My Travels on the Net

I’m helping a long time client create an ebook about writing a business and marketing plan for the new year. She has a treasure trove of stuff she’s written on the topics of business planning, marketing planning and face-to-face networking over the last ten years. So you’d think it would be easy to just throw it all together into an ebook, right? Nope. Just because you have a bunch of great content, doesn’t mean it’s ready to become an ebook. Here’s why:

Throwing things together when cooking can be brilliance. In ebooks, it’s garbage.
Every good article, white paper or report was written with a specific goal, call to action, publication and target market. Although there might have been common themes, each article had its own unique recipe of factors. So just because each original document was brilliant doesn’t mean the combined effect will be brilliant. Start by pulling together all the material you want to include but plan to do some major rewriting. Other wise it won’t make sense, it will sound disjointed and you will annoy your reader.

Before you edit, answer these questions:

• Who is this book for?


• What problem does this ebook address?


• What will the reader have or know when they are done with this ebook?


• What steps am I asking them to take? (Be specific!)


• Why am I asking them to take these steps?


• Do I have the steps in the right order?


• Are they getting their money’s worth?

You need an editor.
If you’re a good writer and editor, you might be able to get away with writing the whole thing by yourself. If you’re writing it by yourself to save money, you’re wasting your time and you won’t save money. You will write a bad ebook that won’t sell. You’d be better off doing client work.

When it comes to formatting your ebook, just pay somebody.
Unless you or your assistant has spent ten years learning the ins-and-outs of formatting long documents for digital publication and has an amazing eye for detail, you will wind up very pissed off. Many times over. Why punish yourself? Just pay someone who knows what they’re doing. You might wind up paying them $50 an hour for 5 hours ($250) which is cheaper than paying your $15 an hour assistant for three days worth of work ($360) and it’s still screwed up and she’s ready to quit from frustration and she’s done nothing else in those three days… You get the idea. Just cough up the money.

P.S. Not only can I edit and format ebooks, I can set up the payment process on your website and help you creatively sell/market your ebook. Just hire me. We’ll all be a lot happier.

Labels: ebook editor, ebook formatting, informational ebook, tips for writing an ebook

posted by Elge Premeau  # 7:15 PM