Writing an eBook: Guiding You Through the Process
Writing an eBook isn’t easy and it doesn’t take a seasoned author to understand that, as even beginners will see that it’s tough. You don’t want to approach the process without any knowledge surrounding the subject, as writing an eBook is going to take both time and effort. If you want to make an impact using the content you plan on releasing, you have to take the proper steps required to ensure your success. Whether you want to turn a profit or just change the lives of those who read your book, it needs to be a high-quality product for either of those things to happen.
This article is going to help you understand what goes into a high-quality eBook, as well as what you can do to achieve the same result. There are many variables to consider and that’s why this article can be looked at as a fantastic resource of information! While we can’t exactly write the eBook for you, we can do the next best thing; assist you by making the writing process easier (as well as many other things).
Why Do People Write eBooks?
Using an eBook can be one of the most effective marketing tools any entrepreneur on the planet has seen. Not only will you be building a list of dedicated readers, but you’re also going to create an additional marketing platform that can be used to boost revenue. You want to create sales leads that are going to lead somewhere other than a dead end, and there’s no better way to achieve that than through the use of eBooks.
What is an eBook?
This is a shortened version of “electronic book”, which is any sort of “long-form text” you can read on an electronic device. People tend to read eBooks on anything you could imagine, from their smartphones down to tablets and laptop computers – eBooks are everywhere these days and there is a good reason for that. Every eBook will consist of multiple PDF pages, all of which will form together an easily shareable book that doesn’t require the paper to be printed on!
How Do You Structure Them?
It doesn’t matter how you structure your eBook in most cases, as you have a lot more freedom in that regard when compared to a traditional book. You’ll want to mimic the traditional format that is found within novels and other textbooks, although this is going to be determined by the topic you’re writing about (which we’ll cover in this article too!). In most cases an author is going to keep their eBook organized using chapters, regardless of whether they’re writing a novel or not – sub-sections allow the reader to easily navigate through the eBook without having to flip through endless PDF pages.
Does It Matter What I’m Writing About?
There are eBooks on almost anything you could imagine, and that’s the truth. You don’t need to ponder whether you’ve got a great topic to write about, as there is bound to be a market for anything! Some eBooks help people quit smoking or lose weight, while others are going to help them pick up women (or men, we don’t discriminate) – it seems as if it doesn’t matter what you’re writing about, so long as you’re doing it properly.
If you’re in the sales industry you want to focus on CTA (calls-to-action), which is pretty much promoting the reader to do something recommended within your eBook. For example, if you’re selling a service or product that is being promoted in your eBook, you’ll want to say stuff like “interested in our product? Buy it today!” – adds links to a purchase page on your website and you’ve just created a traveling advertisement in the form of an eBook!
Steps in Writing an Ebook
So here are the common steps for writing your own ebook.
Step 1: Figure Out the Topic
Your eBook needs to have a major focus, which is going to be the topic. Any solid eBook will have a great topic to discuss and discover alongside the readers, which is why there are so many online courses and training programs being offered through eBook. When you’ve got knowledge that deserves a proper platform and has the writing skills needed to express it, readers are bound to come flocking. The main goal for your eBook is to generate leads in most cases, so the topic needs to be picked accordingly. If you’ve got a marketing campaign that is already covering a specific topic, you may want to consider writing an eBook that follows the same tradition. For example, if you’re in the business of teaching people how to trade Forex, you don’t want to write an eBook about buying used cars – you have to stay on topic to ensure that you’re generating leads in the right market.
This gives you a chance to learn more about the industry you’re working within as well, as writing an eBook will call for tons of research. Converting sales will be a simple task when you have a reliable eBook to lean on, which is why understanding the importance of your topic is necessary.
Step 2: Create Chapters for Your eBook
Creating chapters for your eBook will keep the content organized for your readers, allowing them to take everything in at their own pace. The introduction will set the tone for your entire eBook and will let readers know what they’re about to get into, but it needs to be catchy! If you can create a catchy introduction, you’re bound to keep readers hooked after just a few paragraphs – try and talk about what the eBook has to offer information-wise, as well as talk about the benefits you would achieve from reading it.
Many authors have claimed that an eBook is merely an abundance of blog posts being strung together, one after the other – while that does seem somewhat true, you should still be treating your eBook as a traditional novel (when it comes to chapters). The chapters themselves shouldn’t be out of place either, because the reader can get confused if that happens; you want the chapters to be aligned and flow together seamlessly.
If you aren’t sure how to approach the outlining of your eBook, don’t worry! Some eBooks aren’t that long and don’t require too much work in the organization department, but you still need to separate the content to ensure readers are aware of what information is present. If they want to skip over a portion of the eBook, so be it! The world is their oyster when you’ve written your eBook properly.
Step 3: Write to Fill in Your Chapters!
