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How to Write an Ebook
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The hardest part of writing is the first sentence.
When you look at the whole project, it seems like an
impossible task. That's why you have to break it down
into manageable tasks. Think of climbing a mountain.
You are standing at the foot of it and looking up at
its summit vanishing into the clouds. How can you
possibly scale such an immense and dangerous mountain?

There is only one way to climb a mountain ? step by
step.

Now think of writing your ebook in the same light. You
must create it step by step, and one day, you will
take that last step and find yourself standing on the
summit with your head in the clouds.

The first thing you have to do, as if you actually
were a mountain climber, is to get organized. Instead
of climbing gear, however, you must organize your
thoughts. There are some steps you should take before
you begin. Once you've gone through the following
list, you will be ready to actually begin writing your
ebook.

Beginning Steps to Writing an ebook

First, figure out your ebook's working title. Jot down
a few different titles, and eventually, you'll find
that one that will grow on you. Titles help you to
focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in
anticipating and answering your reader's queries. Many
non-fiction books also have subtitles. Aim for clarity
in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell
books ? as long as it's not too cute. For example,
Remedies for Insomnia: twenty different ways to count
sheep. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans
to whip you into shape.

Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a
sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are
addressing and how your book will solve that problem.
All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement.
Once you've got your thesis statement fine-tuned,
you've built your foundation. From that foundation,
your book will grow, chapter by chapter.

Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your
ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis
statement. If they don't, they don't belong in your
book. For example, your thesis statement could read:
We've all experienced insomnia at times in our lives,
but there are twenty proven techniques and methods to
give you back a good night's sleep.

Once you have your thesis, before you start to write,
make sure there is a good reason to write your book.
Ask yourself some questions:

* Does your book present useful information and is
that information currently relevant?

* Will you book positively affect the lives of your
readers?

* Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader's
attention?

* Does you book answer questions that are meaningful
and significant?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel
confident about the potential of your ebook.

Another important step is to figure out who your
target audience is. It is this group of people you
will be writing to, and this group will dictate many
elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction,
and even length. Figure out the age range of your
readers, their general gender, what they are most
interested in, and even the socio-economic group they
primarily come from. Are they people who read fashion
magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in
longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you
can pin down your target audience, the easier it will
be to write your book for them.

Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your
ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you
want to bring quality traffic to your website? Do you
want to enhance your reputation?

Then write down your goals in terms of publishing. Do
you want to sell it as a product on your website, or
do you want to offer it as a free gift for filling out
a survey or for ordering a product? Do you want to use
the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook
to attract affiliates around the world? The more you
know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.

Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction,
keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly
consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to
your chapter topic, and then divide it into four
subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five
parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.

How to make your ebook "user friendly"

You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging.
Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photos,
graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning
the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible
information, and they break up the density of the
page.

Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a
formal tone such as textbook diction. Reader's respond
to the feeling that you are having a conversation with
them. Break up the length and structure of your
sentences so you don?t hypnotize your readers into
sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and
structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!

Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of
practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a
day. Read books and magazines about the process of
writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The
art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you
write (and read), the better your writing will become.
The better your writing becomes, the bigger your sales
figures.

In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that
you must give your reader's eye a break. You can do
this by utilizing white space. In art classes, white
space is usually referred to as "negative space."
Reader's eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises
you create on your page. If your page is too dense,
your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes
begin to tear.

Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This
makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the
reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs
one after the other.

Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font
that's easy on the eyes, and stick to that font
family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your
readers out before they've gotten past your
introduction. Use at least one and a half line
spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on
the screen, but small enough so that the whole page
can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to
experiment with this to find the right combination.

Of course, don't forget to run a spell and grammar
check. You are judged by something as minor as correct
punctuation, so don?t mess up a great book by tossing
out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences
together with commas. (By the way, that's called a
"comma splice.")

Last of all, create an index and a bibliography.
That's it! You've written a book! Now all you have to
do is publish your ebook online, and wait for download
request from your website visitors.

