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Ebook: Build a Bestselling Format

November 5th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Want to write an ebook? Ebooks sell well online; you can even build an entire home business on a single ebook. Here’s how to ensure your ebook sells, when you build a bestselling format.

1. Focus — Your Ebook Must Have a Slant

The more tightly you can focus your ebook, the better it will sell. Let’s look at some examples.

“Beauty” is too wide a focus. If you’re not a celebrity, an ebook with such a broad focus is unlikely to sell. However, “Instant Acne Cure” is a sharp focus, and if you deliver on the promise, this ebook will sell.

Similarly, “fix your PC” is too wide a focus. “Optimize your PC: Windows XP Under the Hood” is tightly focused. This ebook should sell well for years to come.

It’s worth spending time to get your focus exactly right. If you want to get your ebook written and selling within a month, spend the first four weeks thinking about your focus. Yes, it’s that important.

Here’s another way to think about your focus: it’s a way of targeting exactly those readers who MUST buy your ebook, as soon as they learn of its existence. With a sharp focus, you know without a doubt that your ebook will sell.

2. Promise and Deliver

Now you’ve got your focus, realize that the focus implies a promises, or several promises to your reader. I read many ebooks which although competent, never fulfilled the promise. This is sad, because had the ebooks fulfilled the promises they made, they would sell many thousands of copies over many years.

Make a list of the promises your focus implies.

Now turn that list into ebook chapters. This is the simplest way of outlining your ebook. It shows you exactly what to include, and what to leave out.

I’ve seen way too many ebooks which include information which is totally irrelevant. A history of your topic is rarely relevant, yet many ebooks include a history.

Remember that ebooks are meant to be read on the screen. They’re short. If your ebook is over 100 pages, take a close look. Are you delivering on promises, or just waffling to increase the page count?

3. Evergreen Content Sells for Years: Ensure Your Content Is Timeless

Finally, bestselling formats are evergreen. The information is useful not just this year, but for years to come.

Let’s look at our two examples.

“Instant Acne Cure” — this will sell for decades. With an updated edition every couple of years, this ebook will bring you a steady income.

“Optimize your PC: Windows XP Under the Hood” will also sell for years. There are millions of PCs running Windows XP. Businesses and home users are wedded to this operating system; this kind of book will be a gold mine for you.

Writing and selling ebooks is just one of the topics we cover in Angela Booth’s Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) — discover how to become an ebook expert and build a fantastic home business with a million dollar potential.

Want to develop a six-figure writing income?

The September 2007 issue of The Writer had a great story: “Secrets Of The Six-Figure Freelancers”. The story’s wonderful because it shows you the potential of a freelance writing career; with the development of the Web and its unlimited markets, if you can write, you can make a great income as a freelance writer.

I chuckled when I read the story because many writers think a “six figure income” is hype. Either that, or they think that a great income is reserved for copywriters, or genre novelists, or other specialist writers.

The fact is that YOU can develop a six-figure writing career: you just need to know that it’s possible to earn $250,000 a year and more as a freelance writer, and then make that your goal.

And of course, you need know-how. That’s what my writing ebook manuals give you. In 30 years as a freelance writer, I’ve learned the tricks of the writing trade, and I’d love to share those tricks with you, so many of my ebooks offer free coaching. Whatever your level of experience as a freelance writer, you can develop a fantastic career, when you know how.

Develop your writing skills today.

Ebook Writing: Turn Free Ebooks to Profit Fast

October 18th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Would you like to make money with ebooks? You can: start by giving ebooks away. Everyone loves freebies and you can turn this natural behavior to profit.

Here are three ways.

1. Give Free Ebooks Away to Build a Mailing List

You can give away a free ebook in exchange for contact details.

Once people have subscribed to your list not only do they get a free ebook from you, but you also have the chance to communicate with them regularly. They’re the perfect audience for future ebooks you write, because they know that you’re a trustworthy source of information.

Building an audience for future ebooks means that you don’t have to spend money on advertising, since you already have potential buyers you can contact whenever you wish.

2. Give Away a Free Ebook to a Large Web Site

Buying advertising on large Web sites is expensive. If you’ve written an ebook which will appeal to its target audience the site may agree to give away your ebook.

The site gets a freebie to give away, and you get a chance to build credibility and put your URL in front of many customers.

3. Turn an Ebook Into a Blog

Once upon a time you could give away a free ebook and have many downloads. However these days people are so pushed the time that ebooks have lost their appeal as freebies.

Yes, people will still download them — but they often don’t read them.

There is a way around this. Simply turn your ebook into a blog. This means that they only need to read as much as they wish to. You can monetize the blog with advertising, and build an audience for future ebooks.

Offer people the option to download the entire contents of the blog as an ebook if they wish.

“Free” is one of the most popular words in the language. You can make it your favorite word too. Give ebooks away, and you can make great money writing ebooks.

Angela Booth’s writing guides have been created to help you to make money from your writing every day. Join the thousands of writers who are making great money with their writing skills.

Sell your Writing using Craigslist

Have you discovered Craiglist? This great online classifieds site is your key to an income from your writing. Make money from your writing now, when you discover how, when, where and why YOU should be using Craigslist. If you’re not advertisig on Craigslist you’re losing money.

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For free weekly writing tips sent to your Inbox, subscribe to Angela’s Fab Freelance Writing Ezine and receive “Write And Sell Your Writing: The Power-Write Report” immediately.

Ebook Success - 2 Great Ways to Make Money

August 25th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Want to make great money with ebooks? Ebooks are big business online. Buyers want information and they’re happy to buy it in ebook form because they get instant gratification.

Unfortunately many ebooks will never sell more than ten copies, for a number of reasons. There’s a lot involved in creating best-selling ebooks, and you need to learn what works.

If you want ebook success, here’s a process which works for my writing students. With this process, you can make money with ebooks immediately: you earn as you learn.

1. Get Experience: Write Ebooks for Others

Businesses which sell ebooks need writers, and they find them on the outsourcing sites. Once you get a couple of jobs writing ebooks for others, you’ll discover how the process of creating a salable ebook works.

You’ll find two different kinds of buyers: buyers looking for a writer for their first ebook, and buyers who are experienced and are selling ebooks online already.

Both kinds of buyers have a lot to teach you.

Don’t begrudge the time you devote to this. It’s an education which you can use to create a seven-figure business, and you’re being paid to learn.

2. Write Ebooks and Sell Them Yourself

While you’re writing for others, you’ll start getting ideas for ebooks you could write and sell.

Make a list of ideas and topics, and start winnowing the wheat from the chaff. To create a top-selling ebook, you need to provide information which people are willing to pay for.

For each idea, find out whether people are paying for that kind of information already. Also, check for forums on your topic. If people are talking about your topic, they’re interested, and will probably be willing to pay for information.

You can create bestselling ebooks, once you know how it’s done.

Write and sell your next ebook in just a week

Want to make money online? It’s an open secret that the way to success is creating ebooks. Ebooks sell 24×7x365: you can make money while you sleep.

If you’ve been putting off writing and selling ebooks because the whole process takes so long - how does one week sound?

Yes, you can have your first (or next) ebook selling online in a week.

Discover the Private Label Rights content secret in “PLR Profits Plan: 7 Days to Profits with Private Label Rights Content” and create your next ebook, Web site, or other information product today.

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Angela Booth, Veteran Writer And Author

Copyright © 2008 Top Ebook Writer

Credits: Angela Booth's Writing Blog | Fab Freelance Writing Blog | Fab Web Writer Blog | Matteo Turchetto | Andreas Viklund