About Author 4

Necessary Disclaimer 5

Welcome to the E-Book Creation Explorer’s Guide 6

The First Draft Is Like Swiss Cheese 8

Use Parkinson’s Law To Your Advantage 10

Success Is How You Define It 12

Create A Product That Fits Your Strategy 14

Keep Your 16

Beginners Mind 16

Most People Will Say Yes 18

Everything Creates User Experience 20

Get Feedback Early and Often 22

ExposeYourself To Great Work 24

Consistent Action Gets It Done 26

Give Yourself Time To Over-Deliver 28

Jump The Biggest Hurdles Early On 30

Table Of Contents

Help People 32

Be Insanely Amazing At One Thing 34

Create A Product That You Will Be Proud Of 36

Believe In The Product You Create 38

Celebrate The Small Victories 40

Lead With Your Values 42

How And What You Launch Are Different 44

Screw The Skeptics And The Relativists 46

Collaboration Creates A Stronger Product 48

How You Begin Is How You End 50

Give People Something To Do 52

Give Your Affiliates A Reason To Promote 54

Work Smarter, Then Harder 56

Shit’s Gonna Break 58

Take A Step Back 60

Complexity Doesn’t Make It Great 62

The Right Medium For Your Message 64

Have Fun 66

Create What People Are Waiting For 68

Enjoy The Jungle 70

Keep In Touch: The Top 1% 71

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About the Author

Jonathan Wondrusch is a storyteller, artist and awesomething-maker. It’s hard to pin down exactly everything that he does, but legend has it he does them all extremely well.

He blogs as the Head of Awesome at By Bloggers, is the author of Epic E-Book Creation, and is also your wise and experienced guide through The E-Book Creation Explorer’s Guide: 31 Lessons To Get You Through The Jungle.

He comes with ten years of digital awesome-thing-making experience and two AA batteries.

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Necessary Disclaimer

This book has been created to be as awesome as possible, but unfortunately has yet to bridge the mystical gap between awesome and pure magic.

Therefore, By Bloggers cannot be held responsible for any material losses achieved by following the lessons listed.

On the other hand, By Bloggers does so solemnly swear to not come after you in the case that you achieve astounding success by the same route.

Fair, ya?

Ah, now to good stuff...

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Welcome to the

Have you tried to create an e-book recently?

It’s a jungle out there.

Lions and tigers and bears -ahem, no lions or bears in the jungle that i know of - oh, my!

One month ago, By Bloggers launched Epic E-Book Creation, a guide through the mechanics of creating an e-book. The e-book was downloaded over 500 times in the first week alone and continues to help new bloggers on a daily basis.

For anyone new to e-book creation, Epic E-Book Creation is the map that will take them from plan to product. This e-book serves a different purpose: to help you through the journey of creating an e-book.

Knowing the mechanics of what goes into an e-book is vastly different than actually creating one. Contained within this e-book are 31 unique and focused lessons that will ease the journey.

As By Bloggers grows, I am experiencing a sincere desire to teach, lead and guide people through the process of creating amazing products. The blog and the free e-books will continue to serve people beginning their own product

E-Book CreationExplorer’s Guide

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creation journies, but it is time to take this journey deeper.

E-Book Creation Explorer’s Guide is also an invitation. It is an invitation for you to take a serious step forward in the journey of turning your blog into a business.

The launch of this e-book marks the beginning of a new community: the By Bloggers Bootstrappers. The Bootstrappers are dedicated small business owners, growing their business through their blog and epic e-products.

I am excited that you’ve taken the first step in becomming part of this passionate and engaged community.

And now with the welcoming completed, it is time to step into the jungle of e-book creation.

But before we do, I’d like you to meet someone very important to our journey.

His name is Bob...

Hi there, Bootstrapper!I’m excited to have you with us! I’ll be your

guide through this incredible journey. Ready? Let’s get going then!

PS. If you’ve come this far and haven’t officially joined up yet, click here to become a By Bloggers Bootstrapper.