- Leon Edward

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The Internet! The World Wide Web! The Information Super Highway! There is a very good reason why it is call the information super highway. That reason is because that is exactly what it is. There are, of course, some ‘slow lanes’ for those who only want to talk to friends and play games but most people now days turn to the Internet for the purpose of getting answers to questions about everything you can imagine and a few things you would never want to try to imagine. They buy things and sell things…both require information. They search for ways to make money using their computers…for that they REALLY need information. They search for information about the illnesses they or their family face or they research projects for work or school. Information is THE Internet commodity that almost everybody with a computer wants.

There is a lot of information online that costs nothing above the cost of the Internet connection but timely, relevant, vital information is one thing that people eagerly take out their credit cards to buy. People will buy information that they can’t get free and, the strange thing is, they will also buy information that is readily available on the Internet free of charge if it is packaged in a way that makes it easy to read and understand. Inforamtion is the ultimate commodity and wealth goes to those there first with the timeliest information!

For those looking for a way to earn a living while sitting in front of their computers in their own homes, I recommend selling information. Information is a beautiful thing. It requires no warehouse space and, unless it is in the form of a CD or DVD, it requires no shipping or handling either. The one thing that people will gladly pay for is information that is timely, relevant and helps them solve a problem, feel better or look better.

Getting aboard the information gravy train is not as easy as it sounds but it will be well worth the effort it takes. Internet surfers have one thing in common. They are almost always looking for information that will help them look better, feel better, make more money, answer their questions or solve their problems. The common denominator of all informational products is ‘need’. Different people, of course, are looking for different information. The quest for information runs the gauntlet and covers every topic that can be imagined. The thing that doesn’t change is that the information needs to be right up-to-date and relevant.

It is possible to create and sell an informational product that is filled with information that is accutually available for free on the Internet. I said possible…not easy. The information that can be found on any given subject on the Internet isn’t all relevant or timely. When creating such an informational product, a great many pages of old and out dated information must be sorted through and then discarded. Only relevant and timely information should be included in any informational product that is sold as such on the Internet.

People in general are much more likely to pull out their credit cards and fill in information to buy an informational product that they believe will help them in some way than they will to buy any other kind of thing sold on the Internet today. People want and need information and they are willing, even eager, to pay for that information but only if it is relevant and timely.

The single most important kind of information you should sell on the Internet, is that which is relevant and timely no matter what the subject may be.

Information can be prepared and sold in at least three different kinds of products. It can be in the form of the written word (E-books), it can be in the form of an online audio or a CD or tape or it can be in the form of a video online or on DVD.

It is a well known fact that people learn best in different ways. Some people need only read information and it is clear to them. Other people learn best when they hear the information….just reading information doesn’t do it for them. Yet other people need to see the information presented for them to comprehend and grasp the information.

The type of information being presented also lends itself best to either the written word, and audio tape or CD or a video presentation. There are some things, for example, that just the written word can’t convey adaquatly. Some ‘how-to’ information will just simply require video and some things like motivational speakers are best presented on audio tape or CD’s. Let’s discuss the three differnet types of informational products that you might consider:

1. The written word (E-books): This type of informational product is by far the easiest and least expensive to produce. This medium lends itself well to many topics and can even be used for some ‘how-to’ informational products and motivational products. A well written E-book that is filled with timely and relevant information sells well on the Internet. E-books can be sold at a much smaller price to the consumer than other kinds of products because there are no direct production costs….the investment is usually entirely the time of the author of such products. The only tools required to produce an E-book is a program like MS Word and a PDF converter.

2. The audio product: The audio informational product requires all of the same research that an E-book requires but then it also requires production and distribution investment, as well. The good news is that with today’s computers and the software available, recording audio is a fairly simple thing to do and the quality is as good, or almost as good, as recordings made in sound studios. Audio informational products are generally used for producing such informational products as those produced for motivation purposes, marketing, finance, and business. Production, shipping and handling is usually supplied by a fulfillment center. There are many such companies.

3. The video informational product: This is the most difficult and usually the most expensive to produce informational product on the market today. It is also the most effective for many topics. Unless you have the capability to make the video yourself, you will have to hire a videographer or at the very least you will have to buy or rent video equipment. However, there are some informational topics that just cannot be created in any other way, i.e. action oriented themes like sports, dancing, learning to play a musical instrument, etc. A fulfillment center must be hired in order to mass produce a DVD and distribute it. Of course, some video products can be available only online which eliminates the need for a fulfillment center.

