So. What is YOUR Book About?
I keep seeing posts about e-books: how to write them, how to make cool covers for them, etc, etc, etc. I keep asking myself what these books are. When I think of books, my first thought is always fiction. Novels. I know that isn't what everyone is referring to, however, so then I wonder what are you guys all talking about? How-To books? Are you writing manuals for certain things like setting up a site? Motivational books?
I really have no idea, so I though that I should finally get around to asking. So... what is your book about?
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Hi Craig,
It could be something related to your niche that you can offer your site visitors. If your niche were smartphones, you could probably offer a smartphone tips and tricks hand-out as a free gift to your visitors.
Jerome
You have a lot of good answers that probably handle your question, already, but, let me put in my few cents worth:
If your passion is something that can lend itself to a 15 to 30 page written document, it can be a book!
Marketers, of course, use these as a free gift for readers to give up their email (as I have done on many occasions) or they can market them as the product they are promoting...
A large number of the products promoted from ClickBank, as an example, are e-books talking about a lot of things. These, of course, can bring anything from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, depending on the subjects and how many books are in the set..
I have written books about politics, survival techniques and how to build several things out of wood. Some of the other topics I have handled are home improvement skills and projects for the average homeowner; others tackled DIY car maintenance BEFORE they turned into computers on wheels.
The better question would be: What can you not write an e-book on? The list would be a smaller one.
I think that if I had 15-30 pages worth of material to write, I'd be tempted to spread it out over multiple blog posts. I suppose I could do something more peripherally related though....
I'm going to disagree with you (agreeably because, well...) An e-book can be used in so many different ways to spread the word about whatever I am promoting. It can sold by itself or to 'enhance' another product or as a tool to get email addresses and so many other things. (I guess I like direct earnings as opposed to indirect ones.)
Mickeyb
Is there any actual training in regards to ebooks, say in the certification course? If there is, I haven't come across it yet (understandable since I am still in the very early lessons...)
Go to the top of this page: it says: Hey Craig, search for help here and enter e books.
There will be a list of blogs and training to look through and see if anything 'pops' for ya.
Mickeyb
I am just writing a romance story for an ebook, it is my holiday from working on WA.
Complete change of mindset and all I have to do is open it and add a few more chapters. I find it relaxes my mind then I can get back to the training.
E-books can be about almost any subject.
I have e-books on personal development, website building, picking a niche, starting an online business..
The topic covered depends upon the subject. The best e-books tackle only One problem. For example, don't write an end-all-be-all book about mastering golf. Write an e-book about "Improving Your Golf Swing in Just 5 Minutes a Day"
Does that help...
Hi Craig,
A book is somewhat of a liquid term. If morphs into various shapes depending on what container you put it in.
For perspective sake, think about a web page, or a post. Imagine how long that is. Generally an average size post is about 500 words. A long one, maybe 1,000 words.
You can imagine a book to be quite longer. If you take 10-20 thousand words and compile that, it would be too much for a web page or blog post. So, call it a book instead.
What many people do, is compile all of that information (10 to 20 thousand words) into a PDF file (or other formats such as kindle, or ePub) and make it available for people to download instead of reading directly from the browser.
This can make an enticing incentive as a give-away in exchange for someone's email address to sign up to your newsletter, etc.
In the background, while you are adding bits to your blogs and pages, you might want to be adding some, or all of what you write to one large document. (a BOOK)
Then one day, after you have compiled quite a bit, you can go through and organize it all a little better, or even hire a one-off editor to go thru and organize it for you if you have a little extra money. Get someone to design an eBook cover for you. Then use it as a free give-away, or sell it directly. You can even format it into the Kindle eBook reader format and sell it on Amazon.
Kyle
I'd have to put some thought into that... I'm not sure I have anything that relevant to say in regards to my niche. Everything would essentially be my opinion, rather than facts. I don't think that would be a grand incentive for anyone....
