How to Publish an Ebook Series – Part 2 – Getting Started

I know that when I read a “series” of posts on other people’s blogs, it can be a drag at times, usually because the information is really specific and can sometimes be a bore. I can’t guarantee this all of the material I write in this eBook series will be super interesting, but I guarantee that it’s super important. I want you to succeed like I did, and so I’m going to go through everything from the start.

I want to keep you motivated, so check this out…since I published my own eBook 5 months ago, I’ve grossed over $82,000 in sales. Here’s a screenshot to prove it:

So there are over 6 billion people in this world, and I’ve only sold something to 2600 of them, which is more than enough income for me to live comfortably on. That’s a very small percentage, in a very small niche, in a very large world. There’s got to be something that you can create that a small part of the world will pay for. Just keep on reading and I’m sure the ideas will flow.

Moving on…

Recap

In my last post, I went through my thought process about why I chose to write an eBook as opposed to a hard copy. Here are my responses to some of your questions since:

Why Not Publish Both a Hard Cover and an Electornic eBook? My choice to sell only an electronic book is based on a couple of reasons. One, I did not want to deal with having inventory. Having inventory means having to process orders myself and deal with shipping and possibly losing items. Secondly, the electronic book was an instant download, meaning that when the customer pays for the item, he or she gets an email sent to them automatically and they can have the item on their computer within a minute. A hard copy would mean shipping time, even if it was print-on-demand. For those studying for the exam, they want the material as soon as possible, and it’s my educated guess that they could care less about how the information gets to them, as long as they have it. Also, the electronic book could is printable, so if they really wanted a hard copy, they could print it out themselves.
What Are Your Thoughts about eBook Piracy? I’m going to dedicate a good chunk of this series to this subject, so look out for my full answer later on. In short, it’s gonna happen, but there are some things that you can do to mitigate piracy of your eBook.
How Did you Turn your eBook into an Audio Guide? I’ll get to this after the eBook section is completed, I promise.

Keep the questions coming, because I want to make sure I don’t skip over anything important you might be wondering about.

How to Get Started

Honestly, when I started writing my eBook, I had no idea how I was going to format it, market it, sell it, deliver it, and even collect cash for it if it even sold. All I knew that I had to start writing. I’ve mentioned this before, but every day you don’t have something online to sell is a day of potential income you’re missing out on.

First Things First: Plan it Out

One of the earliest posts on The Smart Passive Income Blog was about how I used Mind Maps to organize my ideas and the creation of my eBook. This step is VERY important. You must write down your ideas and by using a mind map, you’re able to easily organize them, see the flow between ideas, and follow-through and esaily perform the next and most important step: creating an outline.

Think of the outline as your future table of contents. For my LEED study guide, mine was broken down into different hierarchical parts. You can use sections, parts, chapters, whatever breakdown you think is appropriate for you. Here is the beginning of my outline/table of contents from my eBook:

Introduction to LEED
- Section 1: What is LEED?
- Section 2: What is a LEED AP?
- Section 3: How to Become a LEED AP
  - Part 1: What is the Exam Like?
  - Part 2: Which LEED Exam Track is Best for You?
  - Part 3: Signing Up for the Exam
- Section 4: Exam Material Breakdown
  - Part 1: Prerequisites and Credits
  - Part 2: The LEED Certification Process

Of course, the order was different when I first wrote this down, but I used the time before I started writing to figure out the order I wanted everything to be presented. The order of the material you present can MAKE or BREAK your success.

Think about what makes sense for your specific material. To best do this, imagine you don’t know anything about what you’re writing about. How would you, as a totally brand new person to the subject, best learn and benefit from it.

The Tools You Need To Start Writing

To start publishing your book, all you need is a word processor. I’m pretty sure we all have one, so that means you can get started today! I prefer Microsoft Word because it easily converts to other formats which you can use to format your eBook right before it’s ready to sell. Don’t worry about that right now, you can always figure out how to get your text into the right format later no matter which program you use. For now, just know that all you need is a word processor and your writing skills.

