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Six Steps to Creating a Successful E-Book

Written by: Caroline Melberg

Article Overview: As a small business owner, you will most likely be publishing an e-book about your products or services, which is excellent as starting with a subject you are familiar with is the first key to success.

Six Steps to Creating a Successful E-Book

E-books can be very effective for your small business, and very profitable as well. Here are six tips to follow when you create your own e-book.

The biggest mistake that "wannabe" e-book publishers make is to first write a book on the subject that they themselves would probably be interested in, and then try to hustle up a market from a related niche and persuade them, without much success, that they too should have the same interests in buying the book. Needless to say, this is not the best introduction into the world of e-book publishing.

As a small business owner, you will most likely be publishing an e-book about your products or services, which is excellent as starting with a subject you are familiar with is the first key to success.

Step 1 - What Subject Are You Familiar With?

Make a list of all the areas within your business you could confidently write about. It's much easier, and less like work, to write about a subject in which you already have knowledge and an interest. Please don't make the mistake of assuming that because you are knowledgeable about a particular subject, others are sure to know the same. You would be amazed at what some people don't know.


Step 2 - Find Their Itch And Scratch It!

You need to know what your customer's and future customer's problems are and find out what is missing in their life. The answer to these questions, and others, should be your main line of attack as it relates to your small business or products.

You need to focus on what they don't have, sometimes you even have to tell them what it is that is missing and why they need it, and when you give it to them. They will reward you financially.

Step 3 - Do Your Research.

Be prepared when you intend to start writing. Don't sit at your desk one day and then decide that today, here and now, is the time to write your first e-book, IT WON'T WORK - or maybe it will, but one thing is for sure, it will be disjointed, facts will be missing and the general flow will not be right!

You must first research your subject; collect all the information you possibly can, put it into a specified folder on your computer. And when you feel you have everything together, then you can proceed to bring it all together in an organized manner that is fluent and easy to read.

Step 4 - Create Your Masterpiece.

Get down to it and start writing. Refer to your folder (the one where you stored all of your researched material), choose from your organized lists and start writing.

A tip that helps me when it comes to writing, is to start and don't stop. Write down everything that comes into your head. If you try to think at the same time, e.g. "yeah that's a great line bit it doesn't fit just now, I'll save it and use it later" - WRONG! You'll forget it and then get angry because it was exactly what you wanted to say! Get it down in print that you will be editing and correcting at a later date.

Do it in bite sized chunks! Or suffer the indigestion of writers block. Most importantly, keep it simple. Keep in mind the average reading age of adults is twelve! So don't write as if you've just devoured two dictionaries and a thesaurus for breakfast.

Conversational, everyday language is the key.

Step 5 - Check Your Work.

Now is the time to re-read and edit your work, check spellings and grammar, read it through several times. If it's hard for you to read, it will be twice as hard for others to read; hopefully you knew what you were trying to say!

Pass it on to a member of the family or a good friend, ask them to read it through and give you an unbiased opinion as to weather they understood it, and if not, why not? If necessary, re-write it. After all is said and done, it will be your name hung on to the end of the content for the entire world to see.

Step 6 - Bring It To An End.

Somewhere along the line you have to decide that your book is finished. There will always be something that crops up later, that little snippet that you regret not having used. Don't worry about it; the main thing is that you have passed on some form of information, no matter how small, to someone who was in search of that information.

Once your e-book is complete, you are ready to offer it as a premium on your website for new customers who sign up for your e-zine or to learn more about your products, or simply as a free offer for customers visiting your store.

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