By Kaleigh Moore October 26, 2023
Ebooks have been round for the reason that daybreak of the digital age.
However that doesn’t make them a relic of the previous.
If something, ebooks are getting hotter. Since 2011, e-book readers have risen to their highest ranges: 30% report studying one prior to now 12 months. And that’s increased than the speed of audiobook listeners (23%).
The most important class of readers? Those that learn each bodily and digital books.
And why not? Ebooks are handy; you possibly can learn them wherever. You may simply distribute them for all kinds of causes, together with:
- Direct gross sales (providing an e-book for a reduced value in comparison with a tough copy e-book)
- Lead magnets (utilizing an e-book as a free reward for signing up for a publication)
- Establishing thought management
- Fulfilling your dream of turning into an writer
However no matter your cause for creating an e-book, you received’t get off the bottom till you already know all the pieces there’s to find out about ebooks. Particularly if you understand how to create an e-book totally free.
The excellent news: you don’t must be an knowledgeable author.
You simply want a step-by-step method for brainstorming, drafting, and enhancing your e-book till you’ve polished it to a superb sheen.
On this put up, let’s deal with all the pieces from the summary (how do you give you matters?) to the nuts and bolts of constructing an e-book that appears nice on any trendy gadget. Right here’s what you’ll have to find out about learn how to create an e-book.
Writing the e-book: concepts, brainstorming, and drafting
All of it begins with an concept.
In Eric R. Asher’s case, he was a proficient suspense and concrete fantasy writer. He’d even discovered illustration with a literary agent.
However Asher had one downside. His most up-to-date work was, in keeping with his agent, “unpublishable.”
These days, the phrase “unpublishable” has by no means been so subjective. Asher knew that. So Asher turned to Amazon and the world of self-publishing.
Utilizing electronic mail advertising with AWeber, Asher created an electronic mail listing, providing a free e-book obtain for brand new subscribers.
Subsequent emails (despatched mechanically via AWeber) additional introduce his readers to his different works.
It labored so effectively, Asher began operating all kinds of his e-book promotions via AWeber.
The important thing all comes again to the thought behind it. Asher had a pre-vetted match between his established viewers and the contents of his newest e-book.
With no comparable match, you possibly can’t ensure that your e-book will resonate with your viewers. So earlier than you place the pen to the pad—or, on this case, the keyboard to the desk—you want a perfect match between what your viewers desires to listen to and what you’re saying.
Producing concepts to your e-book
The first step: discover your area of interest
Your area of interest is the particular subject or viewers you need to work with. For Asher, it was a literary area of interest: suspenseful city fantasy.
That’s a distinct segment with particular enchantment to a group of readers. If Asher had bought his e-book as generically “thrilling,” there’d be no telling who the meant viewers was.
However should you don’t have a longtime viewers, you’ll want some methods to establish your greatest area of interest.
Right here are some things to remember as you choose the proper e-book viewers you need to work with:
- Keep away from a generalized viewers. “Health,” for instance, is extra of a market than a area of interest. You need to discover your particular enchantment inside the health world to face out. For AWeber buyer Alycia from Zumba with Alycia, which means particular notes on making essentially the most out of Zumba lessons.
- Particular, however not obscure. What if Alycia had niched her viewers down even additional? “Zumba for girls aged 25-34, who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 per yr, and stay within the northeast” is perhaps particular—however unnecessarily so. In the event you begin shooing away potential e-book readers, you is perhaps getting too obscure.
- Discover the issue you need to remedy. Take the instance of Paula Rizzo. She was struggling to seek out gadgets to fill her condo, so she determined to get proactive in organizing her priorities. The end result was Listful Considering, a useful e-book for individuals who have an excessive amount of on their plate.
Step two: brainstorm niche-relevant concepts
Brainstorming will be greater than sitting in a chair and pondering. Ideally, will probably be excess of that.
There at the moment are AI and search engine marketing instruments to hurry your brainstorming periods alongside, together with:
- ChatGPT: you fill in a easy immediate and ask for concepts, and it spits a listing proper again at you. Even should you dismiss a lot of the concepts, there’s an opportunity one or two will gentle a spark.
