What if I told you there was one super awesome way to grow your brand, establish yourself as an authority, develop an alternate source of passive income, and make your mother proud(er)? There is.
The catch? It requires understanding the basic rules of grammar.
But don’t let that stop you. Commas shouldn’t come between you and your customer. In fact, I’m going to help you create an ebook that will bring you the exact customers you’ve been looking for, and it won’t feel like sixth grade grammar class. I promise. Let’s go.
Why an Ebook?
Believe it or not, people still like reading. In fact, you’re doing it right now. An ebook is meatier than a blog post; the reader expects you to go in depth about a specific topic. In a blog post, the thorough treatment of a subject can feel too heavy. On the other hand, you have more freedom to explore the topic from all angles with an ebook.
But that’s not the only reason why ebooks rock. Here are two other reasons to consider creating an ebook:
An ebook provides passive income. You write it once, but you can continue to make money off of it, with minimal effort.
An ebook establishes you as an authority. This happens to be my favorite reason. You can legitimately say, “I wrote the book on that.”
Okay, So How Do I Create an Ebook?
Now, let’s discuss the actionable steps you should take to create an ebook.
Write Only for Your Target Audience
The most important task you must accomplish in your ebook is to provide value to your reader. How do you do that?
Good content comes from understanding who your audience is and what they want from you. Click To Tweet
Magic happens when you have the same answer to these two questions:
What do they want to learn? What can you teach them?
Start With an Outline
Not a writer? Not a problem. Here’s what many writers, myself included, do to create a more focused piece of content:
Use an outline.
Your outline can be as broad or as detailed as you’d like, but I’d recommend starting with the following:
Create Visual Appeal
Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? Even if you don’t, your customers will.
Making an attractive visual package for your ebook is as easy (and free) as going to Canva.com, setting up an account, and selecting an ebook design of your liking. Canva offers free and premium ebook templates, all professionally designed and beautiful. No one will be able to tell you DIY’ed your ebook design.
End Your Ebook with a Call to Action
Yup. Your ebook needs a call to action, too. ABC: Always Be Closing.
Image Courtesy of iMovieQuotes
Just like blog posts, landing pages, and emails, your ebook also needs to direct the reader to the next logical action. You can’t assume that the reader will know that you have another ebook or course on a related topic. You can’t even assume that they know your website address, especially if you sell your ebook on a third party site like Amazon.
Here’s what you do:
At the end of your ebook, include an active request such as:
As you see, your call to action can be simple while still gently nudging the reader into a deeper relationship with you. Need some extra help on crafting a call to action? Check out this post: Your Guide to Creating an Epic Call to Action.
Pricing Your Ebook
So, what’s the magic price for your ebook? Would you believe me if I said “name your price”?
It may be hard to grasp, but the best price for your ebook is how much your customer is willing to pay. You see, pricing is not as important as perception. If you can convince people that your ebook is valuable, the price won’t matter.
I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of ebooks that hover between the $0.99 to $2.99 price points. Yeah, don’t do that.
If you’re selling at that astronomically low price, you could sell 100 ebooks before you even made $100, and that’s without taking into account transaction fees, etc.
Plus, think of the time it’s taken you to create the ebook in the first place. Your time, research, and knowledge are worth more than $0.99 for sure!
I recommend going no lower than $20 on an ebook, especially one that’s at least 50 pages of non-stop value.
But, depending on the length and information presented in your ebook, you may choose to go much higher. In fact, I recommend that you price high. You’ll get more engaged readers that way, people who will definitely read your content and be willing to establish a deeper relationship with your brand.
Self Host or Publishing to Amazon?
Should you host on your own ebook or sell it via Amazon?
There are pros and cons to each method.
When selling via Amazon, you have a wider marketplace to showcase your ebook. People are always cruising Amazon search, looking for the latest ebook to add to their collection. Unfortunately, a lot of Amazon buyers are also budget-conscious, and not willing to pay higher prices. Compounding this, there’s just so much competition on Amazon that’s difficult to justify why you’re charging much higher than the others.
When selling it yourself, you have the benefit of earning more per sale. You won’t have to worry about Amazon taking a big chunk of your profit. The downside is you don’t have the built-in traffic, and you’ll have to find creative ways to market your book on your own. But I have ideas for that, too.
How Do I Market My Ebook?
Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, here’s how to market your ebook like a boss.
Image Courtesy of MemeGenerator
Create a Landing Page for Your Ebook
Here at KickoffLabs, we definitely love landing pages. They’re just so darn useful. And what better use for a landing page than to promote your new ebook?
Use a landing page to introduce your ebook, list benefits, or even include a first chapter download in exchange for an email signup. This is your chance to really sell your ebook as a valuable resource for your reader.
Not sure how to write a landing page that sells your ebook? Check out: Landing Page Hacks: Copywriting for Non-Writers.
So, after you’ve created a landing page (psst… we have over 60 landing page templates to choose from here), it’s time to drive traffic to said landing page. My favorite way to do that is with paid search engine traffic. We’ve discussed how to create a paid advertisement strategy here: A Newbie’s Guide: How to Create a Marketing Strategy from Scratch. Don’t miss it.
In essence, you’ll create a ad campaign around a specific keyword that’s relevant to the content of your ebook. Then, direct traffic to the conversion optimized landing page for your ebook.
Create a Free Course to Advertise Your Ebook
Have you considered teaching a class related to the topic of your ebook? Why not? If you’ve spent a great deal of time researching the topic, you’re qualified to teach it to others.
You can use a popular site like Udemy or Skillshare to teach a course in the topic of your choosing (and make a bit of extra money on the side). The biggest benefit of using a third party learning platform is exposure. You’ll be able to reach a whole group of people who had no idea that you existed.
Teach a course and then, at the end, use your ebook (and its landing page) as your closing call to action. You’ll bring in traffic, especially if your course was worth the price of admission.
Host Giveaways for Your Book
Partner up with other brands who serve the same customer base that you’re hoping to reach and ask them if you can sponsor a giveaway. A giveaway can definitely drive people back to your site, and grow your mailing list, too.
Be sure to offer a discount to people who entered the giveaway but didn’t win. This will encourage them to learn more about what else you may offer.
Shout it Out on Communities
Google+ is pretty active, and is the perfect place to promote your ebook. You also have a better chance of showing up higher in the search results when you use Google’s own social media platform.
But don’t just stop at Google+. Look for communities related to the topic of your ebook and get active. You may be involved in those communities anyway, but now you have even more reason to join in on discussions for topics that you’ve written about in your ebook.
Be sure to link back to your ebook landing page in your profile and in the posts, if allowed.
Final Thoughts
Are you ready to create an ebook? Tweet us @kickofflabs to let us know if this post has helped you understand how ebooks can help boost your traffic. Thanks and good luck!