Ebooks have always been a way to generate more leads for any website, be it a blog or ecommerce. But many people are blocked when creating their ebook. What to do? How to deliver it? To help you, we decided to create a text showing a step by step how to create your next (or first) ebook. Come on:
- What is an ebook for?
Before you even write an ebook, you must clearly understand what it is for. What is your goal? What will you and the reader gain from producing one? An ebook is nothing more than an exchange: you offer unique content to your reader and in return he provides something for you (email, for example).
So it is important that this exchange is fair. Often people end up creating ebooks of little value. This is because the focus is only on getting the email and not on giving a good experience to those who download it. This strategy leaves you satisfied but your voters frustrated because they feel they have been cheated. So, before publishing, think about whether you’re going to make a fair exchange with your audience.
- What topic to write?
Before producing your ebook it is important to reflect on the topic of the ebook. If you have a blog, a tip is to go to your Google Analytics and search for the most read articles. If they like to read about them on your blog, they will probably enjoy reading an ebook on the same topic.
Another strategy you can use is to ask questions of your page fans or followers of the stories. Something like that:
Guys I’m thinking about producing a free ebook and I’m undecided between these themes:
- A) Marketing
- B) Facebook Ads
- C) Instagram
Which option do you prefer?
And from the response of those who follow you, you make your decisions.
Another important point is that the ebook has a connection to what you are going to sell to your list. If you write a marketing ebook and then sell Motivation courses, your audience will not feel very connected.
- Does size matter?
One very important thing about the ebook, as I mentioned, is that it helps the user. It is what in marketing we call a small victory. It is important that the user can read his ebook and, immediately, be able to apply something that can be useful in his life and that he can get feedback. If you write an ebook that is too extensive and technical, it is very likely that it will not read until the end or apply what you want. Be concise in your book in order to get it to read, apply and have results. Obviously you are not going to make a 5 page ebook, but don’t overdo the size of it either.
- Starting to write – Tools
When you start writing, it’s normal that you don’t have a lot of idea about how long it will take, what software to use, etc. It’s normal! As a rule, when people write their first ebook, Word is usually an excellent tool. It does its job well and usually no more is needed. If you make a collaborative ebook, Google Docs can be another excellent choice as you will be able to write online at the same time that other people do it.
If you want more complex tools that also make your writing easier, you can choose Ulysses or Sqribble.
- Starting to write – Copywriter or yourself?
If you don’t have time to write an ebook, you can choose to hire someone to write your ebook. Nowadays finding writers is extremely simple. When searching on sites like Upwork you will find several options for editors, who for a few dollars can produce what you need. When hiring freelancers, it is very important that you analyze all the feedback they have received from other clients to increase your chances of hiring a good professional. However, these are not just advantages. When you hire a freelancer you can lose a little of your company’s identity, something that would not happen if you wrote the ebook yourself.
- Starting to write – proofreader
Another detail is: what about when you finish your book? Certainly your writing (or that of the freelancer) will have some errors and it is important that you hire a reviewer. I don’t recommend making your book available without hiring a reviewer. It is normal for a book, after being finished, to contain several grammatical or even spelling errors. And if you offer something to your audience and what has been offered, there are mistakes, you will not be giving a good image of your business. If you don’t have the money to hire a reviewer, offer the ebook to some friends or close people and ask them to read it and let you know if they find any errors. It is not so assertive, but it can help.
- What about the cover?
The cover is one of the most important parts of an ebook. An eye-catching cover can increase the number of downloads of your ebook. Hiring a designer is usually the best option. Do not try to do it yourself if you have no design concepts at all. Workana, which I previously recommended for hiring freelancers, will help.
- How to advertise?
Generally, the process of promoting an ebook is simple: You use a pop-up or create a Landing Page to capture emails. And then the process is very straightforward: the user leaves the email and you send access to the ebook by email. But you must be wondering…
What is a Landing Page and what is it for?
A Landing Page is a page that only allows the user to do two things: sign up or leave it. The image below is an example of a Landing Page:
Notice that next to the image there is a form. And the logic here is very simple: do you want to receive the ebook? Leave your details and we will send the ebook to your email. If the user does not want to leave the data, he can leave the page. But what is the point of having a Landing Page? Wasn’t it better of the more options for the user? No, it really isn’t. Any human being, the more options he has, and the more indecisive he becomes.
If we take the user to a website, for example, he will have several options: menus, footers, pop-ups, articles, About, etc. And it will confuse his head and it will not help to fulfill our goal, which is to get him to sign the email list.
This is why Landing Pages are so effective: they give the user less choice. If you’ve never created a Landing Page, I recommend you read this article with 15 tools for creating Landing Pages.
In addition, you can also promote your ebook using the proactive invitations from your professional online chat solution.
- What to do with these emails?
Now that you have created your ebook and started capturing emails, it is important that you use this base of yours! Use it to send content or even sell products. Gathering emails and doing nothing with them is unreasonable.
Have you created your first ebook? What difficulties did you feel?