If you’re worried about your writing skills, don’t. Just write how you normally write, and you can always hire someone to edit/transpose your text into correct grammar later.

How to Start Writing

Getting started is the most difficult part. What do you say? Where do you begin?

Most books begin with some kind of introduction or preface, but if you’re having trouble starting with that, you can skip to another section that you feel more conformatble with.

One of the best tips I ever received was to write and save your eBook in sections (based on your outline). This way, each part of your outline is basically like it’s own article or blog post. Once you finish a “post”, cross it off, and then you will see exactly what else you have left to write. This is how it can be really easy to keep your book in order while you write out of order. At the end when you’ve finish all of your “posts”, you can then format each of the text in your files into a larger, “final product” file.

So, your file names might look like this, but it’s up to you really (from example above):

0-Introduction.doc
01-WhatisLEED.doc
02-WhatisaLEEDAP.doc
03-HowtoBecomeLEEDAP.doc
031-WhatisExamLike.doc

…and so on. The numbers in the front are so that they show up in order in your windows explorer or finder. It may be a smart idea to create all of the file names first from your outline, just so you get them out of the way. If you know some sections are tiny, you can combine them if you prefer.

Again, start with the sections that you know you can bust out right away, and worry about the parts or sections you’re not quite to sure about or that may need more research later. Just having part of your book done will motivate you to finish the rest even more.

Up Next

In the next installment of the “How to Publish an eBook Series”, I’ll go over the sections of the actual eBook that are important to include and how I formatted the document file into a file that was ready for sale. Until then!

29 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply Online Dividends on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 am

Nice series. I am looking forward to reading more about writing an e book.

Online Dividends´s last blog post..Passive Income for February 2009

Reply pfincome on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:13 am

Thanks so much for covering this information! I am keeping notes along the way. This is very valuable information for us newbies to writing an eBook.

pfincome´s last blog post..Cash Flow Management – Investing Passive Income

Reply Studenomics on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 am

Another great article in the series. Sorry if I missed something but how long did it take you to write this ebook?

Studenomics´s last blog post..Hits of the Week

Reply Chris on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 am
This is good stuff. I’m looking forward to future posts in this series on the marketing aspect of things.

Reply Jeff on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:59 am

In my experience of writing, organization of topics has been the most challenging aspect. I’m writing an ebook for WritersHall that is a guide for those looking to start their freelance writing careers, so as you could imagine, there is a TON of important aspects that is going into this ebook — which will make it difficult to keep topics organized. As it’s the goal for us authors to make the book readable, so I found that I will write specific details first, such as setting up an eportfolio, then I will take a few related topics and create a chapter.

How did I do this? With MIND MAPS! For anyone having trouble in the organization area, go with Mind Maps, as you’ll find production increasing ten fold!

Jeff´s last blog post..To blog or not to blog? Do you find it beneficial??

Reply Genevieve on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 am

Good stuff, Pat. I really appreciate the tip about having separate files for each section so that you can stay organized while writing out of order. I’m going to go line out my e-book now!

Genevieve´s last blog post..Container Plants that Birds Love

Reply Sarah H. on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:16 am

Getting started is always very hard. I like your tip about starting with a section you are comfortable with. It’s easy to get hung up if you try to just start right from the beginning. One of my college professors gave me a writing tip a while back that I’ve continued to use time and time again: when you “finish” one section and decide you are done for the day, try to start the next section just a little (like a sentence or two) so that when you pick it back up the next day you can just sit down and keep on writing where you left off. It really works!

Sarah H.´s last blog post..Meal Plan Mondays: 3-23-09

Reply Steve @ Start-Up on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:26 am

You know what they say, “Getting started is half the battle”. Isn’t that the truth. Unfortunately, I haven’t started any of my ebooks, but my target release date would be optimal for the beginning of the school year so I have some time. I just have to get started.

