How To Write an Ebook and Get Published on Amazon
Do you LOVE to write? Have something amazing to share with the world? Have a real life experience that can help others? Writing an eBook can be great exposure for your business and a powerful sales funnel. Its a way to offer a ton of value around a personal story or area of expertise. Here you are going to learn all the secrets to getting published on Amazon Kindle and its easier than you think!
An eBook is a great marketing tool for you and your business. Will it make you rich or land you on the Best Seller's list, who knows but it can do is create more exposure for you and your business.
Writing an eBook is a process and not something you throw together. Only tackle an eBook if its something you TRULY feel passionate about doing.
Step 1 | Brainstorm
Do some creative brainstorming about what you want to write an eBook about. How can it benefit your target audience? What problem can you help solve? Write all of your ideas down so you have a lot to work with and research.
Step 2 | Research
Go to Amazon and take all of your creative ideas that you brainstormed for content and start searching the Amazon books department. What other books are available that are similar to what you want to write about? You may find a category that you would be one of the first to offer value in that area.
Be strategic about the topic of your ebook. Here are some helpful tips:
Solve a Problem. Your eBook is NOT about you, how many copies can you sell, how much money can you make, its about helping other people. Giving VALUE. Being of service to others. Be helpful! “How to” topics are excellent choices for ebooks. Use your research to find a hole and fill it. The hole you find doesn’t have to be ginormous, it’s just needs to be common to a good size group of people.
Address a Fear. Most of us have some area of fear in our lives. Everything from “What are people going to think of me?” to “Am I being a good parent?” to “Are we saving enough money?”. We can manifest some pretty big fears in our minds. What if you could come up with a topic that addresses a common fear and you offer a way to relieve that fear? You just might just knock it out of the park!
Satisfy a Curiosity. People wonder about stuff and why our society is so easily sucked into celebrity gossip and why reality shows are so popular. Red carpet fashion, Duck Dynasty, digging for gold in Alaska, Shark Tank, you get the picture. The bottom line is, we are intrigued by information that’s not readily available. If you have insider knowledge about something the masses might like to know (and are free to share that information), it might be a good ebook topic.
Most eBooks will address one of these areas but for the over achieving creative you can figure out a way to address 2 or all 3 of these areas in your eBook.
Additional tips:
Write about something you’ve got a passion for or at least know a fair amount about that ca also allow you to share your story. If you are going to write about something you know nothing about and have zero passion for because you are trying to make a quick buck it will be an epic fail.
Choose a topic that has some meat and substance - an eBook on average is 25-30 pages but don't let that limit your writing.
Write about something that authentically fits your established online identity and brand.
Know your target audience. Know the pain/problem you are going to solve for them.
Make your subject unique and not readily available or a broad topic.
Step 3 | Launch Date
Any major project should have a "launch date". Otherwise it never gets done or accomplished. Get your calendar out and choose a date for the launch your eBook. Be realistic but something that is measurable and you can hold yourself accountable to. Your eBook topic and marketing is a HUGE consideration. Is it a topic that would correspond to a holiday? Back to School? Summer vacations? Beginning of the year when people are focused on New Year's Resolutions (goal setting, weight loss)? Be intentional and strategic.
Step 4 | Writing Tips
Now that you have an idea narrowed down its time to start putting it into a book form. A simple tip that really helped me was to have a designated spiral notebook that I could create an outline in before I started typing. I was able to better organize my thoughts into chapters. I carried it around with me every where as I would have thoughts come to me in random places and while I was multi tasking. I would jot it down in my notebook and not feel stressed about not being in "creative writing mode" in front of my computer.
Create an outline for your eBook so your time spent at the computer are focused and productive.
Block out time to write with little to no distractions
Don't format as you go (bold, italic, etc). Save formatting for the end. Just focus on getting your words on paper
Avoid writers block by writing something, anything. Even if it sounds horrible just get your thoughts down so you have something to work with
Save your document often. There is nothing worse than writing for an hour only to lose all that work. SAVE YOUR HARD WORK OFTEN.
Be sure to create your masterpiece in Microsoft Word so its easily converted and formatted for Kindle.
IMPORTANT COMPONENTS FOR YOUR EBOOK
A Cover Image (you can create one super easily and for free on Canva. if you are need of stock photos that you can legally use for your book check out Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Adobe Stock or Shutterstock for just the right image. This is the first thing people will see so choose a good image that represents your brand and content well). Ensure you read the licensing rights for the image.
A Title
Author and Copy Right Notice
The Rights of the Author and Licensing Agreement. Something like "All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical review and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. This eBook is licensed for your personal use only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to another person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author".
Bio of the Author - will help your readers connect with you, your story and expertise.
Table of Contents
An Introduction
Conclusion
Call To Action Page - Links where people can connect with you on social media, opt into an email list, connect with you on your blog, etc. Use your eBook as a sales funnel to grow your list.
Short note thanking them for reading your book and to leave a review
Step 5 | Proofing Your eBook
Once you have your eBook finished, re-read it several times for flow, spelling and grammatical errors. Put yourself in your readers shoes. Is it overly wordy? Are you off topic at all? Ask people close to you like friends and family to read your content and give you honest timely feedback so you stay on track with your launch date.
Its always a good idea to have several sets of eyes on your work. Enlist a friend to help you with proofing and take them out for coffee as a thank you for their time. If you have the budget you can also hire a freelance copy writer.
Step 6 | Choosing a Great Title
Once you have finished your eBook, re-read it and gotten some valuable feedback you can choose a great title for your eBook. Ensure that it clearly conveys what the reader should expect from your book and how it will solve their problem, make their lives better or easier. You can even take this a step further and register a domain name with www.godaddy.com for your book title to increase your book marketing efforts. A registered domain is particularly important if you plan to create a sales or squeeze page for your book.
Step 7 | Formatting for Amazon Kindle
Formatting your book for the Amazon Kindle Store is easy to do once you know all the steps to take. Kindle Direct Publishing is the place to go for How To Get Started. You will need to create an account and log in to access the Help section. Once there you can easily upload your book as a Word docx file. Once uploaded you can even preview your book for formatting issues. You may have to make some revisions to fix formatting issues but its well worth it to ensure your reader has a great experience with your book.
Ensure that your eBook cover is easy to read. Big bold words, no fancy fonts that are hard to read. Use bold eye catching colors and a simple design. You can create an eBook cover in Canva.
Step 8 | Adding Your eBook to the Kindle Store
Once your book has been formatted for Kindle you are ready to upload it to the Kindle Store! Log in to your Kindle Direct Publishing account and go through the easy to follow steps to upload your eBook.
You will need to include a short and long description for your eBook as well as info for an "about the author" section take your time and think about what will grab your readers to want to buy and download your book. Ensure that you read through this information carefully before you submit it for any spelling errors. It will take about 48 hours for your book to be "live" in the Kindle Store once you upload and submit all of your information.
Don't forget to create your Author Page by going to Amazon Author Central. You want your book and page to look complete and professional. You can even link to the RSS feed of your blog here too.
Step 9 | Marketing Your eBook
1. You can create some buzz and do a Pre-Release of your eBook and give away so many free copies so you can gather feedback and testimonials.
2. Write valuable content on your blog and strategically place links back to your eBook on where they can find more of the same valuable content.
3. Create a landing or sales page using the domain you purchased specifically for your eBook.
Congratulations on your first eBook!!!!
Were these tips helpful? Share with a friend and leave me a comment, would love to hear from you!
