March 17, 2009

10 Steps to Publishing an Ebook

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First, let me preface this by saying, publishing an ebook is not always a guaranteed success. No matter who you know, no matter what you write about, there will be times when launching an Ebook just doesn’t have the success that you had anticipated. There are many steps though to help ensure your Ebook launch is a success.

Your goal should be to write a quality ebook that has a clear target audience. Your ebook must answer a common problem, or need, that targeted audience shares. Once the book is written, proof read, and re-written, you’ll then have to develop a marketing plan, and stick to it!  My recommendation is to stick to that marketing plan for one year at least.

Let’s begin with the process that should commence before you write your first word. Begin by reading A LOT. Read both books you passionately love and books you can’t seem to make it past the first few pages. Then figure out what the author did in the book you loved, and what was wrong with in the book you couldn’t finish. Write down these points so they are crystal clear to you. Read other people’s books for inspiration and to discover what you should avoid as a writer.

The next step is to plan out your writing. You should already have a good idea for your subject. You’ll just want to take that and divide that into chapters. Each chapter should address a specific aspect of the problem your book is going to solve. In each chapter, break the specific aspect down into several parts.  This will help your readers take in your information a bit at a time instead of overwhelming them with every bit of information clogging up the pages until they feel like they’re about to go blind. It’s not quite spoon-feeding the information to your readers, but it’s close.

The next couple of steps should be rather obvious. You’ll want to write your book, and then revise it! Revising should be an ongoing process to the very end, so don’t let this be discouraging. Writing can be difficult, especially when it seems like completion is just an impossible task. There are many books out there that give you guidelines to help you become familiar with the process of writing and revision. You may even find that you actually love this aspect. Don’t be afraid to find books solely about writing books. These can serve as road maps on your writing journey.

Once you’ve written your ebook and revised it at least twice, show it to someone else whose opinion you respect. If you’re lucky enough to know a good editor, see if you have something to barter for him or her to go through your manuscript. Or join a writing group and let the other members critique your work. You may be the shy type, and this might be something that you struggle to overcome, but it’s a necessary step. You will have become so familiar with you writing, then you will skim over parts where there may be errors to correct.

Take all these ideas from other people, and revise your manuscript one last time. And then stop! Back away from the keyboard! One of the most important steps to actually producing a book is to know when to stop writing and tinkering with it. It’s certainly possible to overwrite, overedit and overanalyze.

So to recap, here are the 10 steps to Publishing an Ebook:
1. Write Your Goal
2. Read other ebooks
3. Plan Your Writing
4. Write
5. Revise
6. Revise again
7. Someone else to Critique
8. Revise
9. STOP!
10. Celebrate!

That’s right, the last step is to celebrate. You’ve finally written your ebook! Pop open the champagne! Give yourself a night out on the town! Okay, now that this necessary celebration is out of your system, what do you do next? Tomorrow’s post will cover the topic of making profits with your ebook.

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Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients.

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