When you are choosing the type of informational product you will produce, take into consideration the cost but also consider the best way to present the information to your customers.

• The E-book can be used for many, maybe even most, topics. It is the least expensive to produce.

• The audio product lends itself well to such topics as motivation, marketing, finance, and business.

• The video product must be used for producing action oriented topics like sports, dancing, learning to play a musical instrument, etc.

There is so much misleading information out there about how to go about choosing the topic of an informational product and creating an information on demand product for which there will be a large pool of customers eager, ready, willing and able to buy that product.

There are many long articles and dissertations on the Internet that will tell you that the way to choose a topic for an informational product is to simply type a few words into a search engine and see how many hits you get. Nothing could be further from the truth. You might go to Google and type in ‘crab’. You might even go to the Overture SearchTool and type in ‘crab’. You will get pages and pages of hits but that doesn’t mean that anybody is willing to buy any informational product about crabs. The only thing it means is that there is a lot of information on the Internet about crabs. If you trusted this search and acted on the fact that you got a lot of hits, you will work hard at creating an informational product for which there will be no market and no buyers. You will have invested many hours of research that you will never make the first penny on. You will know a lot about crabs but that won’t buy milk for the baby.

There are effective ways to search out topics to create information on demand products for, though. They aren’t as easy or as quick as using a search engine of the Overture Search Tool but they are a lot more effective.

One such way is to visit online forums. It isn’t necessary to join the forums or participate in them. Most forums are public and you can read the posts and discover the hot topics of conversation. When you see a recurring theme, you may have found the topic of your next information on demand product. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to join the forum and participate in the conversation. This will give you the opportunity to ask questions and gather information.

Visiting blogs can be useful in finding the topic of your next information on demand product, as well. You can fairly quickly see what is on the minds of those who are posting to blogs. It’s easy to spot controversy…controversy is profitable. You might even find topics for two informational products…one expounding the strong points of each side of a hot topic issue.

Yet another place to look for topics of on-demand informational products in by subscribing to E-zines. Note what kinds of informational products the publishers of these E-zines are promoting. You will get emails from the publishers of the E-zines and you will be able to determine what products they are promoting. If several publishers are promoting the same kind of product then you can bet its hot.

Hard copy newspapers and magazines are another place to search for topics. It’s hard to believe but people who live and die by the Internet will still subscribe to and read them. Particularly note the letters to the editor section and the business and entertainment sections of these publications.

Note the subject matter being aired on Network television. Pay particular attention to the newsmagazine programs. Networks have deep pockets and they pay people a lot of money to figure out what subjects the public will be most interested in.

You need to know what people are talking about and what they are most urgent concerns are. These are the things that determine what on-demand informational products will have a ready made market for your product.

The creation of an informational product that will be successful depends on several factors. Just blindly pulling a topic out of thin air will almost certainly gaurantee failure rather than success.

The first thing that you must to is to asscertain that there is a demand for the informational product that you plan to create. If there isn’t a demand, then there really isn’t any point in putting forth the time and effort required to create it. The best way to check that there is, in fact, a demand for the product is to visit forums and blogs that relate to the product you are planning. Check E-zines and hard copy newspapers and magazines to be sure that people are interested in or need the product.

When checking sources like online forums and blogs, E-zines, and hard copy magazines and newspapers, you don’t want to only occasionally see a mention of the desire for the informational product that you are considering creating. The subject covered in the product needs to have mass appeal at least to a particular market or niche.

The next thing to determine is people would be willing to actually pay for the information that will be contained in the informational product that you are considering. If the only information you can provide is readily available, you may not have many takers, although it is true that some people will, most won’t. The information that you are planning to publish, needs to be timely and relevant…it must be cutting edge information, in order for people to be willing to pay you for it.

Finally, the information that you are considering creating an informational product from must make people feel better, look better, help them make more money, have fun, or solve a problem that they have. If it doesn’t do any of the above, you should look for a different topic.

Informational products come in three specific forms. There are the written vaiety (E-books), audio tapes or CD’s and there are video products that are either in the form of a DVD or available on the Internet.

The topics of informational products are as varied as the people who buy them. There are informational products sold everyday on every subject you can possibly imagine and probably on a lot of subjects you would rather never imagine. People buy information. Information is a commodity that is valued in every industrialized society on the planet.

