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Best of all while it is important that you can write clearly and coherently you don’t have to be a great writer to do this. And you can get started making money today before you even write a word.

If that sounds a bit far fetched to you I don’t blame you for being skeptical.

After over a decade struggling to make a living as a writer I wouldn’t have believed it either.

But there really is a way to write a steady stream of ebooks that sell and to get paid good money before you even start.

Let me share some fundamentals with you.

First you have to understand that you only get paid for the value you create when you write.

If you can write an ebook or a report that generates tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales or business it’s reasonable to expect to be paid a good percentage of the profits you generate.

That’s why it’s so much easier to make money writing an ebook or a report in the business how to niche than it is to make money writing a fiction book.

But there’s an even more important fundamental you need to grasp if you want to write an ebook that sells immediately.

Before you turn on your computer and start writing you must have a hungry market to sell your ebook to.

The only way to guarantee your ebook will sell is to know at least one person will buy it…before you write a word.

And here’s my real secret to writing an ebook that sells.

I don’t try to write ebooks for the general market. I don’t even try to sell them myself.

You can make an exceptional income by writing ebooks and reports to help local businesses sell their products and services.

If you were working with a pool and spa installer you might write an ebook with the title “The 7 Most Costly Mistakes You Can Make Installing Your Home Spa (And How To Avoid Them)”.

It doesn’t have to be a long ebook either. Just one to ten pages that lead to the obvious conclusion for the prospect that he should be getting his spa installed by your client.

I’ve been paid many thousands of dollars to write simple 3-7 page reports.

And my clients pay me 50% of my fee in advance. That means I get paid a substantial amount of money for my ebook before I even write a word!

Here are 5 sizzling tips to help you on your way to creating a winning e-book.

1. The Easy Way

No matter what advice I might offer, there are some of you out there that just don’t want to write. The best thing to do is to find people that have already written a quality e-book and will offer you a resale license or agreement. Sometimes it is free if you buy the book which is what I do. And others charge a small fee for the complete resale rights. All in all, for most e-books out there, you can buy them for under $100 with resale rights. A business is born. Try and look for newer e-books and those that would be interesting to you. E-books that make the most amount of money teach you how to avoid pain or how to gain pleasure.

2. Another Great Idea

Go to the top article directories and search for articles in your subject of interest. For example, if you wanted to write a book that helps people save money on their taxes, go to several article directories and look up what articles have been written on that subject matter. If you see twenty great tips that can save people up to $1000 a year or more, you could compile a report that says something like
“20 Tax Saving Strategies You Can’t Afford to Miss.” Of course, you can’t use these articles word for word because that is illegal but you can write down your own thoughts and ideas about each of the tips and re-write them in your own words. Now you can market this on the internet and sell it for $39.95. Do you think some reasonable portion of the 265 million people that live in the USA are interested in tax savings? You bet!

3. The Born Writer

Some years ago, Reader’s Digest reported that some 70% of people acknowledge they had a book inside of them they wanted to write one day. Most of us have something we want to share but many times just don’t know where to get started or feel overwhelmed by writing a whole book. This is where e-books can be fun. Most e-books are about 50 pages long with 12pt type and paragraphs double spaced. They really aren’t that long. If you break your e-book down into tips or ideas, it is easier to write. For instance, if you generated 50 tips, you would have one page per tip. That’s not so daunting! And, for heaven’s sake, write when you feel like writing. I have found that I can write twice as much when I feel inspired. And the quality is oh so much better!

4. What’s Hot?

If you are at a loss of what to write about, go to Amazon.com and find out what the best sellers are. They are a wonderful resource for anyone. Let’s say your interest is in the top weight loss programs. Order the 3 best selling books, read them and then write your own e-book. If it is a subject matter you are interested in, you’ll breeze through the books and have lots of ideas and comments. Even if your interests don’t seem like you would have much of an audience, you might be surprised to find out otherwise. Going to Overture and typing in your keyword is always helpful. For most subjects there are thousands if not millions of people that want to know more. If you can provide them with quality information, they will buy from you.