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Lesson 1The First Draft Is

Like Swiss Cheese

Four Triple PSLs* (Pumpkin Spice Latte’s for the uninitiated) later, my fatigued fingertips lay themselves to rest on the tabletop beside my laptop. I had done it. Epic E-Book Creation was written. I gently closed the laptop, shut my weary eyelids and took a deep breath. After a few minutes of silent, serene celebration, I packed up my bag and went home.

The Epic E-Book Creation Google doc remained unopened for more than a week. I needed to rest my eyes and create some distance between myself and the writing.

A week and a half later, I went back and began to read the first draft. It was good, not great; solid, not stellar. It felt like swiss cheese - full of holes, and not really that good until you heat it up.

As I read, I made notes, jotted down ideas, put cautionary orange cones around the gaping holes and asked myself tough questions.

When I finished reading, I started at the top of my list of notes and began to address each one in writing. By the time I was done, the size of the had e-book swollen in size from 11,000 words to 20,000 words. Those wholes were bigger than I had thought.

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Lesson #1Don’t settle for your first draft.

Your best work is crafted purposefully, not sporadically.

Focused revisions are essential to creating the best e-book possible. On the second pass of writing, you’re likely to catch some major things that you missed the first time through, or come up with brilliant new ideas based on what you wrote.

Be careful when you go back and fill in the holes though - make sure you’re using more swiss and you’re not filling it in with pepperjack.

Ok, that was cheesy. My sincere apologies.

Make sure you’re adding content that belongs in the e-book you’re working on, and not in a separate product. Gouda?

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Lesson 2Use Parkinson’s Law

To Your Advantage

Question: How long does it take to create an e-book? Answer: As long as you give yourself.

I gave myself a month to create Epic E-Book Creation. I gave myself two weeks to create this e-book. Do you know what happened in both circumstances?

I created the e-book in the time given. There’s a rule for this called Parkinson’s Law, and it says:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

How can that happen? Imagine you set out to make a small e-book, but you give yourself a long timeline. It could be done in a weekend, but because you have more time, you plan longer, write more, design more, and add more bells and whistles. You end up creating a product much larger than it needs to be. The work, “expands,” in proportion to the time you have to complete it.

Does it mean that if you set a goal of creating a product in a weekend you will do it?

Yes (just look at Srini Rao and David Crandall’s How To Grow Your Blog Through Interviews), but with a cafeat: you have to believe in the deadline you set. You must commit to that timeline. If you do not, you’ll go over the time limit.

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Lesson #2It takes about as long to create

your e-book as you give yourself. Plan accordingly.

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What does it take to create and commit to a firm deadline?

Here are a few ideas:

• Announce a launch date on your blog. You are now committed to your audience.

• Work with a partner and commit to a launch date with them. You are now committed to that date with your partner.

• Give yourself a tasty carrot: set up a reward that you really want if you hit your deadline.

• Make it meaningful: if you infuse meaning, or a sense of significance and importance, into your deadline, you will be 10x more likely to finish it.

Use Parkinson’s Law to your advantage. Set solid boundaries for yourself and your e-book and get started.

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Lesson 3Success Is How

You Define It

Since launching Epic E-Book Creation, one of the most common questions I hear is:

“This is amazing. Why aren’t you charging for this?”

It’s an easy question to answer: The product wasn’t intended to be a money making endeavor.

The success of the e-book hinged upon the impact it would have on the site as a whole:

• Would it sincerely help people looking to create higher quality e-products?

• Would it create authority for By Bloggers in the realm of e-book creation?

• Would it make By Bloggers are more credible resource for e-book creators?

The success of the e-book didn’t hinge on the number of subscribers that I attracted, dollars earned, number of retweets or number of downloads. The success was defined on the credibility and authority that authoring such a product brings to By Bloggers.

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Lesson #3Set clear, specific goals

for what you want to achieve with your e-book.

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The product helps people looking to create higher quality e-books, it firmly establishes By Bloggers as a killer resource for anyone looking to create kick-ass e-books, and it shows anyone comes to By Bloggers that yes, we know what we’re talking about.