No matter what vehicle you choose to use to present your informational product (E-book, audio or video), topics fall into general catagories and the vehicle you choose needs to be the best one to present your information to your audience.

One type of informational product that is probably the very most popular is the how-to product. If you know how to do anything at all, there are people out there who want to know how to do it, as well. People are interesting in everything from building bird houses to scuba diving to starting their own internet business and they are willing to pay for the information about how to do the thing they desire to learn. An E-book works well for teaching many how-to-do things but if the subject being taught requires learning an action (sports, dancing, or playing a musical instrument for example) then a video is the better choice.

Inspirational or motivational information products are good sellers on the Internet. Products that are filled with success stories and case studies give people hope…and hope is in demand every where.

Products that give up-to-date information about chronic diseases are always in demand. Every day people are diagnosed with some kind of disease they have no information about and they want to know everything they can learn about it and they want to hear how other people deal with it.

Choose a topic that will help people solve a problem or make their lives better in some way and you will have a winning informational product for which there will be a ready made market.

What exactly is the purpose of an informational product other than to impart information? Or, is there one? Well, yes, there is another objective. It is to impart information and do it in a way that the information is easily and quickly absorbed by the buyer of that information.

The creator of informational products should have respect for the time of the buyer of the product. Everybody gets the same number of hours in a day and each person considers their alloted share valuable. Wasting a person’s time is, in a way, disrespectful.

It isn’t written anywhere that an E-book needs to be forty or fifty pages long. That many pages of single spaced type takes a long time to read and even longer to absorb and put into action. Most of the time people who buy informational E-books do so for the purpose of gaining knowledge or solving a problem and they usually want to do either in the shortest period of time possible. They really don’t want to wade through irrelevant information that is there for the sole purpose of making the E-book fifty pages long. An E-book should be only twenty to forty pages long depending upon the information contained in it and sometimes E-books can be a lot shorter than twenty pages and still be effective.

The whole point of an E-book is to convey information and do it in as efficient manner as possible. As long as the product offers a solution to a problem, informs the reader or makes his life better in some way, it has done what it was designed to do.

People buy E-books for the sole purpose of gaining the information in them. Their time is valuable and you should remember that sometimes people are desperate for information or, at the very least, have a limited amount of time to read and absorb the information in them.

Yee Haw! Years ago the way cattle were marked so that they could be identified was by ‘branding’ them with a symbol that represented their owner. There was a red hot branding iron involved…OUCH! That method is rarely used now…ear tags are more the norm. The idea of branding an animal was for the purpose of identification. The idea of ‘branding’ a product is a little more complicated but the idea is still the similar. You recognize many brands of many different products by their logo’s, colors and fonts. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on advertising so that the buying public will recognize a particular brand of a general product. We have all heard the term ‘branding’ and ‘branding campaign’ used in the Internet marketing arena, but what exactly does it mean in that setting? According to Capcomarketing it means, “An ad campaign that focuses on introducing, re-introducing or enforcing the brand for a particular product or organization. Branding is one of the most unappreciated aspects of web advertising because so many people focus on click-through rates. This is unfortunate because studies have shown internet advertising to be highly successful in building brand awareness.”

“Interesting’, you say, “but how does branding relate to my informational product?” The fact is that every day there are hundreds of E-books published or offered on the Internet. Branding is one way to make yours stand out from the crowd. The objective is always to stand out, stand above and be recognized. The purpose of branding your informational product is to establish yourself as a guru…an expert in the field…the ‘go-to’ guy (or gal).

There are several things that you can do that will help you establish a recognizable brand for your informational products. One such thing is to have a logo made that is yours alone. Think Coca Cola or Tide! You would recognize those brand logos anywhere. If you are a graphic designer you can, of course, design your own logo. If you are like most of us, you will need to find a graphic designer to make one for you. Think of it as a one-time expense that will have value for you forever. Use this logo on all of your informational products and be sure that when it is reproduced the logo will be included in the reproduction.

Another way of branding your informational product is to use your own picture as a part of the work. This will help to establish you as the guru and any reproduction of the work should include the picture.

