by Kelly Kingman, Sticky EbookseBooks are incredibly powerful tools for showing people that you know what you're talking about as well as giving them a taste of your personality and how it might be to work with you. eBooks are also a great way to productize your business - they are valuable packages of information and your expertise that can generate revenue. And unlike their traditional cousins, the bound book, you can begin distributing yours right now.
Still, writing an eBook is a substantial project. While shorter than a traditional book, eBooks still range from around 10,000 words and upwards. They must be planned, written and edited with a clear goal in mind. When I was writing my first eBook, I struggled with not only what to write but lots of self-doubt as to whether people might actually want to read the material I was putting together. You can imagine my delight not only when I finished the book, but launched it successfully and sold three times the number of copies I'd expected. The following suggestions are strategies that helped me get to the finish line.
Ask your customers what they want from you. Finding a topic for your eBook that people want to read about is key. If you have an email list, you might send a poll. If you have a few great repeat customers, you could ask them. Think about questions you're asked repeatedly about your business, basic information that you cover time and again that is of value to people who want to work with someone of your expertise.
Make it a priority. Like everything in life, what we focus on gets done. Think of writing an eBook as an investment in your business and block off chunks of time to work on it.
Get all your ideas out where you can look at them. The problem with keeping all of your ideas floating around in our mind is that we can only really focus on one at a time. Take a stack of index cards and jot down bullet points or topics you are thinking about covering in your eBook. Get as many down as you can and then lay them all out on the table. you will notice ideas that naturally go together and which feel as though they should come first, you might clip these stacks together. Each time you have a new idea, jot it down on an index card and lay everything out to see where it might fit.
Don't worry about quality at first. The first task of writing is to write, not to critique, evaluate or judge. Writing is a skill that can be honed like any other by simply practicing. If your thoughts come out half-formed, confused or messy, keep writing until the threads unravel. You can always clean up and reorganize in the editing phase.
It doesn't matter if someone else has already written something similar. They aren't you. Remember when you're writing that this is all about your unique point of view. Sure, it may overlap here and there with someone else's ideas, but your story, your approach and your personality will always be unique.
Accelerate your writing process with speaking. Recording yourself and having it transcribed or using speech recognition software can express-track your writing, especially if it is your preferred method of expression. Consider having a friend or colleague ask you about each point on your outline to get you rolling.
I urge you to get started today shaping your ideas into an eBook. You'll be amazed at the returns in buzz, traffic, trust and more that you'll receive. Plus, it feels pretty good to put "author of A Fantastic eBook Title Here" in your signature and bio. A journey of 10,000 words begins with a single letter. Why not start today?
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About the Author: Kelly Kingman is the author of The Sticky eBook Formula and a New York Times-published writer. For more thoughts on creating great eBooks at www.stickyebooks.com or follow @stickyebooks on Twitter.Links:
Purchase the Sticky eBook Formulahttp://stickyebooks.com/http://twitter.com/stickyebooks