This is the hardest part for most people, as you’ve got to write around 3-4,000 words for any given eBook (and that’s on the lesser side!). Some eBooks can be up to 75,000 words (approx. 300 pages), but as long as you’ve got about 25 pages and a cover, you should be good to go! Remember that these are just suggestions and there are plenty of short eBooks out there that have shown success, we are merely taking a look at what has worked for most.
You’re trying to create an eBook, not writing a research paper for your professor. You must make the content appear longer than it is through the use of imagery and using page layouts; you can also achieve this through the use of headings and other formatting options (like using larger fonts or even bullet points for effect).
Step 4: Design and Add Graphics
You should have a layout in mind when you’ve got all of the content written, as you don’t want to just present it without any images/graphics. You can use images to make the eBook appear longer as well, but that isn’t why we use visual aids, the main reason is to ensure that readers are engaging with the content properly. There are situations where using a graph to express facts in an eBook will be crucial, as giving people a visual representation of what the content is explaining is always nice. When you think about the audio experiences that you are given in museums, this is almost like the eBook equivalent – you don’t want to just read information about historical statues, you want to see them and put everything together for yourself!
The layout of your eBook is going to be determined by how much content is present, as well as how many images you plan on using. You can use bullet points to create even more visual aid within your eBook, and some authors will say that you can never have too much of that! In my personal opinion, I would suggest that you find the perfect blend between word count and graphics within your eBooks. The best eBooks that I’ve ever read always include a stellar cover, one that has been designed with care. I would highly recommend that you hire a professional artist to draw something for your cover, or even just a designer who specializes in Photoshop to create something. Regardless of how you do it, providing readers with a great cover is a must!
Step 5: Proofread and Edit
You cannot release an eBook that hasn’t been thoroughly proofread and edited, as that’s just going to look bad for your brand. The best way to proofread and edit your eBook is manually, but there are programs available (like Ginger or Grammarly) that will make this process much easier. You can spend more time on the marketing campaign surrounding your eBook and less time manually proofreading through 25 pages of content! As much as we love to write eBooks ourselves, the energy required to proofread the content after completion is tough to muster up.
Edit the entire eBook once and then go through a second time to make sure that you haven’t missed any errors. You’ll want to keep an eye out for spelling errors (which can be handled using a generic spellcheck tool), but it’s the tricky stuff like “any” typed as “and” that can get overlooked. Even some of the grammar correction tools that you use might not catch on to errors of that nature, which is why going through stuff manually is going to be your best bet.
Step 6: Export Into a PDF
You want to present your eBook in a PDF format whenever possible, as it’s one of the industry standard with one of the best qualities available for content of this caliber. It’s also much easier to share your eBooks when they have been exported into a PDF file, but there are other file extension options to choose if you’d like (although we wouldn’t recommend it!). Microsoft Word and most other major writing programs will allow you to directly export all of your content into a PDF format, and if that isn’t the case, there are tons of conversion tools on the internet that will allow you to achieve a PDF file.
Step 7: Secure Your eBooks With PDF Protection
This is arguably the most important part (other than writing the book itself), as this is going to prevent pirates and other unauthorized readers from gaining access to your PDF files. We’ll talk in more detail about this service later on in the article, but just know that you’ll need to protect all of your PDF pages before you publish anything. Refusing to do so is not only risky but potentially dangerous as people could go as far as re-selling your eBooks as their own!
Step 8: Publish Your eBook (finish writing an ebook)
When everything is done and the dust has settled, you can finally put out your eBook. Publishing an eBook is very easy for the most part, as you don’t have to do much. You can upload your PDF files to a webpage that you own, or you can choose to release the eBook through other means (such as Amazon Kindle) – most companies will just allow readers to download the content from their websites though. Promote it as much as you can and give it a landing page or two, as well as some blog posts to back everything up. Writing an eBook isn’t something for the faint of heart, but once you’ve done it a few times there’s no reason to fear the process any longer. You know what readers are looking for in their eBooks, and it’s merely a matter of being able to deliver.
PDF Protection: Why Is It So Important?
There are many PDF protection services to consider on the world-wide-web these days, but very few of them are going to handle your eBook professionally. Sometimes they’ll just slap together a tool that barely works and offer it to the masses, which is an issue for authors who count on these tools to protect their content. When readers can just share your eBook at will it almost seems pointless, as there’s never going to be enough profits to go around when people are blatantly stealing your eBooks.
After writing an ebook, the PDF protection allows authors to release their eBooks with peace of mind, knowing that the unauthorized redistribution and download of their product isn’t going to be happening. There are a lot of different PDF protection services available, all of which will make publishing your eBook much safer. These are called eBook DRM services. Some of my most recommended PDF protections are:
Password Protection – As the name would suggest, you can use this process to protect your PDF files with a password. While it used to be the industry standard, people just started to share passwords to bypass the protection.
Dynamic Watermarks – You can use dynamic watermarks (or social DRM) to make sure that PDF files have user-specific watermarks in place. This also gives you a chance to add in a company logo or any other branding that would make the illegal use/download of your eBook hard to achieve.