True enough. e-books don't necessarily fit everyone's marketing or product strategy.
By the way, what *is* your niche. Do you mind sharing your website url?
1) I just took a look at your site. I notice you aren't monetizing your site, even though you have a lot of content.
Is that just a personal preference? Or just not sure what angle to approach it?
2) Do you have Google Analytics installed? or any comparable tool. I'm wondering if you know what your unique visitors per month is.
Well, here's the thing:
I started with my own niche and then decided to try the bootcamp, as it seemed more likely to produce results for me. My niche had been chosen, in part, for fun and for something to "play" with as I worked through the certification. I recently decided to focus a bit more on my niche when I realised that the bootcamp involved doing things like reviewing other programs and products that I really had no interest in reviewing, or posting about things that I am still not very knowledgeable about (like building sites, etc).
If I could start earning something-- even $25 per month-- in my niche, I'd be quite happy, but I am not so certain that it is something that could realistically see me earning anything. I HAVE found an affiliate program that would work with my site, but I have no traffic other than the WA members who agree to leave a comment. Like, NO traffic.
I've thought about posting to Facebook and other places where I have come across groups that might be interested, but have yet to do so, as I didn't think I really had enough content to bother.
So really, I am not sure how I WOULD monetize my site as it is now.
Hi, thanks for the response Craig.
I want to help you if I can. Let's start here.
Are you using analytics?
I'll say that I HAVE it....I haven't really touched it much, as I am not entirely sure how to make good use of it.
Ok, well, that is a start. It can give you some pretty valuable information. Such as :
1) How many unique visitors are actually arriving
2) The bounce rate.
3) And, depending on how things are setup, you can see what keywords people might be finding you by.
It might be that people are finding your site, but don't know what to do. They read a little bit and leave.
There are some ways to fix that.
Well, I can answer a few of those...
The bounce rate is 83.33%
The little pie graph thing shows 83.3% new users and 16.7% returning visitors I suspect that the returning visitor is me and most of the new users are likely to be bots from what I've been told. So in the past couple of months, I believe that I have probably had about 5 visitors, all of whom were sent by one of the comment threads here.
I have no idea how to check what keywords are having any effect.
So, yeah, basically it's my own little site that no one visits. Ha ha.
What you might not know is that you have a Google Page Rank of 5. That is outstanding.
So, if you just take a few steps to adjust your blogging technique, you can start getting more visitors from Google.
If you would like, I don't mind making a call and discussing some of my ideas with you over the phone. And sharing anything else that I might know.
I do have a few things that come to mind about your site. But, I'd just assume talk about that in private. If you would like to, just leave me a private message, and let's set something up.
One thing to keep in mind is, when you are perhaps giving away a PDFs report or similar say for your optin e mail list is, don't give away all the good stuff at once.
If you give a prospective optin to much info they will download and say "I'll look at that later". Later means never. Have them looking for more valued content from you.
You might get their e mail address but if that don't get to your good, small amount of valuable content right there and then. They probably never will.
When you e mail them again they won't even remember who you are. Have them begging for more of your content that solves a part of their problem.
Just my thoughts, oh I said I was having a week off. See, can't help myself.
I appreciate that advice, Denny. I believe that goes in line with the saying, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free."
I have two eBook Craig .. one is a Personal Development eBook, the other is a Health and Fitness tips eBook. The second one is simple , about 30 pages half of which are photos .. so they can be simple. They are both downloadable pdf. Cheers, William.
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Glad you asked the question, and thanks to everyone who answered. I have an idea for an e-book, but it doesn't have anything to do with my current niche, which I'm using as a test site! My plan is to work on it in the near future, then create a site that could promote it. I worked in education for many years, and I'd like to offer a sports curriculum. We'll see how it goes!
Great goal. By the way, the indie authors whose books I've read started their sites and social campaigns first as a way to build an audience for their books.
Just a thought I'd throw at you. If you want any references, I'll send you a link to a book.
Kyle