How Can I Write an eBook

The hardest part of any new task is getting started. The first time I attempted to paint a canvas I stood in front of the canvas with a picture in my mind of what I wanted to paint. Staring at that blank canvas was getting me nowhere, it seemed an impossible task. Then I decided to break it into sections and painted the sky first, the canvas was no longer blank and I had made a start. I was now ready to add more sections to my painting and build on it.

Writing your first e-book can be just as daunting. But if you create it step by step you will slowly build it up to the point where you have a book ready to put the finishing touches to it.

With my first painting I organised all my brushes and paints that I thought I would need and naturally my canvas. Now with writing an e-book you need to organise your thoughts and any information you have collected before you can actually start writing. If you work through your beginning steps first you will find it much easier to stay focused and complete your task.

Steps:

*?Your e-book's title. Write down a few different titles, rearrange words, play with them and you will eventually find a title that fits your subject. Your title needs to be relevant to keep you focused on what you are trying to convey to the reader. A clever title can help as can a sub-heading, 'Stop Being a Couch Potato: 20 exercises that will get you off that couch.'

*?Write a summary, one or two sentences, of what you want your book to achieve, what problems your book will solve or how it will help the reader achieve something. The book will evolve from this summary as will the different chapters or sections. This is your foundation that you will build on and expand on. Your summary could be; 'We have all experienced times in our life where we become unmotivated about keeping fit and living healthy lives. This book shows you proven techniques to motivate you and help you to live a fit and healthy lifestyle.'

Questions to ask yourself to make sure that this book is going to provide the reader with information they want and need:

*?Is the information useful and relevant?

*?Will this information affect your readers positively?

*?Is the information interesting and keep the reader interested?

*'does the information answer questions that the reader may have, are the answers significant and important?

Now if you have answered yes then you should be almost ready to start and feel confident about the outcome and potential of your e-book.

More Thoughts:

*'think about the target group who will be interested in your e-book, age, gender, interests, economic group. This is who you need to be writing your e-book for. Your style, layout, diction and length of your e-book will depend on this group and the type of subject you have chosen. An e-book about 20 exercises that will help you stop being a couch potato may need shorter paragraphs, bulleted lists of exercises, easy to read with great short motivational tips and quotes to help get that person moving again rather than a long story type format.

*'think about your reasons for writing this e-book, is it because to have a need to write and want to help people through your writing. Do you want to build a reputation as a writer but have not the money to promote hard cover books? Are you trying to promote your business or wanting to bring quality traffic to your site. Do you want to put ads in your books and build an income through adsense of affiliate selling? Make a list so you can remain focused on these as well.

*?How do you want to promote your e-book. Do you want to market and sell it on your website? Are you going to offer it as a free gift for people to sign up on your opt-in list or for buying another product? Do you want affiliates selling your book for a commission or is it going to be a taster for a full course on the same subject? The more thinking and planning you do initially will make for easier writing.

*?It's time to work out your chapters, if you are having them or the sections of your book. This way you can keep your format consistent and not repeat information. You can enlarge on your summary and make it into an introduction. You may not have chapters but just sub-headings to define the sections.

An e-book needs to be 'user friendly:'

*?Your writing needs to be interesting, using small stories, examples, photos, tips and testimonials create further interest. Have a reasonable amount of white space to break up the text and make it easier to read.

*?Write as if you are talking to the person, you want them to feel this e-book is for them personally, that you are having a conversation with them.

*?When reading text on a screen, as in an e-book, we need to give the reader's eyes a break, this is where leaving white spaces and keeping your sentences at different lengths and not too long make it easier to read. If you create a full page of text your reader is going to become too tired and give up on it.

*?Keep practicing; nothing can be perfected without lots of practice. Set aside some time each day to write rather than doing to much at once. This way you can keep the information interesting and fresh. Whenever you are reading other people's work, books, magazines or articles make a note of writing techniques you find interesting or that catch your attention. Just remember to keep writing every day if you can, the more writing you do the more interesting it will become as you develop. Naturally this will also help your sales to increase.

*?Use lists, reading a bulleted list is much easier to read and creates regular white spaces.

*?Use a font that is easy to read and don't change fonts throughout the e-book. Use one and half line spacing and experiment with the text size so that it can be easily read but not so big so that you cannot fit enough on the computer screen.

*?Please always run a spell and grammar check, very easy to do with a computer. Nothing will devalue you more as a writer than misspelt words and incorrect grammar.

*?Always create an index, if you create linked indexes this will make it so much easier for the reader to navigate to the section he/she wants.

That's it, you have now created your first e-book, good luck and I hope you make some money from it.

Your e-book can be saved as a PDF file or you can load it into an e-book compiler and create an .exe file. The benefit of an .exe file is that you can continually update your e-book and give your readers continual updated information. They may then come looking for more of your books.

Don't forget to add your URL, email or any advertising you want in your e-book
About The Author

Written by: Di Hollis, Lots of eBooks Online

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