- Ahrefs: Use key phrase and search engine marketing instruments like Ahrefs to establish the highest traits in your area of interest, providing you with concepts for ebooks your viewers is already looking for.
Don’t rely on AI or search engine marketing instruments. However do put them to work. They’ll make it easier to flip imprecise hunches about what sort of subject may work greatest for you…and switch them into definitive concepts with construction.
What should you’re nonetheless struggling to give you concepts?
Begin with a giant idea: possibly you need to assist individuals grasp their funds. You simply don’t have your e-book’s specific “hook” but.
You can even use methods like thoughts mapping to work from a giant subject, after which department off into smaller matters by which you might have some experience.
Or you possibly can run searches in your personal social media posts. On X (formally Twitter), go to search-advanced and take a look at your highest-performing tweets about your favourite topics.
Now learn via the feedback. What are the widespread ache factors individuals are citing? Or which matters appear to resonate essentially the most along with your social media viewers?
Observe these breadcrumbs.
There’s a superb likelihood an e-book subject is ready on the finish of them.
Constructing the e-book’s content material
As soon as you already know what your e-book is about, it’s time to fill it with participating content material.
The trick is developing with angles that folks haven’t heard earlier than.
Your first step? Interview individuals. Search for particular tales and case research.
Perhaps you already know individuals in your area of interest who can provide distinctive insights. However this isn’t a requirement. You can even run social media searches for matters in your area of interest and ask individuals should you can interview them.
Subsequent, assemble your analysis.
Look via the present notes, articles, and books you’ve already drawn inspiration from. Begin bookmarking and highlighting the most effective factors. Save essentially the most salient ones right into a bodily folder or a Google Doc.
That is much like the Ryan Vacation note-taking technique.
Vacation, a prolific nonfiction writer, says he did analysis for 3 New York Occasions bestsellers in his “spare time.”
One technique he makes use of is the “widespread place e-book.” This can be a e-book of quotes, sentences, tales, and different tidbits he can draw upon for materials.
He organizes these tidbits by themes and concepts. Every time he wants an instance or an perception, he returns to his “widespread place e-book.”
Lastly, you possibly can search for tales.
In “Atomic Habits,” the bestselling e-book by James Clear, he begins most chapters with a demonstrative instance of the precept he’s about to elucidate.
As an illustration, he opens the e-book with an anecdote in regards to the profitable habits of the British biking workforce within the 2000s.
Don’t suppose you must be credible as an authority in your area of interest to get your concepts throughout.
Draw upon different sources because the demonstration of your key concepts. Arrange your ideas by these key concepts, then let the storytelling strategy unveil and unwrap every concept with its personal distinctive taste.
Deciding what your e-book will appear to be
When you’ve began analysis, you’ll begin to get a way of the fabric you’re working with.
Now it’s time to determine what type that materials will take.
What’s going to your e-book look like?
- Will it have a number of visuals, together with charts, graphs, and footage? Or do you need to depend on textual content and storytelling?
- Will you design an e-book based mostly on an e-book template, or will you generate a template as you go?
- Or possibly you haven’t any concept.
In case your reply was “C) I don’t know,” don’t fear. You may draw upon some present templates to suit the e-book’s construction to the analysis you’re assembling.
Useful resource compilations, for instance, will be enjoyable “listicle”-style ebooks. Perhaps you’ll use a easy format like a novel instrument or tip for every web page.
- Widespread titles is perhaps “XYZ Finest Practices for Making Your First Sale” or “5 Suggestions for a Newbie Weightlifting Routine.”
Story-rich ebooks, and even fiction, are easy sufficient. Your e-book ought to emphasize primary readability for giant swaths of textual content and dialogue.
- Some titles which may work? Symbolic phrases you pull from the e-book can trace at a key occasion within the story.
How-tos and tutorials ought to function simply accessible, step-by-step guides. These usually come full of illustrations, which makes correct formatting the emphasis right here.
- Widespread titles embrace “What You Have to Know About [Niche].” Or you will get artistic, as Mark Manson did together with his e-book “The Delicate Artwork of Not Giving a F***.”
Interviews and case research can embrace a mixture of illustrations, graphics, and storytelling. You might even undertake a magazine-like strategy of together with visuals alongside the examples.
