Creating Your First Ebook

Creating an ebook is not difficult, even for the complete beginner. In this article I am going to give you the basics on how to create and subsequently market and sell your first digital information product.

The demand for information continues to grow online and if you have knowledge of any subject that you think can help others, creating an ebook or report is a great way to share that knowledge. It can also be a profitable venture.

Before we start looking at the mechanics though, there are a couple of questions that most people ask themselves. Firstly, is there a market for what I want to write about and how much competition will it face? Personally I wouldn't let this stand in the way of creating your first ebook. Sure you need a market but don't worry too much about other products on similar topics. Competition doesn't automatically mean that your work won't do well.

Secondly, and something that often holds people back from writing an ebook, are doubts about their level of expertise. Well, again, this should not be a barrier. You don't necessarily need to be an expert, all you need is a decent amount of knowledge. I say this because when it comes to your online audience, they will all have different levels of experience and if you can teach them more than they know already, you will find an audience.

For now there is just one more thing to consider before you begin. The purpose of your ebook and whether you intend to sell it or make it available for free. For example, you may just want to create a free document that you will give away in exchange for your visitors opting in to your list. Maybe you just want to make it a promotional vehicle for your business and will be giving a direct download link. Whatever your intentions, it is something you need to have an idea of before you begin. I'll talk more about these options a bit later.

eWriterPro : Cost $5.00

I recommend eWriterPro and use it myself because it's a fantastic piece of software. If you are reluctant to install something as large as Open Office and use up all that disk space, eWriter Pro is a great alternative. The program is a self contained PDF creation tool that includes it's own word processor with a WYSIWYG interface. All you need to do is open it up, compose your work and click a button to convert it to the finished article.

It really is very simple to use and makes adding images and links to your documents a breeze. Well worth the very small investment if you don't want to use Open Office on your computer.

That's it, it's all you need to create your PDF document. So what else do you need to know?

Viral Marketing & Rebranding Issues

If you are planning on using a report or ebook as a promotional vehicle you may wish to consider making it rebrandable. This will increase the chances of others promoting it on your behalf.

You will need additional tools to accomplish this, and one of the most common is ViralPDF

Alternatively the Ultimate Rebrander might be a better solution depending on your target market and their likely technical savvy. Check them both out and see which best suits your needs, they are both excellent tools.

Rebranding software enables you to select links within your book or report that can be changed by those who download it. It is commonly used for affiliate links. Let's say your book includes some links to Clickbank products or similar. By allowing others to insert their own referral links, you provide them with a great incentive to pass your book on to others. Of course, you will want to ensure that some links remain your own so a balance needs to be struck between the links that benefit you and those that you enable people to change.

Presentation

I can't stress enough how good graphics will enhance your product's image and increase sales. If you are planning to sell your ebook, good graphics are a must.

eWriter Pro actually includes some help and suggestions in this area and even some free options. However, in all honesty they are not that impressive. If you are familiar with Photoshop and have the software you can search for Photoshop actions that will help you make cover images for your ebook. Try these hubs about Photoshop ebook covers here and free Photoshop Action Scripts too.

Alternatively, there are plenty of software options available for creating ebook covers if you don't have Photoshop.

My preferred option is to get someone to do the graphics work for me and I always recommend Farihan at PixelOfGenius.com who produces excellent work at reasonable prices.

If you employ a professional to do your graphics, consider also what you are going to require. If you are going to try and recruit affiliates to sell your book, you will probably want some banners for them to use in addition to the cover images. Read on to find out more about selling your finished product.

To my mind this is probably the hardest part of making money from your new creation. You have labored over your product, polished off all the rough edges, paid someone to design your graphics, or painstakingly created your own and you feel ready to unveil it to the world.

But how do you do it? Here is a breakdown of some of the steps you could/should now take.

1) Register a relevant domain name.

If this book is going to be commercially and financially important it would be really wise to register a domain name for your product. You can do this very cheaply, so it's well worth the small outlay, around ten dollars a year. Choose a domain name that is close to or includes your book's title. People who land on your sales page may not buy on their first visit and the easier you make it for them to remember where they found it, the better.

