4 Great Tips to Create an eBook Online That Sells
Books are a treasured possession for most people. They serve as a portal to faraway lands, and provide new vistas and greater understanding of just about anything.
If you are reading this blog, it is likely that you also enjoy reading books, and are now thinking about taking the plunge and become a proud author of your very own book.
About a decade ago, publishing a book was no walk in the park. You had to send your manuscript to a large number of publishers to get it published. Moreover, there was no surety as to whether all your hard work would bear fruit. The publishers were notoriously picky and sent most of the drafts to the dustbin.
Fast forward to today and now just about anyone can create an eBook online and become the next Stephen King, Danielle Steel, J.K. Rowling, or J.M. Barrie. Unlike publishing a traditional hardcover book, it’s very easy to publish an eBook.
You can find a large number of online publishers who would be willing to publish your literary work at no cost at all. Both individuals and businesses can benefit from publishing an eBook. It not only adds a new revenue stream, but also increases online exposure.
Through eBooks, you can introduce a product to the customers or inform them about its benefits. The small size digital files are super easy to promote, share and sell. You can easily send them to the individuals through different digital media such as email, social media, and website.
That being said, you should also know that the eBook market is highly saturated. In order to create an eBook online that gets noticed, you need to write exceptionally well on a topic that hasn’t been touched by many eBook writers. Here we will share with you tips on how to create an eBook online that not only gets noticed, but impresses and sells.
1. Decide on the Topic and the Theme
Before commencing your literary journey of becoming an author, you should begin with the end in mind. Here the end means your target audiences. Keep in mind that the success of your fictional or factual work will depend on what impression you are able to generate with the eBook.
You need to ask the following questions when deciding on the topic.
What information will provide value to your readers?
Can you write on the topic utilizing your experience, knowledge, or available materials?
Once you have homed in on the topic, you must next find out how you can add an original edge to it. The best selling eBooks not just inform the readers about a particular subject, they also share personal stories and insights of the author. Everybody loves stories. By sharing your experiences, you will be able to engage the audiences by creating empathy, and build authority as well.
In short, you must carry out a thorough research to pick a topic for the eBook. A little planning and effort in choosing the topic of the eBook will go a long way in ensuring that it is able to win the hearts of your target audiences.
2. Brainstorm Titles for the eBook
Once you have decided upon the topic of the eBook, you next task should be to come up with an interesting title for the eBook. Remember that the title alone makes a huge difference in the success of an eBook.
Why?.
The reason is that most people search for eBooks that they want to read online by typing certain keywords into the search box. That’s why it is important that you select a title that is not only attention-grabbing, but will also be easily ‘discovered’ online.
Joanna Penn owner of the Creative Penn podcast and author of several successful books talked about her own experience in picking a title while giving an interview that you can read here. She said that her first eBook titled “How to enjoy your job or find a new one’ that she published on Amazon was not able to generate enough hits (online clicks in geek terms).
By digging deeper to get to the root of the problem, she found that the keyword of the eBook title was not popular among the online readers. She said that if you visit Amzaon.com, change the search option to books, and then type a keyword, you can see search suggestions from Amazon in the drop box. These are the keywords that most of the people search when looking for an eBook. Using this insight, Penn changed the title of her eBook to ‘Career Change’ and instantly the sales went up by about 10 times.
Apart from searching the keywords on Amazon, you should also search the almighty of search engines – Google – for hot keywords. Using a simple tool such as Google Keyword planner, you can find out what keywords are used the most by people searching for content related to the chosen topic. When you select a high-volume keyword for the title, you will increase the chances of your eBook appearing on the top pages of Google search result.
A final point regarding selecting the title of an eBook is that you should prefer a long title to a short.
This is because it will allow you to incorporate two or more keywords in the title, which will greatly boost the chances of your eBook being discovered online. Instead of “How to sell real estate”, for instance, you should use the title “How to flip and sell real estate for profit” to boost the chances of getting discovered online.
3. Know about the Right Formatting of the eBook
After you have selected the topic and theme of the eBook and pinned down the topic, your next task should be to put pen to paper, or rather words into eBook.
The font used for the eBook should be easily legible on multiple devices. It’s recommended to keep the font type and size consistent across different platforms. Consider using simple font types such as Ariel or Verdana. Also, you should keep the font size of the body at 11 or 12 and headings 14 or 16. For increased readability consider setting the paragraph line spacing to 1.5 or Double.
You must try to include copyright free images in your eBook. Keep in mind that some online publishers require that the images should be monochrome. Moreover, there are different specifications regarding size of the image that you should consider when adding the images. Some of the great websites for using images include Yayimages, Shutterstock, Gratisography, PicJumbo, and Unsplash.
Also, it’s advisable that you craft the eBook in MS Word, and then use other programs to convert the files to required format
EBooks come in different formats and types. The two most popular format of eBook include PDF (Portable Document Format, and Apple’s ePUB (Electronic Publication).
However, there are other types of file format across the eBook market spectrum such as Amazons’ KFX, AZW, AZW1, AZW3, and AZW6 Apple’s ibooks, Mobi, HTMLZ and others.
If you want to publish on multiple devices to get maximum exposure of your eBook, you might be required to save the files in different format. The good news is that there are a number of online converters that you can use to convert one file to another.
Finally, don’t forget to create a professional and appealing cover. While you can use the image editing feature of your word processing software, it’s recommended that you use an external program such as GIMP or Photoshop.
4. Market Your Published eBook
The final piece of advice to create an eBook online that sells is to promote your eBook. If you don’t market your eBook, it will just gather dust without getting sold.
You can promote your eBook using a number of different channels. Consider making a website informing readers about your published book. To get an inspiration for the website, you can visit Ryan Holiday’s webpage that he created to market his eBook Trust Me I’m Lying.
You can also write blogs about the book and post them on high-traffic guest blog sites. Peter Sanden has listed a comprehensive list of the guest blog site that you can read about here. Other than that, you can ask readers to write a review of your eBook that is published online. You can also consider giving away free sample of the eBook to let the readers get a taste of the eBook content.
The goal of your eBook promotional campaign should be to create a bit of buzz about your eBook by hitting about the pain points of the readers. People don’t like direct advertisement and will probably ignore the message if it solely promotes the eBook. Instead, the promotional campaign should be centered on discussing the problems or idea of the eBook without directly asking the readers to click and purchase the eBook.
And that’s it!
By following the above advice you can easily create an eBook online that could become the next internet sensation. The end results are certainly fulfilling. Who knows maybe you can become the next Amanda Hocking, Jeremy Shoemaker, and others who became millionaires by publishing and promoting their eBooks online.
And, if you are a businessman who wants to promote your online business, you can easily achieve that goal by creating an eBook online by following the tips mentioned above.
