An eBook AboutWriting An eBook

(A practical guide from a practical guy)

Introduction

This eBook was inspired in part by Chris Farrell's "21 Days To Success" program at Chris Farrell Membership.com. One of the hands-on projects assigned was to do some writing on a subject in our niche. Since my area of interest is eBooks, I thought I would turn some of my notes into an eBook. So here we are and here we go...

Eddie P (the eBook guy)http://www.eddiephillips.info

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The Most Important eBook Ingredient

What do you think the most important eBook ingredient is? If you said, "content," you'd be WRONG. Actually the most important aspect of your eBook is the TITLE. Think about a book standing on a bookshelf--what do you see first? The title, of course, & probably the author's name.

If the title does not "grab" the attention of the reader, then the content is of little consequence. How do you come up with a great title? Try brainstorming with others, look at what others are writing about in forums and blogs, etc. You can also look at Google searches as well as other search engines.

Bring on the Content

How much content do you really need? It has been suggested that eight pages of content is more than enough, provided it contains something of value to the reader. Chris notes four

main sources of content, but I will be adding a fifth. Content sources are: public domain, forums, private label rights (free and paid), articles, and personal experience.

I went to Google and did a search on three of these sources. Here are the results:

Public domain eBook info: 12,000,000 results

eBook forums: 44,000,000 results

Free PLR: 2,610,000 results

Paid PLR: 4,660,000 results

The most popular site for articles is ezinearticles.com. I did a search for "ebook creation" and came up with multitudes of web pages on this subject.

Lastly, the area of personal experience should not be ignored. Each of us has a unique perspective from our life experiences that no one else has. For example, during my lifetime I have run ultramarathons, taught downhill skiing, and am a certified scuba diver. There are not many people around that can claim such a varied background as this. Thus my view of a situation is certainly different from that of someone with a different background.

eBook Nuts and Bolts

From our search of these content sources we have come up with loads of material to write about. How to put all of this "stuff" together and come up with a good eBook is the subject of another eBook or article. Let's just assume this has been taken care of and you are now writing the eBook. What types of fonts should you use and where?

The fonts I am using for this eBook are really great ones. The headline font I am using is called Tahoma. The font for the body is Georgia. There are scores of fonts that can be used however. The key is to use a font that is easy for everyone to read.

Do you need a sophisticated word processing program to write your eBook? Nope, I am using WordPad and it is working great. When you finish writing your eBook then I suggest transferring it to pdf format by using:

http://www.primopdf.com/

With this program you can "Create PDF files faster with the only free PDF creator to support one-click, drag-and-drop PDF creation.

Convert to PDF from any file you can print, including Microsoft® Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint® formats."

Another GREAT alternative is to write your eBook using Open Office Writer from:

http://www.openoffice.org/

Once you have created your document you can save it directly to pdf format using this free program.

Images

I suggest that you use images throughout your eBook if possible. The images should be relevant to the material being discussed. There are a multitude of images available on the internet, both free and paid. All you have to do is a Google search for free or paid images. When I did my search, some of the free results returned were:

* www.office.microsoft.com/en-us/images* www.freedigitalphotos.net/* www.freeimages.co.uk/* www.photobucket.com/images/free

Paid image sources included:

* www.istockphoto.com* www.dreamstime.com* www.fotolia.com* www.thinkstockphotos.com

eBook Cover Design

The easy way to do an eBook cover is to hire someone to do it for you. There are many

freelancers that would be more than willing to help you for a small fee. If you are on a tight budget like me, you might want to go to:

www.3d-pack.com

"3d package is a 3d-box graphic generator. 3d package lets you instantly create 3d-box images online, free! Just upload pictures for cover and sides and then get 3d-box in you favorite image format (JPG, GIF, PNG supported). Post them in your blog or anywhere else."

The nice thing about this site is the price -- $0.00.

What Are We Going to Do With It???

One of the final stages in our eBook creation process is to decide what we are going to do with our new eBook. Are we going to sell it or are we going to give it away? If we sell it, what price should we ask and how are we going to market our creation? These are all important questions that need careful consideration.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope these eBook thoughts/notes have been of help to you. I know it has helped me by putting them down in my own words. As you may have noticed, this is an overview of eBook creation. It is not meant to be a detailed, step-by-step guide. We have to learn to crawl and then take baby steps before learning how to walk and run.

Thanks for crawling along with me during this short eBook development project. For more detailed and professional info on eBooks, visit my blog at:

http://www.eddiephillips.info