So was it a success?

In the words of a well known pirate who is an excellent authority on the topic:

“Aye, ye bet yer arse it was.”

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Lesson 4Create A Product That

Fits Your Strategy

Epic E-Book Creation didn’t come into existence by accident. There was a purpose behind it: create authority and credibility within the e-book creation niche.

That wasn’t a strategy for creating an e-book, it was a strategy for the entire By Bloggers business (and as a fellow Bootstrapper myself, I’m building a business on top of my blog).

When you set out to create an e-book, it is critically important to determine whether it fits your overall strategy. The product idea may be incredible, but if it sends you off on a business tangent (or perhaps a busy-ness tangent), it does not support your strategy.

More and more, blogs are transcending their journalistic heritage and becoming the place where many entrepreneurial minded individuals are hanging their digital shingle. They become business platforms - a place for small business owners to communicate with and serve their audiences.

What do businesses do? They provide value. They grow. They sell. They get compensated.

These things don’t happen by accident. They are planned for and fit into a larger overall vision.

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Lesson #4Make conscious choices

at every step of the e-book creation process.

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Do you want to earn an income from your blog by selling e-books or services? It’s time to start thinking like a business person and treating your blog like a business.

When you go to create an e-book, make sure that it fits into the long term vision for your small business.

Is it going to help build your business in a focused way or is it going to be a tangent?

Every single choice that goes into creating an e-product has an impact on your business. The quality of the content, how you design it, how it is marketed and more, all influence not only the product, but your business as a whole.

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Lesson 5Keep Your

Beginners Mind

Inside Epic E-Book Creation, there is a section on how to use images without violating copyrights.

Yawn, right? Maybe. That section was written for a reason.

Anyone who steps into the digital publishing fields needs to understand copyright in order to protect themselves. Chances are that they haven’t been exposed to any information about how to navigate the perilous territories of copyright.

Considering copyright is second nature to me. I’ve been creating and working with digital tools for more than a decade. I’ve been trained to think as both an artist and as a business person for the last 8 years. I’ve been programming and building websites for just as long. Copyright is an element of all of those fields, as a creator or as a publisher.

When you have been doing something for any amount of time, there comes a point where you forget how much you know. The questions that beginners in your field pound their skulls against become second nature.

You begin to take your hard earned experience for granted. A beginner, someone without your depth of knowledge, would kill to know what you know as they’re getting started.

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Therefore, when you write, write with the beginner in mind (unless you’re creating a product on an advanced topic).

How can you solve their problems in the most direct way possible? When people learn what you know, what are the biggest hurdles that they will encounter? Can you walk them through the topic in a way that is going to make their lives easier?

When you approach your topic from the perspective of a beginner, you are much less likely to leave something critical out. Heck, get someone who has no knowledge of your field and test the content on them. They’ll point out where you get too deep into jargon or leave something out completely.

Lesson #5Don’t assume that your

reader knows as much as you do.

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Lesson 6Most People Will Say Yes

Reaching out to those that have achieved more success than you have can be intimidating. In our minds, we like to imagine that these people are somehow “better” than us in a variety of ways.

Let me let you in on a little secret: they’re still people. Flesh and blood, joy and hope, successes and failures.

When I reached out to contribute to Epic E-Book Creation, I reached to people who had blogs that had been around longer, people who had thousands (sometimes many thousands) more subscribers and had achieved the level of success that I am striving for.

It took me awhile to convince myself to take a risk and reach out to them. It was terrifying at first.

As the replies came in, I started to notice something strange: everyone seemed to be saying yes.

It could have been for a huge variety of reasons. It could be that the project sounded good. It could be that they knew who I was, or really liked the idea. Our niches might have been compatible.

If I had given into the fear of reaching out to those that were already at the level of success that I want, I would have

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Lesson #6Ask for help and participation

from other bloggerswhen creating an e-book.

robbed myself of new relationships and I would have robbed readers of the value that these amazing individuals were able to contribute.