Use a slogan often enough that it becomes associated with your informational products. A slogan needs to be short and to the point. Think of the Wal-Mart slogan…Always low prices…always!” It works for them and a slogan can help you brand your products, as well. This slogan should be used as a part of your informational product as often as possible.

You can still have no idea how to brand your informational product, the one thing that you can do free of charge and every time is to put your name in the title of your informational product. “John Doe Teaches You How-to Whatever” is an effective way to brand an E-book or a CD or DVD.

As small Internet business owners, we just don’t have those beautiful multi-million advertising budgets that the bug guys have but we can use some of the same tactics that have made them big guys and branding is one of those tactics. Brand your informational products to help establish yourself as an expert in your field and thereby increase you income.

- Leon Edward

Now that you have your digital informational product complete and ready to be sold, the next question is what to charge for it. How much should you ask for your work? That is a hard question to answer but the general rule of thumb is: The more potential customers there are for your product the less you can charge for it and the opposite is true. The fewer potential customers there are, the more you should charge for it.

Think about how products are priced out in the brick and mortar world. In very exclusive shops, where very exclusive products are sold to only a few well-heeled customers, the prices are high….VERY high. On the other hand, prices of similar products are priced much lower in department stores and even lower in giant chain stores like Wal-Mart. The reason that the products are priced lower is because there are a lot more buyers for them and more product will be sold. It is just simple mathematics. You can sell 10 people an item for $100 each and gross $1000. You can sell 100 people a $10 item and still gross $1000. The fact is that there are more people who can afford to spend $10 than there people who can afford to spend $100.

There is another consideration to be made when pricing your informational product and that is that it takes the same amount of effort and energy to promote a $10 product as it does to promote a product that sells for $100. It takes the same amount of time, as well. Your product needs to be priced as high as it can possibly be priced.

The amount of information in the product and how valuable that information is to the customers who will buy the product needs to be considered. Correct pricing is a balanceing act. Have you ever heard the old saying, “You can price yourself right out of the market”? If an informational product is prices too low, people think it will have little value and not be worth their time or effort to read it. On the other hand, if an informational product is priced too high, people might really want it but feel like they simply can’t afford the price.

Consider the information that is contained in the E-book or other informational product. Is it new information that will help to solve a pressing problem for many people or only for a few people? Is the information contained in the product available elsewhere or is your product the only place this information can be found? Will it make people look better, feel better, make more money, have fun or solve a problem and is it the kind of information that people would be willing to pay a lot of money for or only a little money for? Will your informational product appeal to a very large pool of potential customers or only to a few people but be of a great value to those few?

Sometimes, adding on some freebies or bonuses allows you to ask a higher price. Bundling products sometimes allows for higher pricing, as well.

Pricing your informational product is a sticky and tricky problem. Pricing it too low is just as bad as pricing it too high. If there are similar informational products on the market, you should check their prices and not price yours too far from the center. Remember this: You can always lower a price but you can never raise a price on the same product so set your price at the highest level you believe that you can get because you will work just as hard for a $10 sale as you will for a $100 sale.

- Leon Edward

The quickest way out of the business of selling informational products on the Internet is to adopt a “take the money and run” attitude. Getting customers to buy informational products isn’t easy. A customer is valuable and should be treasured above all else. Out of every hundred people who visit your website and consider buying your E-book or other informational product, you will be doing very well indeed if you make 3 sales. Those are just the cold hard facts of selling digital informational products….or any other kind of product on the Internet. Getting a first-time customer isn’t easy. When you get one you need to make sure that you keep him, keep him happy and make him want to buy from you again and again. You do that by having excellent customer service, staying in contact with you customers through newsletters and emails and by having great back-end products to offer him. Remember this: It is much easier to sell to and existing customer than it is to get a new customer.

You should include an offer for a back-end product with the delivery of the first sale to a customer. Let them know right away that you have other products to sell. If they are happy with the first product, they will be much more likely to buy the back-end products as well.

In digital products such as E-books, the offer of the back-end products needs to be included in the original E-book…the offers should be made a part of the E-book itself.

Including membership in a ‘members only’ forum or blog where buyers can discuss the product is a great idea. It also gives you a place to continue to promote your back-end products.

Make your customers believe in you, your expertise and your products and your business can only grow larger over time. Don’t take the money and run….that strategy doesn’t work.

- Leon Edward