offers over time to a targeted audience. One way to get people onto a list is to offer them something valuable in exchange for the opt-in, and a free ebook makes a great bribe! Here's a perfect example: http://7dayebook.com/free-report/

MILLION-DOLLLAR TIP ALERT

One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking the only way they can make money with a free ebook is if people actually read it and then they'll click a link and buy something. The fact is, most people will NOT read your free ebook even if they download it. Why? They're busy! So, to increase your chances of making money with your free ebook, put an offer on the CONFIRMATION page when they opt-in to download the ebook. When they sign up to get the ebook and click the button on the form, they then go to a page that pitches them on the product you want them to buy from the ebook. You can even just use your affiliate link as the confirmation url when you set up the form.

This alone can MASSIVELY increase your profits from offering a free ebook without anyone actually even reading it.

Bottom line: as I stated before, you CAN make money with free ebooks, but it's not a cakewalk. You need a strategy and you need to take action in order for this tactic to work. But, once you get your offer nailed and your distribution channels figured out, this can turn into a VERY profitable source of customers and lead to some great viral pass-along as friends tell friends about the great free ebook they just found!