8 Tips to Jumpstart Writing Your First eBook
By: Katie Tan

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By Glee of The Gleeful Fashionista

One way to monetize your fashion blog is by selling your own products such as eBooks. Its a good source of passive income which can generate revenue for years to come if you know how to market it and to use affiliate programs. However, it can be daunting to think that you’re actually going to write your first eBook. There are plenty of questions ? would your eBook sell? Would you be able to produce something of quality? Are you capable of marketing it? Or just simply, where should you start?

My 2012 new years resolution was to write my first eBook. I was playing with several ideas on what topics to write. However, I was full of self-doubt that I thought I better find a co-author. I approached several bloggers in my network and was happy and excited when I received a positive response from one of them. But shortly thereafter my supposed co-author changed her mind and I was left with nobody to co-write my first book.

It took me ten months to finally have the courage to do what I had to do. I purchased and read several eBooks related to writing eBooks and attended many webinars and trainings related to marketing and writing pitch pages that sell.

Equipped with what I learned from my research, I was able to complete my first eBook in just seven days. I spent one day setting up an account in Clickbank and after two days, my eBook, Publishing a Successful Fashion Blog, was approved for retail. Immediately after I launched the eBook at my blog, I sold copies.

Writing an eBook is easier than you think and you can produce a quality one even for only seven days period. If you too want to jumpstart writing your first eBook, here are my tips.

1. Choose a topic

Because its your first eBook, you might want to choose a topic that you are very knowledgeable about. This will save you from many daunting tasks which can discourage you such as tons of research and experiment. A topic which you know a lot will be easy for you to write. For example, with my four years of fashion blogging I know a lot about this business already that I felt confident about the knowledge and all the tips that I would share in the book because I’ve done them and I’ve proven that they work.

Once you complete your first eBook you will feel more confident to write more challenging topics that require even more preparations.

2. Do research

You probably wouldn’t need to research for the contents of your eBook because the content would be coming from you but you will still need to research for keywords. You want to know how many people are searching about this topic that you want to write about and what keywords do they use to find such information. Use Google keyword tool and exhaust all the long tail keywords that people possibly use to surf. It’s helpful to use the keywords that most people are searching for as the title of your eBook because naturally, your book title will quickly climb up the search engine results especially if you optimize your pitch page.

3. Brainstorm, write what comes to mind

In a piece of paper, write all the ideas that you have about this topic. It doesn’t matter if you create a mind map or just write in random, do what works for you. As you start writing your eBook, there will be other ideas to come, scribble them immediately on your brainstorm note.

4. Outline your ideas

Once you feel that you have enough ideas written down, it’s time to make an outline. This outline is important because it serves as the structure of your book. It is usually done in a hierarchy order with say five main topics and each topic broken down into several subtopics.

5. Fire up writing

Depending on your style and how you feel, you can plunge straight into writing the main content and leave the introduction, author page, and other introductory pages to be written later, this is how I did my eBook, or you can do the other way around. I strongly advise you however, to do the table of contents at the end. It’s a no brainer, you will be adjusting your contents for how many times as you write and edit the book – some contents move up and some move down – and it’s a waste of time editing your table every time you made changes.

Write like you’re blogging. Use the same voice and tone as you do in your blog. This will make you feel at ease and avoid getting intimidated by the thought that you’re writing a book. Keep the tone active and the contents engaging. Ask questions and include stories, anecdotes, quips and tips.

6. Write in the evenings and weekends

Don’t abandon your blog so can write your eBook. You need to continue writing on your blog and increasing your traffic because that’s where you’re launching your eBook. The more people visit your blog, the more chances that they will see and purchase it.

Therefore I suggest writing in the evenings and/or weekend. Because I’m a full-time blogger, I write for my blogs during the day and work for the eBooks on the evening. Also, because weekends are significantly slower in traffic than in weekdays, you can skip publishing on the weekends and use the time to focus on your eBook. You will have to decide what works best for you and your blog so that your traffic is not affected.

7. Edit and adjust

Now that you’re done writing your eBook according to your outline, it’s time to edit and adjust. Look through if there are parts of the book that are repetitive, maybe you should merge those parts. Are there some subtopics that feel outcast? See if there’s a better main topic to include it.

Check your grammar and use of punctuation marks. Make sure they’re proper.

8. Take a break, refresh, and get back to editing

Going through the same words and content over and over again makes your eyes and brain accustomed to it that you easily miss any error that’s there. As if you’re writing a fiction book, you too need a time break. Leave your eBook for a week to refresh your mind. Once you go back for final editing, you have fresher eyes that will quickly notice errors you previously missed.

In most cases, new thoughts will arise either to expand your explanation or deepen your support cases. If you were just going through the grammar, punctuations, and overall editing, then this can be your final editing. But if you added new thoughts and ideas; make sure to have another final editing just to assure yourself that nothing was mislooked.

The only thing that could possibly stop you from writing and publishing your first eBook is self-doubt. Get over it and believe in yourself. You will see that writing your book isn’t as tough as you thought it would be. The moment you launch your first eBook, you will feel empowered and inspired to write even more.

What do you think of these tips? Do you consider writing an eBook but are unsure how to start? If you have written your first eBook, what did you learn from it?

Glee happily blogs about fashion for women at Creative Fashion, and about fashion for kids at Creative Fashion Kids. She recently launched her eBook, Publishing a Successful Fashion Blog, and is looking for affiliates whom she’ll be happy to give 50% commission.

 

Comments

  1. Avatar of Bree
    Bree says:

    Interesting idea! I’ve never thought of writing my own eBook, it certainly does sound like a daunting challenge!
    http://www.theurbanumbrella.com

    • Glee says:

      Hi girls! It is intimidating indeed, it takes lots of self belief. But once you start writing your draft, you´ll be inspired and more self confidence will just kick in.

  2. Avatar of Nasreen
    Nasreen says:

    this would be very intimidating to do but I’d love to try! great tips :)

    http://lazyobsession.blogspot.com

  3. Glee says:

    It is indeed intimidating, it takes lots of self belief. But once you start writing your draft, you´ll get inspired and more self confidence will kick in.

  4. J9 STYLE says:

    Love Glee’s blog! It’s so inspiring to hear that she overcame fear and intimidation to make her fashion dream into reality. What an accomplishment!

  5. MBM says:

    Great job dear,
    M happy to see your idea ite really nic kind and also easy i will try with the hope best.and i hope i will get amazing reselt .

    thknxx dear

    your fithful
    MBM

  6. Great article! I have been thinking about writing an eBook over the past few months. I am positive that I will do it, since long-form writing is what I’m more comfortable with. However, I’m in the process of resurfacing my blog after being stagnant for about 7 months. Do you have any suggestions on how much traffic your site should have before writing an eBook?

    • Glee says:

      Hi Amber, there´s no rule about a blog´s traffic before you can write an eBook. In fact, many eBook best sellers don´t have blogs, they just build a one page website which contains only the sale copy of the eBook and they drive traffic to that page.

      You can start writing your eBook as early as now and then as you build traffic to you blog, build traffic to your sale copy page too because that´s where people going to get access of your book.

      Good luck!

  7. Avatar of Janelle
    Janelle says:

    Thanks so much for this article! For the past 2 weeks I have been trying to get myself together so that I can write my eBook. This article has given me an order to things!!

    ladyexpressions.com

    xx

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