EBooks are more convenient and accessible than printed books. According to some statistics, over 190 million ebooks were sold during 2020. Digital publishing is efficient for e-readers, who prefer to access content directly on their smartphones, tablets, or computers.
If you want to become an expert in eBook creation, follow this step-by-step guide to help you create the best eBook possible. Be aware that creating an outstanding book may take a long time and background knowledge on the writing process, content creation, and selling digital products will help with the overall success of your project. Be patient and remember this is part of the learning curve. Most best sellers faced many obstacles before getting to this level.
AI-powered tools have made eBook creation simpler than before. Tools like Typeset, will automatically format your eBook, including title pages, table of content pages, and eBook cover design based on your topic. Typeset allows people with any level of design experience to create a professionally formatted ebook. It also provides an integrated AI eBook Creator Tools that will generate or enhance text, lists, quotes, check spelling, and more.
Why Write an eBook?
Learning how to write, design, publish, and promote your own eBook can help you make money as a passive income, regardless of your level of writing and publishing experience. Top digital sellers make a living selling their digital content. According to Statista, eBook revenue in the United States reached 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2021.
Even Amazon and Apple have invested in eBooks through Amazon Kindle eBook and Apple Books. Because of this, users have been able to browse, buy, download, and read eBooks, newspapers, magazines, audible audiobooks, and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. These companies are just two of the many that know digital services are the future.
Learning how to create an eBook also benefits marketers who are interested in creating a complete content marketing strategy. Some of the additional benefits of eBooks include:
- Displaying unique design capabilities that might not possible through a blog or website
- Embedding links in your own eBooks
- No additional cost for eBook distribution
- Increase of website visitors
Step 1: Define Your Target Audience
As an author, determining your target audience is one of the most important steps. Consider your niche, including the age range, gender, location, and even the specific interests or hobbies of the people you are interested in reaching. Ask yourself the following:
- What problem(s) does my eBook aim to address?
- Who am I going to help with the content of my eBook?
- How will I promote my eBook to the target audience and demographic groups I want to reach?
- Why will the target audience think my eBook is interesting or useful?
Asking yourself these questions before starting to write helps you better frame your eBook. It makes you address your audience the right way. Instead of taking a broad universal approach, dig deeper by doing research to validate your audience to understand their motivations, pain points, likes, and dislikes.
Try to always get in the head of your potential clients to know what information will help them. Do the research for your audience and read through existing publications about your topic and identify knowledge gaps and areas that require further exploration.
Looking at creators with similar businesses helps you narrow down your target audience, too. These businesses are likely to share a very similar niche.
Remember that your eBook will also serve as the template for any social media, ads, or other promotional content that will drive interest in your topic. An idea so good may compel people to pay for your eBook, or free eBooks are used to draw an audience to other digital platforms or services.
Step 2: Choose a Compelling Topic
Choose your eBook topic and consider its importance in relation to your business and brand. Try to go for only topics that are aligned with your job, company, or hobby. Remember this is your opportunity to do a deep dive into a subject you have only lightly covered until now, but something your audience wants to learn more about.
Think: How will the topic you discuss help the audience you intend to reach? Has the topic been discussed too much? Can your company or brand provide a new and unique point of view on the topic you intend to discuss?
Step 3: Craft an Effective Hook
In a world overflowing with content, the first few seconds are your only chance to engage your audience and save your writing from the digital abyss. An effective hook plays a fundamental role in your marketing efforts.
As the term ‘hook’ suggests, its purpose is to catch potential readers, publishers, agents, or other partners so they are eager to learn more. Basically, the compelling hook is the difference between a passing glance and someone eagerly reading every word—and potentially paying for your content.
A strong book hook should be short—around one to two sentences long— and share just enough information to grab someone’s attention. Make sure it is clear and concise, contains intriguing language, connects to the core theme, evokes emotion, and promises something specific.
Some people choose to create the hook as one of the last steps of the process, but creating it from the beginning can help you understand your main goal and objective throughout the writing eBook process. Doing so also helps you keep your ebook focused on the main topic.
If you do not have a good hook, you will struggle to give this book away for free, let alone sell it as a stand-alone or as part of an online course.
Here are a few questions to help you get to your hook:
- Is my eBook idea unique compared to other approaches?
- Are there eBooks with similar topics to mine?
- What problem does your eBook solve?