5. Teach What you Know

Most of us have some kind of a specialty but don’t recognize our talents. “No talent lies latent.” It could be anything from raising a difficult child to coaching basketball. Or it could be related to a job you have held whether it is a mechanic for sports cars or a software developer. Your e-book could simply be teaching someone how to do it better. Or maybe it is how to save time, or money or enjoy life more or to live healthier. People want better lives and if you show them some solutions, you’ll sell your e-book. Remember, your e-book doesn’t and shouldn’t be a novel. Break things down into steps or ideas and the writing will go smoother.

I hope these 5 simple tips have ignited the fire in your brain and inspired you to write that e-book. A business opportunity will be born.

If the thought of writing an e-book seems a daunting task to you, it’s really not as difficult as it seems. If you are already educated in internet marketing and know what writing original articles can do for your business and search engine ranking, then you are already most of the way there. Even if you know little about internet marketing and just like to write, you have a good chance of creating a good downloadable product that you can sell online.

The trick to writing an e-book that will sell is to know what people’s problems are. This doesn’t mean you need to be a psychologist! It simply means that you need an awareness of what people are asking for online that they need help with and want to find a solution for. People will buy from you when they know you have defined a problem they are having, and offer a solution to that problem.

What can Google and Ebay do to help you write this problem-defining and problem-solving e-book that will sell like hot cakes you ask? The answer is that Google and Ebay are excellent research tools that you can tap into to find out what people are having problems with. It’s very important to use these free tools because if you start writing away about a topic that has little relevance to what people are looking for online then chances are your product won’t sell.

Keep in mind too that the other trick to making a best-selling e-book is to know about and love your chosen topic. You will find it much easier to write a lot about a topic you are truly interested in rather than trying to write about something you know nothing about. You want to share your expertise and personal experiences about a topic, not your fake attempt to appeal to people’s emotions just so they will buy your product.

So once you find a topic you love and know about, you can go to Ebay and start doing your research. What do I mean by “doing your research”? By this I mean you want to know what people are looking to buy on Ebay. Let’s say you love hiking in the mountains. Go to Ebay and type in “hiking”, or “hiking boots”, or “hiking backpacks”, for example. Find out what gets a lot of people’s interest, as indicated by the number in the search results. Look at the listings to see what people are bidding on. This will give you an idea if your topic is worth writing an e-book about or not. Do the same in Google by typing in some search terms related to your topic to see if you can find the problems people want answers to, and if you feel you can write a lot about that yourself.

It’s very good practice to get into the habit of using a good keyword research tool, such as the one offered at SEO Book. Once you have a good topic, you also want to target the keywords people are searching for in the search engines. With a keyword research tool you will find out which keywords are worth targeting. Most people think to use the keywords with the most searches, however, you want to target keywords that do get searched, but not the most frequently so that you can get to the top of the search engine listings with your effective keywords. These will be keywords searched maybe 5000-10000 times per month or thereabouts in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The great thing about having been involved in internet marketing before is that you have probably already written a few articles to promote your business online. If this is the case, you can compile your articles into an e-book without having to write anything extra! E-books don’t have to be long! Or if you write about your experiences and can share your knowledge about your climb to Everest’s base camp, then just compile your notes into an e-book with very little extra effort!

Finally, you can use Google and Ebay not only for research purposes, but after you’ve written your e-book, you can then offer it for sale on Ebay, advertise it using Google Adwords perhaps, watch your e-book rise to the top of the search engine listings, and grin happily as the sales start coming in!

Choose Your Audience

The subject and style of your writing will determine your audience. Decide who your desired audience will be. Age, gender, culture, social background and education are factors you may want to consider. What you write should be targeted at your desired audience.

Write Your Thesis Statement

Although it’s possible to write your ebook without a ‘thesis statement’, it is not recommended. If you are unfamiliar with this term, there are many sources available that will provide you with all the details you need. Unfortunately, there are some differences of opinion that may lead to confusion.

The ‘thesis statement’ deserves a separate article of its own but for now I have written a general definition of a thesis statement for ebooks. This may leave the door open for criticism but is a small price to pay if it removes some of the confusion. More importantly, it will give you a base on which to start. Only use it as a guideline. If you want a more specific definition, Google is a good place to start your search. A thesis statement is a sentence or two written to clearly show the reason(s) for your ebook and what you expect to write about. Although I have referred to this as a general definition, keep in mind that your actual statement should be as specific as possible.