- You should utilize a symbolic phrase right here, or create one which summarizes your strategy. “Atomic Habits,” for instance, makes use of the “atomic” metaphor to trace at small-but-powerful adjustments, because the e-book explains.
Draft the e-book with the format in thoughts
Does it sound like placing the cart earlier than the horse?
That’s okay. Drafting the e-book with the format already in thoughts might prevent numerous pointless complications.
For instance, if you already know you’ll use a listicle fashion for a lead magnet e-book, your analysis and drafting ought to mirror that.
It’s far much less environment friendly to draft your e-book first, after which resolve its total form throughout enhancing.
To make the drafting course of as easy as potential, stick to those primary steps.
Construct a top level view
Utilizing the analysis you’ve carried out, it is best to have arrived at just a few themes. Listed below are just a few potential methods to prepare them right into a agency plan:
- What concepts are sturdy sufficient to have their very own sections? Begin categorizing your analysis by these themes. These might be particular person chapters, and even whole sections.
- After you have just a few of these, what order is smart? If in case you have a listicle-style e-book in your fingers, you might have to incorporate some suggestions earlier than others for context. Some suggestions might require constructing on others; present the foundational suggestions first.
- If all else fails, begin with essentially the most compelling tales and case research. Perhaps your e-book is a unfastened assortment of insights. Begin with the insights you imagine will “wow” your readers essentially the most.
Write!
An empty web page. A blinking cursor.
There’s no extra avoiding it: it’s drafting time.
In the event you’re studying learn how to create an e-book to promote to your viewers, you’re going to want unique content material. You’re going to want an e-book well worth the value of admission.
However drafting doesn’t must be the scariest a part of the method. Listed below are just a few suggestions for getting the writing performed as effectively and painlessly as potential:
- Work on the cloud. Failing that, repeatedly again up your progress. Google Docs, for instance, mechanically saves for you. Different instruments, like Scrivener or Reedsy e-book editor, will be helpful to individuals who battle to remain organized.
- Work in milestones to remain motivated. In case your objective phrase depend is 25,000, ending a 1,000-word part received’t be very motivating. Give your self weekly and even each day milestones to maintain up the sensation of regular progress.
- Don’t let perfectionism sluggish you down. As writer Jodi Picault stated: “you possibly can’t edit a clean web page.” Even when one thing strikes you as “off,” merely make an observation to edit it later.
If that also proves overwhelming, you possibly can at all times outsource the drafting.
However possibly you don’t need to know learn how to create an e-book totally free; you simply need to get it printed.
Rent freelance writers on Upwork or Fiverr to finish some—and even all—of your e-book. Or experiment with instruments like ChatGPT for drafting options.
When completed, lean on instruments like Grammarly (AI edits and options) or Hemingway (readability check).
Nonetheless not glad along with your e-book? You can even subcontract an editor to get an additional pair of eyes in your draft.
Publishing your e-book: design, publishing, and advertising
You’ve obtained the phrases down. Now you might have a robust useful resource able to distribute to the lots. Only one little hiccup:
Nobody’s going to learn it in the event that they by no means hear about it.
And even when your viewers hears about your e-book, issues accessing the file can get in the best way.
Your e-book must be simple to seek out, simple to digest within the buyer’s most well-liked medium, and simple to learn as soon as downloaded.
Let’s be sure to’ve obtained all of your bases coated.
Tips on how to get a terrific e-book cowl
Everyone knows we shouldn’t choose a e-book by its cowl. But it’s exactly what readers do.
Your e-book isn’t essentially a tangible e-book your clients can maintain of their fingers, however a superb cowl will convey professionalism and worth. In the event you’re promoting an e-book—and even if you wish to use it as a lead magnet—your cowl ought to mirror the standard content material it comprises.
But you don’t must be an expert designer, both. Listed below are just a few methods you will get your e-book’s cowl as much as snuff:
- Outsource it, utilizing platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. If you wish to see a number of iterations, 99Designs enables you to put up a venture and evaluation designers’ entries first.
