Magic In Words

It's never been easier for you to create and see your own product. Ebooks are popular, easy to download/deliver and inexpensive to create. You can also use ebooks in a variety of ways to market your business through the internet. Ebooks and internet marketing go hand in hand. With ebooks, you just can't go wrong!

Once you create your book, or books, you can sell them for years to come. You won't have any inventory or shipping to bother with. Your customers receive instant gratification with the download of their book.

Information is what the internet is all about and you can capitalize on the technology advantage to create an income stream for your business. So, how do you begin to write an ebook?

Choosing A Subject

You are passionate about your business, aren't you? I'll be there is a lot of valuable information and business experience you posses. Experience you could sell. Take a look at what might help you market your business. If you need some help, download my ebook The Magic of Publishing for some tips on developing content.

How Can You Use An Ebook?

There are many ways to use an ebook. Here are a few:

* Marketing tool for your business
* "How To" Manual
* Electronic version of your book
* Instructional/Training Manual
* Catalog
* Ezine Archive

The most popular, and best selling books, are the "how to" books. Think about your business and what it is that you do, you could help others do for themselves? Don't worry, you can always research and write about a topic that interests you personally, as well. Just learn all you can, then write about it.

You could create a "Top Ten Tips List" each day for ten days and you'll have one hundred tips to start working into an ebook. You probably have archived newsletters that you could glean information from for your book. You can always research additional information on the internet. Now that you've got some ideas, how about structure?

You'll want an:

* Introduction
You can create a graphic that matches the theme of your ebook. You can use your company logo, or any other graphical element in the design of your book. You'll want to explain what your book is about, and maybe why you wrote it.
* Forward
This will include a the "legalities" like the warranties, guarantees, trademarks, etc.
* Table of Contents
This will enable your readers to navigate easily through your book. They can locate the material that's important to them, quickly. Although, if you are writing a novel, you may want to use chapters instead of a table of content page.
* About
If you are writing a "how to" book, you'll want to create an about page so you can tell your readers of your experience, your company, your web site and other pertinent information. You'll want your contact information on this page too.
* Links
You may want links sprinkled through out your book so you can direct your reader to information on your web site, or you may want a resource page full of important links. The advantage of an ebook is the ability to add links and navigation.
* Graphical Elements
Graphics can spice up your book a bit, but be careful because they can slow the load time too. Don't use Flash or anything that requires a plug-in. It may look nice, but not everyone is capable, or comfortable viewing something like Flash. You don't want them to become frustrated when they are trying to load your book.
* Copyright
That may look like this "Copyright © 2007 by Magic In Words. Al rights reserved worldwide. No part of this ebook may be copied or sold." You can also designate whether your book can be sold, or may only be given away free of charge.
* Delivery
The nice thing about ebooks is that they can be delivered as a download over the internet, an attachment to an e-mail, on a CD Rom, a diskette, or a flash drive. The one common element here is that the book can be delivered instantly. No waiting for shipping.

What Are You Waiting For?

Now all you need to do is decide if handling the layout and compiling of your ebook is something you'd like to tackle, or contract out.

Start Small When Developing Your Content

Make a list of topics about which you are very passionate. Give yourself five minutes to list topics and their potential titles.

Start to list tips under each of the topics you just listed. Just keep writing. You'll look them over later.

Look at your tips. Can they be organized under a few headings? If so, consider adding a table of contents and page numbers to your booklet.

Your booklet should not only be a marketing or promotional piece for your current business, but also as an income stream unto itself.

Choose a topic that has everything to do with your business. That way your marketing efforts will double by focusing on marketing both your business and the booklet.

Can the booklet be an overview of the topic you are promoting? Or, will it need to focus on one specific aspect of something you know is the biggest moneymaker in your business.

You can start with an overview booklet that addresses some of the generalities of your topic.

If your overview is too large, take a look at how you can break it up into more specialized subjects.

Create separate booklets out of your specialized subjects, including your general overview booklet.

Specialized booklets can be constructed so that they could be used together later on for a book.

Each booklet could represent one chapter of information that could be expanded upon for a book.

Present your content in short "bullet" style format.

Write your content as tips instead of a longer narrative. Your readers will be drawn to the material faster when it is presented as "sound bites" rather than paragraphs.

Use a type size that accommodates the ever-increasing numbers of Baby Boomers who now reach for their bifocals!

Your booklet should fit into a #10 business size envelope.

Keep your booklet to between 16 and 24 pages.

Find a good pair of extra eyes to proof your booklet content. You know someone who catches every little mistake. Put them to use.

Keep your first print run to a small amount so you can make any corrections that slip past those "old eagle eyes."

Keep your graphics to a minimum and make sure they are black and white, not color.

Most of all, put the pen to the paper and start. Take it a bit at a time and before you know it, you'll have plenty of content for a nice booklet, or even a skinny book! Who knows!