If you are just creating a free report, you could probably use a sub-domain or sub-directory on an existing domain if you have one.

2) Create A Sales Page

At this point it might be a good idea to set up an opt-in page, using your header and cover graphics. The reason for this is to start getting the word out about your new book, even if you're not ready to start selling it yet. Once you have a page that describes your book or report, you will need to promote it. Do this first and work on your actual sales page once you get this underway.

Write about it on your blog, use forums on relevant subjects and post links and use any methods you can to send people to your new opt-in page. The idea is that you want potential buyers to join an early notification list, offering them the chance to be the first to know about your book when it becomes available. The idea is to create "buzz" or interest in your new book. It is not essential, but it's well worth considering.

You will need an autoresponder service to achieve this. Either from someone like Aweber or GetResponse or maybe a hosting company that provides a service as part of their hosting package such as GVO.

Promoting takes time. Unless you already have a large targeted audience, you are going to have to roll up your sleeves and start driving traffic. Like I said, this is probably the hardest part of the whole process, but also one of the most important, along with the next step......

Setting Up The Sales Process

We now come to the actual sales mechanisms and your choices. Do you want to have affiliates promoting and selling your book or are you just going to sell it yourself? How are you going to process payments? All important considerations I think you will agree.

If you just plan to sell the book yourself and are confident that you have the skills to do so and reach a large enough audience to achieve good sales figures all you need is a payment processor. A lot of people going this route will use Paypal for its ease of set up and reputation.

However, and this is very important, you need to be able to deliver your product securely to prevent people from sharing your download link. If you are hosting the files on your server and providing a static download link, it won't be long before that link becomes public knowledge and everyone and their aunt are getting your work for free.

So,let's look at solving the problems of sales and product delivery. Again there are many options open to you.

1) SmartDD Digital Download Protection and Sales System

You can download SmartDD for free and use it with up to five products. The script needs to be installed on your server, but once done it automates the sales process for you. It works with PayPal and Clickbank and you can even set up a simple affiliate program, create an online store for your ebooks and more. It's a great tool, particularly as it's entirely free. If you want to sell more than five products you will need to buy the pro version, but the free version is fully functional and can be used without any time restrictions or other silliness.

A great time saver and solves many problems all in one.

2). Selling Through Clickbank

The advantage of selling through Clickbank is, purely and simply, their huge band of affiliates. It's not too difficult to set up the process, particularly if you use SmartDD but the real problem is persuading people to promote it in the first place. Products that do not do well are removed from the marketplace and sales will quickly dry up. You also have to consider pricing carefully and the levels of commission you are willing to pay.

Clickbank Results is a very good manual for Clickbank vendors which will give you a lot of advice on how to ensure your ebook doesn't get lost in the thousands of other products available for their affiliates to promote.

3) Creating Your Own Affiliate Program

As already mentioned, SmartDD can handle a basic affiliate set up and there are various other software options that can help you. Some of the high end software is very expensive but for modest prices you could consider the following systems. All have their benefits, and some will suit some people better than others.

Rapid Action Profits is a very comprehensive tool for marketing and selling your products online. It's relatively expensive but if you're intending to sell several products, there isn't anything much better than this feature rich system.

7 Dollar Secrets is a simpler and cheaper option than RAP but works very well for many publishers. As title suggests, it's seven dollars!

4) Using A Third Party Outlet

There are also third party services available who will help you sell and deliver your digital downloads, one of the most popular being E-Junkie who will take care of pretty much everything for you, in consideration of a small monthly fee.

If all of the technical stuff frightens you, this might be the best solution for you as it eliminates a lot of what I've discussed in this article. Then again, there is a lot of satisfaction in doing it yourself and a huge sense of accomplishment when your efforts start translating into sales.

It's different strokes for different folks, but you now have some of the best resources at your fingertips.

I Hope you have found this hub useful. If you have, please share it freely :-)