Ebook Writing For Fun And Profit

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Ebook writing would be one of the most popular online business models out there in cyberspace.

The beauty of writing your own ebook to sell is that there are very few expenses, and once it’s done, it can be sold over and over again. Not only that, but there are ways of getting extra income from your ebook, such as placing carefully selected affiliate links in your text.

There’s no reason why you can’t build an ebook writing business from home. It’s convenient to type up an ebook while your children are doing their schoolwork. In fact, if your children are old enough, you can set a research project for them, and market the results.

Let’s look at the basics.

As with any internet business, the first step in writing your ebook is choosing your niche. Look at yourself and your skills and you can easily come up with a niche or two. Within that niche, look for a topic to write on.  I’ve been with my husband now for 23 years, that’s not all that common any more. How did we do it? Not a bad niche. I like to train my dogs – again, a popular niche. Do you have any skills or hobbies? It’s easier when you’re starting out, to write about what you know.

The next part of ebook writing is doing your research. Find a problem, or an obstacle, or a goal, and write about how to solve it, overcome it or meet it. Check out forums in that niche, and see what people need help with. I know of one smart marketer who went to a forum, asked for suggestions on how to solve a problem, compiled the answers into a report and sold it.

After you have chosen your niche and topic, it’s time to lay out your outline so you have a plan to follow. This can then be used as your table of contents. Then, just start writing. You can edit your work later. Alternatively, you can use a product such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, and you can talk as your computer “types”.

How many pages should you write? Well, there’s no arbitrary number of pages for an ebook – write until you’ve thoroughly covered your topic, but don’t add any fluff just to pad it out.

When you you get started on your ebook writing, avoid technical jargon and write in a way that an upper primary school aged child would be able to understand. Be sure to edit it when you’ve finished, to pick up any spelling or grammar errors.

Most ebooks are sold in pdf format. You can use Open Office, the free word processing software, to create your ebook -  there are lots of very attractive free templates out there. You then convert it to pdf by going to file>export as pdf.

Many people also invest in an ebook cover graphic which you can place on your sales page. This can cost anywherefrom $5-20, or you

can grab a free  template from Absolute Covers and add some text using your favourite photo editing software. If you don’t have any such software, then download The Gimp. It does everything you need, and it’s free.

There you have it – an ebook, a cover graphic, and it’s cost you nothing so far  – you’re now in the ebook writing business.

To sell your ebooks, you’ll need a website, and a means of collecting payment. Again, it’s easy to do this with Wordpress and Paypal, and all it will cost you is the price of a domain and web hosting.

Related posts:

1. Writing Web Content For Dollars
2. Selling Websites For Profit – Does It Work?
3. Putting My Children To Work

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