I think the next post will be most beneficial in my opinion. I’m anxiously awaiting it.

Steve @ Start-Up´s last blog post..How to Invest with Lending Club

Reply Craig on March 23rd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I think it’s really cool to see the step by step thought process of how you created your ebook and began selling it.
Reply Vik Dulat on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Great articles Pat. Keep them coming

Vik Dulat´s last blog post..Comparing March Madness and blogging

Reply eHow Experience on March 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 pm

I’m really excited about this series. I’ve already penned an eBook but I can’t get past the hurdles of figuring out the best way to get the content online, promote, and automate the payment/delivery. I really hope that you’re able to go into a lot of detail once you get to this point in the series and will be able to let us know how you made those decisions and which companies you used.

Keep up the great work.

eHow Experience´s last blog post..Introduction

Reply Steve @ Start-Up on March 24th, 2009 at 10:32 am

@eHow Experience, I’m sure Pat will go over these topics, but for your own reference you might want to check out Yanik Silver’s “Moonlighting on the Internet” and Timothy Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Workweek”. Both provide great information about online marketing and automation.

Steve @ Start-Up´s last blog post..How to Invest with Lending Club

Reply DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad.com on March 24th, 2009 at 5:46 am

Mind mapping sounds like an interesting approach . . .

I outline in my notebook by writing down the questions I would have to answer in a public speaking presentation. My feeling is if I anticipate all the questions, I should cover the topic comprehensively.

I am using the same approach to flesh out my ebook topic ideas. While I have much of the content for some of my topics, I decided to start writing on two new topics yesterday. Sometimes you just have to start . . . it can always be re-written.

My target is 30 days for final drafts on these two new topics . . . thankfully, they are related.

DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad.com´s last blog post..So Long Blockbuster . . . ?

Reply Jeff on March 24th, 2009 at 7:31 am

Hey Pat — I know you discussed this is a post a while back, but I’d like you to maybe dive into the situation again.

It’s about pricing your ebook.

I’m just wanting to get your insight — I happened to have found my methods successful in finding the right prices for my ebooks, but I’d love to just get another take from a successful ebook writer Thanks Pat!

Jeff´s last blog post..To blog or not to blog? Do you find it beneficial??

Reply Pat on March 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pm

@Jeff, I did discuss this a while back, but I plan to resurface that info with some new stuff as well. The pricing was a funny thing and I’m pretty excited about getting into the whole marketing and pricing part of it all. I guess all I can say is stay tuned! Thanks Jeff!

Reply Bluntmoney on March 24th, 2009 at 8:00 am

I’m also curious about pricing. I noticed you have two different price points on the site. Do more people choose the e-book alone, or the package deal?

Bluntmoney´s last blog post..How am I doing at stock-picking?

Reply Pat on March 24th, 2009 at 3:16 pm

@Bluntmoney, the audio package was set up later, but since setting that up, it’s been selling better than just the eBook alone, which is great because it costs more. I’ll go more into pricing later in this series. Thanks for your patience!

Reply Fenster on March 24th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

Hi Pat,

I think the problem why you “just” sold 2600 (what a nice number) books is.. that people don’t know where your book is. I would like to buy it, I asked you 2 months ago but didn’t receive any reply.. I really can’t find your book, even don’t know what this is about…. what is the title, so I can google it…

You should make a extra Menu for it on the top “EBOOK” or so.. so dumb people like me can find it. Or put it in the About Page, there is no trace about your book.
Maybe you don’t have a book??

thanks Fenster.

Reply Pat on March 24th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

@Fenster, Thanks for the comment. I’ve mentioned on a number of posts here that my ebook is found on my website at http://www.intheleed.com. It’s an eBook that is essentially a study guide for an exam that architects and those in the construction industry take. It’s called “The LEED AP Walkthrough” – go ahead and Google it, I’m sure you’ll see it.

