10 things to know before you write your own ebook

10 things you must know before you start to write your own ebook

What will be the contents of your ebook?

You must know the subject of what your ebook will be about. Its better to write your own ebook about a subject you know a lot about, if you try to write an ebook with very little knowledge of the subject its bound to relfect in the content. Make sure you know everything there is to know about the subject in your ebook, the internet has a wealth of information on all subjects so surf the net and read and read AND read until you are happy that you know your subject inside and out.

Why are you writing the ebook?

What is the purpose of you writing the ebook, is it to sell thousands of copies and make lots of money, or is the ebook going to be a way to drive traffic to your website and make sales from there, or are you producing the ebook to receive sign ups or subscribers? Make sure you know exactly what you want to gain from writing your ebook and make sure your focus entirely on this when writing your own ebook. If you try to achieve too many things from one ebook, you will most likely achieve nothing. If need be, write a separate ebook on the same subject for each particular need that you have, ie. an ebook for directing traffic, getting sign ups, selling.


What will be the title of your ebook?

Do you have a title in mind for your ebook? If so, ignore it and write down as many different titles that you can think of, then look at each of them and see which one stands out the most, its always good to have a call to action in your ebook title, ie. Stop Divorce Now, Dumped Get Over it, use words like Discover, Secrets, Stop, Free, Amazing, Imagine, How to, Finally, Quick, Easy etc etc. A snappy attention grabbing headline is a very important part of your ebook.

Will your ebook include graphics?

Will the ebook you write have graphics? If so, what ones?If you are wrting a how to guide will you put in screenshots, if its an ebook about cooking will you have images of the recipes? Often when writing an ebook lots and lots of information can be boring, why not break it up with a few choice images. Will your ebook have an ecover, highly recommend to make it more professional a picture says a thousand words, get a well designed professional ecover design and enhance the overall image of your ebook contents.

What rights will you offer with your ebook?

The are many categories of rights included with ebooks here are a few:

Resell or Resale Rights

Master Resell or Resale Rights

Private Label Rights

Unrestricted Private Label Rights

Giveaway Rights

No Rights

Resell or Resale rights means that the person selling the ebook can resell it, but the resell rights do no pass onto the buyer, which means they cannot resell the ebook themselves. The ebook you have written is not allowed to be copied or changed in anyway and must be sold as it was written.

Master Resell Rights means that the person selling the ebook is also allowed to sell on the resell rights, so the buyer can then also resell the ebook you have written. Again the ebook must not be copied or changed in anyway and must be sold exactly the way it was written.

Private Label Rights means that you give away the source or text of your ebook, then someone can brand the ebook themselves and claim authorship, ie. the buyer becomes the author. They can brand the contents any way they want, change the contents but they cannot sell the private label source document rights to anyone else, they can only sell the ebook branded by them.

Unrestricted Private Label Rights means the same as the above except the person can also sell the source code or text of your ebook ie. they can sell the private label rights to your ebook.

Giveaway Rights basically means that the ebook must be given away, it must not be sold in anyway, it can only be given away free of charge.

No Rights means that the ebook you have written is copyright to you and only you are allowed to sell it.

Dont quote me on the above its just my interpretation of the rights issues, always consult the person you purchase any ebook from, or check the ebook contents for a reseller license.

If allow your ebook to be resold you will then get the "viral marketing effect" which means the more times your ebook gets sold, remember your website or affiliate link is already included in the book which cannot be amended, then the more people will see your link and most likely visit or sign up.

You can get the viral effect with giveaway rights, but unless you ebook is of an outstanding quality many people wont give it away as there is nothing in it for them, perhaps allowing them to brand a copy of the giveaway righs ebook is a much better idea.

How much are you going to charge for your ebook

(Obviously this does not apply to a free or giveaway ebook)

Dont price your ebook too low, why? because it is basically saying the contents of this ebook are only worth that amout of money. You have worked hard to prodcue this ebook masterpiece dont underprice it. Study other ebooks in the same market, see what they are selling for, buy them and see if they have better than content than yours, if so, change yours, get more content, make it better. If similar ebooks have lesser content and you feel your ebook is of much better quality then increase the price of your ebook to more than theirs. If you have several mailings lists, offer then the ebook at diferent prices, see what sells, ask for feedback on the ebook and find out if they felt they got value for their money and adjust your price accordingly.

What format will your ebook be available in

The main two formats are ebook compilers (usually exe format) and adobe pdf format.

Many ebook buyers are wary of spyware/viruses etc etc so are less likely to buy an exe or executionable ebook, it can also cause problems for people who own mac pcs and cannot access files of these types. Most pcs come with a free copy of adobe pdf reader, or can download a free copy from www.adobe.com so this is this type of format I tend to use now.

You can simply type your ebook up in a word processing application, then convert it to pdf.

Converting you ebook into pdf format is actually very simple and i recommend this free program

http://www.pdf995.com its free to use, converts you document in literally minutes (the free version has a few ads but they are hardly noticeable) and you can also copy protect your pdf document so no one can copy it.

What links will be included in your ebook

When you are writing your ebook you should almost always include a link back to your website, this is not just for the viral effect or getting traffic, but if someone reads your ebook and enjoys the content they will want to visit your website for more information on this subject, so let them know where to find it.

You can also included affiliate urls if you like, but make sure they are relevant, for example if someone buys your ebook about say, cats, they dont want the ebook filled will affiliate links for mobile phones. Search for good affiliate links here www.clickbank.com its free to sign up and there are 1000s of affiliate products that you can promote.

Promoting Your Newly written ebook

There are lots of ways to promote your ebook, you can give away free copies to owner of ebooks websites like me, I happily give away resell rights ebooks that are donated to my hungry list of resellers.

You could set up a great sales page and use the url as your signature when posting in relevant forums.

You could use the first chapter as an article and submit it to article directors and link to the sales page, so when people like the article they visit the sales page and buy your ebook.

You could sign up to www.clickbank.com and add your ebook there, then people will get a commision, youe decide what percentage, for selling the ebook for you.

You could leak a chapter of the ebook for free but put a link in it for people who wish to buy the entire ebook.

You could submit a press realease about your ebook, there are a million and one ways to promote the sale of your ebook and I obviously cant go into all them here!

What will be included with your ebook download

Are you going to include a copy of the sales page and a thankyou page?
Will you include the graphics ie the ebook ecover?
Will you include a reseller license?
Will you be including any bonus ebooks?
etc etc etc

If you use the above 10 rules, you should have the basis for writing a good ebook, and having all the relevant information required, ofcourse these are just the basics, but the more your write ebooks the better you will get.

I hope you enjoyed this post

Sally
http://www.sallys-ebooks.co.uk

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