Home Business Diary

Writing an eBook was the furthest thing from my mind when I began my home business eighteen months ago!  And yet, today, Romancing the Sale: How to Build and Maintain Highly Profitable Customer Relationships that Last is not only launched, but has its own affiliate program!

When I work with my clients, many of them shudder to think of the work involved when it comes to creating an ebook.  I would probably not have considered it this early in my career had it not been for Eben Pagan's Guru Master Mind which addressed many of the questions I had about how the heck one does such a thing!

Of course, it starts with finding a need. 

If you are in tune with your clients, colleagues, and business contacts, you probably won't have to look very far.  In my case, I was heavily involved with a community discovering the art of attraction marketing.  Everyone was at about the same level when it came to learning how to use the internet to attract prospects to our various businesses.  For the first time, we were not having to chase other people down to make sales or get recruits.

But just as the way to attract the prospects was new to us, the way to interact with those prospects once attracted had changed as well.  We were all being well trained in the attraction marketing process. But now there was a need for information on how to build and maintain the customer relationships we were attracting!

Step One to Creating an Ebook - Find the Need

So, step one in creating an information product is to start listening to the buzz around your business circles. 

• Go on the social sites like Facebook, BetterNetworker, SiteBuildIt forums, etc. and find out what problems keep coming up. 
• Put a survey on your blog or website asking for feedback. Surveymonkey.com is a free survey tool you can use to do this.
• Send a message to your email list asking for their questions.  Always keep a log of responses you get from your emails anyway, for future projects.
• If appropriate, go out on the street and interview people.  When I wanted to know how customers really felt about being approached by salespeople at Starbucks, I went to Starbucks and asked the people I found there.  They were very happy to share their true opinions and the result was a very powerful video marketing piece on what your customers really think. 

Is there a new health product on the market people are wondering about?  Are you active in a nonprofit group benefiting a school of church? Maybe there's a need for ideas on creative fundraisers. What about ideas for business owners reviewing the best tools for marketing or simply short reviews of best selling business books - that's a valuable time saver, believe me.  The list of examples could go on forever. The point is the best, most on target ideas will come from the actual people you are trying to serve.

Writing an eBook Too Much? Consider Offering a Free Report

If the subject matter is not one that's going to create a 100 page or more book, no worries.  You can write 7 to 15 information packed pages and offer it as a free report.  When your readers opt-in to claim their free ebook, they leave their email address and you build your list.  Email them only when you have something they will find to be of value, and you will be well on your way to developing a loyal customer base. 

Step Two: Creating an EBook

The next step is to research.  Obviously, you want to verify "the facts."  Don't quote a statistic in your book unless you can verify the source.

But just as important, you want to verify that you are getting to the core of the need you think is there.  To do this, again, go to the people.  Ask friends you have made on the social sites if you can interview them.  Or, promote your ebook by putting an article on your blog as I did, and ask for feedback in exchange for a free copy of the finished product. 

When interviewing your subjects, you want to record their words verbatim as much as possible.  This will help you in writing your sales copy as well as the book itself.  The way to make your reader feel you have gotten inside their mind is to use their language! 

getting into your reader's "head"One of my interview subjects told me he would rather "volunteer to clean out the toilets" than have to make a phone call to a prospect.  I bet lots of folks can relate to that. Even better, it's funny because you instantly get a visual of thousands of internet marketers on their knees, scrubbing away!  The interview process is a goldmine.

Another benefit: not only does conducting interviews elevate your status as a professional, but the people you interview will feel flattered and excited that you wanted their opinion.  They will talk about their experience and start creating a buzz around your book before the first words have hit the page.

Step Three: Writing Your eBook

Using the information you have gathered in your interviews and research, write your sales page.  This may seem backwards, but as you write out the bulletpoints of the problems you are addressing in the book as well as the solutions you have to offer for those problems; you will have the beginning of your actual outline!

As I go about organizing information for a long piece, like an eBook, I use sticky notes and a posterboard or large sheet from a drawing pad.

Jot down all the topics you think of on to individual sticky notes.  As you brainstorm the various things you want to cover, you can move the sticky notes around in columns on the poster board to experiment with how they group naturally together.  Your finished project should be between 5 to 10 chapters or around 150 pages, give or take.  Romancing the Sale wound up being 133 pages including the Resource Page and the dreaded "Disclaimer." 

I hate those things, but you have to have them nowadays.  it always gets me to think someone might sue because they dropped the book on the floor, tripped on it, broke their leg and now YOU are liable for the damages!  lol  Some folks just write up a general "information is to the best of author's knowledge and individual results may vary."  Since I already had a legal form, I just used that - I think it even covers the "not responsible if you trip over the book" scenario!

Once you have your sticky notes the way you think you want them, write an outline of your ideas. You're still just listing at this point.  But as you group your headings into chapters, and the content within those chapters, you should see a "story" emerge.  In other words, the ideas should flow freely from one topic to the next in a logical progression.  If you have a chapter on potty training your two-year-old, it should not include a section about teenagers and their dirty laundry.  Although, there is a case to be made on the similarities between teenagers and two's in some respects!

Step Four: Start Writing Your eBook!

With a firm understanding of the need you want to address, the feelings and frustrations your prospects are dealing with, and the solutions you have to offer, you are ready to begin writing.

Keep your writing style light - don't try to be overly academic here.  The more conversational your writing style is, the easier it will be for your reader not to get bogged down in the information you are sharing.

If there is any room for misunderstanding, it will happen.  Explain what you mean thoroughly.  Give examples, sometimes more than one to illustrate your main points.  If you can use graphics or pictures to further explain the material, by all means do so.

When you have your first draft done, give it to interested people to read.  It won't help to enlist family or friends if they are not into the subject matter, because they will tend to "skim" and you won't get the kind of feedback you need.  If you offer a free copy to someone in your industry, you will get far better input - because they will be reading it for the information provided as well as doing you a favor.  If a concept isn't clear, they will let you know.  Your spouse may assume they don't understand it because it isn't their field, not because the copy wasn't clear.

Read the finished copy aloud several times.  Even if you have a strong background in writing, you will find typos and grammatical errors with each reading.  To my horror, I had misspelled the name of one of my mentors in the book - I caught it at the last minute.  Of course, the advantage of an eBook, is that you can go back in and fix things even after release; but better to have it right the first time around.

Next time, we'll go into what you do with your book once it's been written.  Stay tuned.

Get your own copy of my eBook by clicking here: Romancing the Sale.