How do I write my first ebook?

**highanddry** · 05-15-2008, 02:29 PM

^^ LOL "War and Peace" has like 600,000 words.

I think e-books struggle to find a big enough market and 10,000 is way to short for regular/typical book publishing. Maybe i'm just ignorant of ebooks and their readers but I don't think it enjoys a big following.

**File13** · 05-17-2008, 01:00 AM

Write it, convert it to a PDF, post it on eJunkie or Click Bank. That's the how.

The bigger question is "Should you?" Writing the book is the easy part. Promoting it is the killer. As others already said, you have to have the authority. If you don't have that, put the book on the back burner for a while and build the authority.

**highanddry** · 05-17-2008, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Writing the book is the easy part

Then you are no writer.

**File13** · 05-17-2008, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highanddry

Then you are no writer.

Actually, I am. It's my job. And I'm rather good at it.

Writing the ebook is the easy part. Compared to building an authority and marketing the ebook, the writing is almost nothing. It takes a short amount of time to produce the text for the ebook and months to get people to care enough to buy the thing.

Whether writing itself is hard or not is another topic for another time.

**highanddry** · 05:07 PM

Mine too... But no real writer would call writing any book worth reading "the easy part,"

regardless of how hard marketing is. I admit I have very little knowledge of the trials of "e-book" writers... Maybe being an e-writer is easy because the market is so shallow.

**noobpreneur** · 06-04-2008, 11:46 PM

Hi,

To jump in the discussion abruptly

, I consider writing ebook difficult - so does the marketing.

Sure, I can give you 1000 words right now easy, but I don't think a cr@ppy 1000 words would sell :P

IMO, even a much thought out 100 words blog post can get much more respose than 1000 cr@ppy words ebook.

Cheers!

**VirtuosiMedia** · 06-05-2008, 02:16 PM

Writing may not be easy for everyone, but for some people, it either comes naturally or they have practiced enough so that it is no longer difficult.

Good writing doesn't necessarily have anything to do with good sales. I've seen way too many popular books and ebooks that were horribly written to say that bad writing can't sell. Packaging and marketing have a lot more to do with it. So too does the usefulness of the information. There are also other factors such as emotional appeal, timeliness, and cost.

In general, I'd suggest something like the following:

Terms

G - Good
B - Bad or Poor
W - Writing
M - Marketing (also includes emotional appeal and timeliness)
P - Packaging (also includes cost)
I - (Usefulness of) Information

Formulae

GM + GP + GI + GW = 1st book will be popular, subsequent works will also sell
GM + GP + GI + BW = 1st book will be popular, subsequent works may also sell
GM + GP + BI + GW = 1st book will be popular, subsequent works may also sell, but not as many
GM + GP + BI + BW = 1st book may be popular, subsequent works will not sell
GM + BP + GI + GW = 1st book may be mildly popular, subsequent works will sell
GM + BP + GI + BW = 1st book may be mildly popular, subsequent works may also sell
GM + BP + BI + GW = 1st book may be mildly popular, subsequent works may also sell, but not as many
GM + BP + BI + BW = 1st book will not be popular, subsequent works will not sell
BM + GP + GI + GW = 1st book may become popular, but will take longer to get there. Subsequent works will also sell, and at a quicker rate than the 1st.
BM + GP + GI + BW = 1st book may become popular, but will take longer to get there. Subsequent works may also sell, and at a quicker rate than the 1st.
BM + GP + BI + GW = 1st book will probably not become popular and subsequent works will not sell.
BM + GP + BI + BW = 1st book will not become popular, subsequent works will not sell
BM + BP + GI + GW = 1st book may become mildly popular, but will take longer to get there. Subsequent works will also sell, and at a quicker rate than the 1st.
BM + BP + GI + BW = 1st book may become mildly popular, but will take longer to get there. Subsequent works will also sell, and at a quicker rate than the 1st.
BM + BP + BI + GW = 1st book will not become popular, subsequent works will not sell
BM + BP + BI + BW = 1st book will not become popular, subsequent works will not sell

**alstar70** · 06-05-2008, 11:09 PM

I've written my first ebook - 6,500 words - 23 pages. Its being given away free and is mainly to help educate my GDI downline. I have a problem though - the links - URL's aren't active in the ebook - obviously they aren't converting from word. I'm using a 2002 word office product (ancient I know), could this be the problem. I don't want to send it out until the affiliate links are activate.

Any advice?

**macdog** · 06-13-2008, 10:47 AM

You Can Download for Free at OpenOffice.org
The writer tool in there will convert any document to pdf for your ebook.