The page it’s being sold on is http://www.intheleed.com/leed-ap-walkthrough

Or maybe, I just made the whole thing up and I’m just pulling everyone’s leg. Yep, I’m spending a couple hours every other day writing posts about a made up eBook, on a blog (this blog), that isn’t even monetized yet.

Kidding aside, the reason I don’t have that eBook for sale here is because the readers on this site are not my target audience. The contents have nothing to do with passive income or making money online. I’m just documenting my experience with the eBook on my other website here for everyone’s benefit, hopefully.

After the eBook series is over, there will be an eBook topic in the nav bar above and it will most likely be the entire background and series all in one place. Either that or I’ll create a newsletter that has the same information, you’ll see it eventually. I apologize this hasn’t yet been established, but it will – you’re ahead of me

Thanks again and all the best to you!

Reply Elliott on March 27th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Great article Pat. Thanks for the recommendation! Enjoying your blog already!

Reply Brandon on April 1st, 2009 at 3:07 pm

What amazing results, congratulations on your success. I’m doing my best to write an e-book about franchising, but I’ve got so much content, I’m having trouble organizing it. Not to mention time constraints…but your numbers have got me motivated again!
Thanks,
TAM

Brandon´s last blog post..Should I buy a franchise?

Reply fathersez on April 7th, 2009 at 1:02 am

Very useful stuff presented in an interesting manner. I am looking forward to the next parts. Thanks

Cheers

fathersez´s last blog post..Taking hostages, sometimes it is a commercial negotiation tactic. I should know!

Reply Financial Samurai on November 7th, 2009 at 11:03 am

Hi Pat,

Do you mind clarifying the cost of each book? A quick calculation of $82,000 / 2,600 e-books = around $30/e-book.

Are people spending $30 a pop for your e-book? It seems kinda expensive, no? Am I doing my math wrong?

Thnx Pat!

Reply Pat on November 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am

Yep, you’re correct. My book goes for $29.95.

Actually, I had originally sold it for $19.95, because I was worried about the price being too high. Well, when I raised the price $10, I ended up selling more. What happened was the perceived value of the product became higher in the eyes of the consumer. It’s like, if you go to buy a car, and see one that’s only $500, you might think something is wrong with it.

Plus, people are paying $60-$120 for other study guides (hard copies), and upwards of $400 for classes, so $30 is nothing. I could of probably sold it for more, but I didn’t want to get greedy.

Reply Financial Samurai on November 7th, 2009 at 11:14 am

Wow Pat, that’s great and very insightful! How many pages is it, and how do you plan to scale it so it can last forever and keep on making you money? I’m assuming you will have edition updates and so forth?

Very cool. I didn’t realize people paid that much for books. What a great world to sell to!

Reply Pat on November 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am

I’ve seen eBooks and online courses go for upwards of $997.00 or more. It just depends on the value of the product to the customer, and how bad they really are looking for that type of information. Right now, you can make a LOT more money selling electronic books and information, as opposed to publishing a book for a store like B&N or Borders. Plus, almost 100% of the sale is pure profit.

Unfortunately, for the exam I wrote my study guide for, there are updates every two years, so I will have to update my guide (which I’ve done once already), but just spending 40 hours to update it is way worth it when you think that it will continue to provide an income for 2 years.

The most important thing is making sure you provide exactly what the customers are looking for in an honest way.

Reply Financial Samurai on November 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

Pat – I definitely agree. 40 hours of work for 2 years of income is a no brainer!

Hope you can sell your e-book to all of America!

Reply Mike on November 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

Mind maps are great. I have a large paper notepad hanging on the wall. I draw my mind map on that and then step back and look at it. I just started a new one for my e-book. Pat, you are providing valuable information here. Thanks!

Reply How to Publish an Ebook Series - Part 5 - Tools and Automation | The Smart Passive Income Blog on November 16th, 2009 at 1:28 pm

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