- Defer to AI. Join Midjourney, and AI may give you a number of iterations of e-book covers for a month-to-month subscription payment. You can even select from 4 iterations to assist the AI zero in in your favourite ideas.
- Use templates. Canva’s on-line e-book maker options pre-existing templates. Experiment with fonts, colours, and illustration parts to construct the e-book cowl your self, totally free.
- Use DIY E book Covers, which incorporates e-book templates which might be really easy, you merely choose them and edit the textual content to insert your title.
Prepping the e-book for publishing
Utilizing the instruments above, you possibly can craft a stellar e-book cowl with out being an expert designer.
However the within the e-book can get a bit tough.
The within of the e-book ought to look clear, skilled, and readable. And that’s not onerous to attain today.
What is onerous to attain? An e-book that appears equally lovely and readable it doesn’t matter what e-reader the client is utilizing.
Happily, you possibly can defer to those publishing instruments to maintain the fashion constant:
- Calibre is an open-source e-book publishing instrument. Use it to transform your Phrase and PDF information into ebook-ready codecs, like EPUB or MOBI. (Observe: e-readers just like the Amazon Kindle work with .mobi information.)
- Sigil is an e-book editor you need to use to publish on to the EPUB format. As with Calibre, you possibly can import textual content paperwork to transform to ebooks.
- Reedsy enables you to write inside the software program, then save on to PDF or EPUB. It additionally features a author and reader group for distributing your e-book as soon as it’s prepared.
At this level, you’ll additionally want a Desk of Contents (TOC).
If utilizing one of many instruments above, you possibly can create the TOC with hyperlinks straight in a phrase processor like Phrase or Google Docs.
To maintain it as simple as potential, use constant header kinds for chapter titles. For instance, in Google Docs, possibly your chapter titles are “H2.” Then merely publish to the brand new format with these instruments, they usually’ll protect your hyperlinks.
TOCs are particularly helpful for readers with particular ache factors. In the event that they’re downloading your e-book as a lead magnet, they could use the TOC to zoom proper to the part that addresses what they’re going via.
Tips on how to create an e-book in Canva
Earlier on, we talked about Canva as a useful resource for constructing your e-book cowl.
But it surely seems you are able to do it all in Canva.
Cowl pages, engaging shade schemes, deciding on typography, including visible parts—it’s all right here. There’s an whole part in Canva to steer you thru the steps concerned.
Consider it as e-book design for dummies.
These templates are helpful as a result of Canva enables you to copy/paste your content material straight. You can even select from a handful of pre-designed graphics to spruce up every chapter heading.
As you’re employed, Canva will mechanically save your progress.
When you’ve discovered learn how to create an e-book in Canva, obtain the file within the acceptable format, straight from the platform. There’s nothing to pay to Canva except you utilize premium parts options. However these are luxuries, not requirements.
Reviewing your e-book and prepping for publishing
Obtain.
When you click on that button, you’ll be excited. You may be tempted to share your masterpiece with the world.
So right here’s the toughest step: sleep on it.
Regardless of how onerous you edit, there are going to be errors. They usually’ll be more durable to repair after you publish it.
Ship your e-book to a couple loyal readers, or household and associates. See if they will spot any apparent errors. Solicit their suggestions, then make any last-minute adjustments to the draft itself.
And when you’ve used instruments like Canva or Calibre to obtain your e-book in a brand new format, give it a look. Studying it in a brand new format will provide you with a contemporary perspective.
Any apparent errors? Obvious errors? Extra context you’ll want to throw in on the final minute?
Now’s your final likelihood.
Create an e-book individuals will love
From choosing a distinct segment and concept era to sharpening your final file to a superb, shimmering gleam, constructing your first e-book will sound like coaching for a marathon.
However don’t fret! There are nice free instruments, from ChatGPT to Canva, that can assist you alongside the best way.
And when you’re performed, you’re performed. You’ll have an e-book you need to use to drive electronic mail signups or promote straight.
Plug it into AWeber as your lead magnet and watch as your publication grows. You’ll by no means must carry one other finger because the e-book—and your publication software program—does the remainder of the work.
However if you wish to generate profits off it, there’s only one extra step. Discover ways to promote your e-book to reap the advantages of what you’ve simply achieved.