Think of it as the foundation for your ebook. It should contain the following:

1) Your subject
2) Your opinion on the subject
3) A supporting reason for your opinion
4) The significance of 1), 2) and 3)

Create Your Document

Now that you have the foundation, you can begin writing. A standard application like MS Word is a good choice. While you are writing your document you can revise your thesis statement at any time up until it is published. This provides a good degree of flexibility. Choose the format and layout of your document, including chapters, headings and introductions. Dependent on your subject, you may wish to add photographs, anecdotes or testimonials that keep the reader’s attention.

Since an ebook is generally read from a screen, you may want to break up the text more than in a printed book. Experiment with a few different fonts and look at other ebooks for ideas you can use. Spell check and save your document regularly. MS Word has an auto recovery feature. This is useful if you don’t save the document on a regular basis and later experience a system crash. Always backup your document. As a precaution you should also keep a copy on another media such as CD.

Choose Your ebook Format

This is a personal choice. You may decide to create an executable (.exe) file or a Portable Document Format (.pdf) file. By no means an exhaustive list, here are some points to consider before you choose.

EXE files are compiled using an ebook compiler
EXE files may offer features that are not available with PDFs
EXE files can only be read on a PC
EXE files don’t require any other software to be read
EXE files are easy to open, easily branded, and good viral marketing tools
EXE files may be susceptible to viruses although some compilers offer virus protection
More information on the better compilers can be found at

http://www.ebook-site.com/ebook-compilers.html

PDF files can be created using Adobe Acrobat
PDF files can be created with several other 3rd party applications
PDF files are an industry standard
PDF files can be read by both PC and MAC
PDF files require Adobe Reader to be read
PDF files are highly unlikely to become infected
More information on PDFs can be found on the Adobe website

Create Your Ebook

Create your ebook in your chosen format. Congratulations you are now an author.

 have chosen affiliate programs as the basis of my bookstore because I don’t have to deal with receiving payments, accepting credit cards, processing orders, storing inventory, taking back orders, shipping, and so on and on.

Going to work in a bricks and mortar store would mean putting together the whole package – dress, hair, makeup – with my own online store, I can do what I want, when I want, looking like I want. My store is open 24/7/365 to customers around the world, I never meet cranky people face to face (just sometimes in emails!) and my store is private and always peaceful (no cranky kids!).

How to turn a small affiliate income into a steady trickle? Find a bookstore with a great affiliate program such as the one that’s been called “the world’s best bookstore”.
Faced with a decision between two ideas for how to run my store, I chose option #1. I can simply fill my site with quality, relevant content pages and encourage visitors to click through to the merchant’s website to purchase, or I can use a data feed to create a carbon copy of the original store on my website. I still have to write original copy, to make it unique and not be penalized as duplicate content, but I can have a huge site instantly, automatically updated. Visitors then don’t need to leave my website to make their purchases.

The Cons of Owning an Online Bookstore

Of course there are always arguments against shopping online; the cons are that bookstores are lovely places to visit. There are book signings, readings, and the joy of finding a few interesting books, taking them to a comfortable chair, and giving them a good look before deciding whether to purchase. And of course, online sites malfunction more often than stores have to unexpectedly close.

Affiliate marketers need to write content that overcome the obstacles potential customers present: their lack of trust, annoyance with difficulties, and reluctance to make that final click.

If your customer knows exactly what they want, no problem, but if they want to “window shop” the process can be painfully slow as they move from page to page. If they like to “scan and let something pop out at them”, they can become frustrated at only being able to view what fits on one page at a time.

When it’s time to pull out the plastic, they may question the security of ordering with their card online, wonder if they want to pay high shipping costs, and what happens if they need to return an order?

How I Made My Decision

Most of the cons can be compensated for or avoided by careful choosing of affiliate programs. Few online book companies simply offer books. They also offer reviews, contests, coupons, and ways to participate in what feels like a community.

Website design with care taken to make navigation clear and simple can make browsing and comparison shopping easier, and of course stores with great track records, testimonials, and security in place make all the difference when it comes to consumer confidence.