- Does your solution provide a unique perspective that potentially goes against common advice in your industry?
Step 4: Outline Your Ebook
Now, it is crucial to clarify supporting facts that the eBook will cover to support your topic Note that a book has to be long enough to answer the main questions but short enough to prevent e-readers from getting bored.
Let’s take this blog article as an example. It is designed to clarify the process of creating an eBook. Our table of contents includes an introduction, the importance and advantages, and a step-by-step from the thinking process to selecting a publishing platform. This way, we answer the main questions without overexerting the reader.
Some people state that writing eBooks is like being a blogger who writes in their blog different chapters. While you should treat each chapter as an individual blog post, the chapters of your eBook should also flow smoothly from one to another. If it is difficult for you, try to make use of bullet points at first. Take note of any ideas you would like to include under your main points.
Start outlining these chapters and writing subheaders to create a break for the book. Starting a new book without a chapter outline can leave you feeling stuck or lost, especially if you are not sure where to start. Use this outline to guide the tone, narrative, and ultimately the layout of the book you intend to publish.
Step 5: Write Your First Draft
Once you have a basic idea for your eBook organization, it is time to set up your eBook content. Start writing each of the chapters. Use sources, statistics, and links to support each claim if you are publishing a nonfiction eBook. In this phase, you do not have to worry about fluency or correctness.
Simply share as much information as possible in each of the chapters you have designated in the outline.
Be sure to write what is needed to educate your audience effectively about your selected topic. Avoid giving details that escape from that aim. This draft can be done in a Word document or in Google docs.
Do not forget to use keywords in the title that emphasize the value of your offer. Examples include adjectives like ‘wonderful,’ ‘awesome,’ or ‘amazing.’
Keep your format consistent, so you create a mental model for readers and enhance their understanding of the material.
When appropriate, use formatting—like bulleted lists, bold text, italics, and font size changes—to draw people’s eyes to your most important content or emphasize specific points you want readers to keep in mind.
Nothing you write is set in stone yet. Just try to prevent yourself from making exhaustive edits before you have a full draft. Chances are, you will make many more changes before the end of the process anyway. Investing hours into the perfect paragraph or introduction might be wasted if an editor says it is redundant or if you hate it tomorrow.
Step 6: Edit and Refine Your Content
After writing the first draft of your eBook, you will need to spend time completing the editing process. Edit the eBook chapter by chapter to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of rereading and editing the entire book. The length of ebooks in the business and marketing world have been getting shorter and shorter as reader’s attention span gets shorter, so editing out redundant information or sections that stray from your core message should be considered.
A fresh set of eyes is always helpful in the edit process. Ask a colleague for feedback or even work with an editor locally or even remotely to streamline the editing process. Some AI tools help you with that process faster and cheaper than asking for someone who is an editor.
If you want to hire an editor you can check websites like Reedsy, Upwork and Fiverr. Reedsy is a site dedicated to book professionals, while sites like Upwork and Fiverr can connect you with freelancers and contractors that specialize in eBooks and writing. Regardless of where you decide to source an editor, you need a good edit before you go to the next step of design for download.
Step 7: Format Your Ebook
After all the effort you have made, now it is time to take it and put it in an eBook format. The design and appearance of the book can significantly influence engagement and success once the book is published and available. Therefore, it is critical to focus on this part of the process.
Take into account that you only have one chance to make a positive and lasting first impression, particularly when trying to promote and sell an eBook in a popular, competitive and even extremely saturated market.
The design process can be time consuming and tedious, especially if you do not have design experience. Using AI tools like Typeset can streamline this process and deliver professional results, often for much less cost than hiring a graphic designer. Typeset will help with cover design, formatting, and maintaining a consistent look throughout the document. The more visually appealing and relevant a book is, the more likely it is to get clicks and, ultimately, sales. Incorporating images and graphics will improve readability by helping make your topic more understandable, as will quotes or stats that emphasize your point.
Typeset provides ready-made ebook templates to help further accelerate the design process. Other, more manual design tools that provide eBook templates include Canva, InDesign, Picstart, Scrivener, and Kindle Create.
Watch this video to see how AI Tools like ChatGPT and Typeset can be combined to create compelling eBook topics and designs in a short period of time. Or watch this video Youtube video for a tutorial on using Canva to create an attractive eBook design.