If you’re too afraid to reach out in favor of your own success, reach out in order to serve your community better. Often times, it is easier to perform a difficult task in order to serve someone else.

Most bloggers are trying to build their own businesses. If you are sincerely doing the same, chances are that there is a wild amount of help available to you - you just have to ask.

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PS. When you do reach out, remember to be professional and courteous. Don’t be upset when you receive a no (and you will eventually). Respect people’s time - keep emails short and to the point. And most of all, don’t use people. Find win-win situations whenever you connect.

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Lesson 7Everything Creates

User Experience

Creating an e-book is a complex process: ideation, planning, content creation, design and layout, promotion, marketing, launching, gathering feedback, and doing it all over again the next time around.

I realized early on in creating Epic E-Book Creation that the thread of User Experience runs through every element of the process. If you create an engaging User Experience, your readers will love it. Those that enjoy themselves will become customers and you will be in business.

User Experience gurus are typically focused on design and usability, but those aren’t the only elements of user experience to be aware of.

Every single decision you make when you create an e-book plays into the experience that your customers will have. The idea you write about, your writing style, the design of your website and your e-book, whether or not you use affiliate links. To create truly amazing e-books, you have to take the time and consciously consider all of these elements.

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Lesson #7Always ask yourself when making an e-book:

“Am I making it better for my customer?”

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Consider just of a few of these questions:

• Is your idea one that will serve your customers well? • Is your writing clear and in a style that serves the

content? • Is it simple or complex to purchase or acquire your

product? • Is your product created in the way that caters most to

how your customers will actually use it and how they want to use it?

At every step along the way, make conscious choices in service of your customer. This helps you get to know your customer better and it helps your customer love you more. Win-win I say!

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Lesson 8Get Feedback

Early and Often

No (wo)man is an island and no product can be successfully created in a vacuum. At some point in the act of creation, every artist needs to look outward to determine if they are on the right path still. You can (and should) get feedback at any point in the process.

Think your idea is the bees knees, but just want to make sure? Run it by a friend.

Finished writing, but not sure if you’ve left anything out? Run it by a fan.

Want some suggestions on how to make your design even spiffier? Ask your designer pal.

Whenever you hit a significant milestone, send out an email to one or two trusted peers and ask for some feedback on your progress. When you request feedback, only request it from people you know are going to be giving you high quality feedback.

Responding to feedback (sometimes known as criticism, hopefully of a constructive variety) can be challenging at times. When you have been pouring your soul into a project, hearing that it’s not perfect might take a moment to accept.

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Lesson #8The sooner you get high quality feedback,

the better your e-book will be.

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Genuinely consider every piece of feedback you get. If the feedback is accurate and fits your goals, make a change. If the criticism misses the mark, you don’t have to change a thing. This is your project, you’re the director, you’re making the shots. Be open minded, but don’t give away the keys.

The most important part of receiving critical feedback is to take action. If you sit around asking for feedback and constantly defend against it or never take action on it, you might find that no one will be willing to help you in the future.

Involving other people in the creation process has another benefit: it inspires new ideas. Ideas that you might not have come up with alone.

Thicken up your skin and open yourself up to creating even more magnificent epic e-books.

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Do You Have What It Takes, Bootstrapper?

By this point, you should have a pretty good idea if you’ve got what it takes to be a By Bloggers Bootstrapper.

The journey isn’t for everyone. The Bootstrappers are a dedicated group of bloggers and small business owners, committed to pulling themselves and their businesses up by the bootstraps.

They work smart. They work hard. They put in the time to make their ideas become reality. They pursue excellence at every opportunity. They are passionate. They collaborate with one another and encourage each other.

They are a special breed of blogger.

If you’re here, there’s a fair chance you’ve got what it takes to be one of them. You’ll become part of an incredible community of individuals, reaching for their small business and blogging goals.

You’ve got what it takes. Bob told me so.

Become a Bootstrapper. What are you waiting for?