Step 8: Select a Publishing Platform
The eBook Publishing work is more than just saving a Microsoft Word document and sending it to an email list of potential publishers. Knowing how to publish an eBook can help you take any content strategy to a higher level. Publishing an eBook is much easier today and can be done with a wide variety of publishing platforms and document formats.
Establishing what format you will use and trying to convert the same book to different formats is recommended if you want to ensure compatibility with your readers and their devices. Doing this will make your ebook more widely available across various devices, ultimately increasing the reach and accessibility of your eBook.
Some of the most common formats are ePub file, AZW, MOBI, ODF, IBA, or the most commonly used, PDF file.
Now, it is time to choose an eBook publishing platform that is right for you and the eBook you intend to create. With so many eBook publishing platforms to choose from, it is best to take the time to research, review, and compare each of them before making a decision. Check the following:
- Amazon KDP: Amazon is the largest and one of the most popular self-publishing platforms available for writers and editors with any level of experience. You can upload your work through the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing portal.
- Barnes & Noble Press: It is a great alternative publishing platform, ideal for those who want to stay away from Amazon.
- iBooks: iBooks is a publishing platform suitable for Apple-device users. It provides a seamless reading experience and allows you to publish and sell your ebook in the Apple Books store.
- Kobo Writing Life: If you are looking for an alternative to large publishers and corporations when it comes to sharing your eBook, Kobo Writing Life is a comprehensive online community that can help you get started. Now you can publish your eBook with Kobo Writing Life in just 72 hours, from start to finish.
Before publishing, do not forget to preview your eBook to ensure it looks as intended and ensure there are no errors or formatting issues. Once you are satisfied, click the publish button to make your eBook available for purchase.
Join thousands of satisfied users and bring your eBook to life in just 8 simple steps!
FAQs
We understand how scary it must be to start writing your first book. Many questions are probably going through your head now. So, we decided to answer the most commonly asked ones according to our experience during the last few years.
How much money can you make writing an eBook?
Even if writing eBooks is profitable, simply publishing one is not enough. You need time and a lot of content to have regular customers who enjoy your content and are anxious to read the next book.
After a good period of time, good content, and many eBooks, you can potentially make more than $1,000 a month. This depends on different factors such as the topic itself, the size of the industry you are targeting, as well as the demand for the information.
How do I start writing an eBook?
First of all, you need motivation and ambition for sharing your ideas or products to the rest of the world. Find a novel idea and follow the previously mentioned steps: Choose a Compelling Topic, Craft an Effective Hook, Outline Your Ebook, Write Your First Draft, Edit and Refine Your Content, Format Your Ebook, and Select a Publishing Platform.
How much does it cost to write an eBook?
Completely free if you are self-publishing and without help from an editor or graphic designer. Expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 for a professional edit and designer. One of the best ways to save money and time is by using AI tools designed for eBooks.
Is selling eBooks profitable?
Even if making money is not easy and it is getting highly competitive, most experienced digital creators will say that selling eBooks is still profitable and is a way of earning money.
How many pages should my first eBook be?
The average length of a best-selling eBook can be anywhere between 5-50 pages (and, sometimes, even 100).
What are the most popular eBook topics?
Trending topics are not easy to identify most of the time, but you can get a bit of help through Google Trends, a free tool from Google that allows anyone to analyze the popularity of search queries that are entered into Google Search across regions and languages. Some of the most common topics for eBooks are:
- How To (guide): Everyone's looking to learn a particular skill, technique, or technology and sometimes eBooks are the perfect way to make it true.
- Self-Help: Covering areas like time management, personal development, mental and physical health are very lucrative nowadays.
- Diet and Recipes: Recipe books are hugely popular, covering everything from batch cooking for busy families to impressive dinner party meals with an array of fancy side dishes.
- Parenting Guides: Being a pair of parents for the first time can be overwhelming. So, some tips might be helpful!
- Personal Finances: Personal finances have become more important than ever with rising energy and food costs in many parts of the Western world. Focus on providing practical tips and advice, and potentially encouragement and emotional support.
- Fiction: This article focuses on creating non-fictional eBooks, but Fiction is also a huge marketplace. Who does not love a cool unrealistic story like Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings?
- Children’s Ebooks: Cute stories with a lot of images and short paragraphs are required for this type of book.
Transform your ideas into a stunning eBook effortlessly with Typeset's AI-powered design tools. Click here to start designing today and see how easy and quick eBook creation can be.
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