Writing E-books: Living Memory as a Source of Information

In previous articles I have discussed the importance of utilizing one’s own knowledge as a means of choosing a topic for your e-book. However, personal knowledge of a particular subject, while it might be extensive, should always be supplemented by additional research.

Additional research not only enhances the quality of our work, it also adds another dimension to our writing. For example, about twenty years ago I was researching material for a book that I was planning to write. The title of the book was called ‘Truth, Justice and the Fallen Woman’. The book was based on the true story of Charlotte Bryant, a woman convicted of murdering her husband Fredrick. Charlotte was eventually hanged after a trial marked by controversial and misleading evidence presented by the crown prosecution.

The idea behind the book was to highlight the real possibility that Charlotte was not only a victim of a miscarriage of justice but also a victim of extreme social prejudice. This meant that I would have to do extensive research into the murder and into the evidence presented by the prosecution and defence counsels at Charlotte’s trial.

At the time I began my research the Internet was barely in its infancy and access was not as easy as it is today. I was therefore dependent on my local library and various newspaper cuttings for sources of information. Although the information gleaned from these sources was useful, it was also very limited in scope because of its sterile and seemingly detached nature. In essences, these sources didn’t give me Charlotte’s full story from a humanitarian perspective.

As Fredrick’s murder and Charlotte’s subsequent conviction was an event that took place in the small community in which I lived, I decided to ask members of the local population who were old enough to recall what had happened to Charlotte and her family. Many of the people I questioned about Charlotte were getting on in age, but thankfully they were able to recall the scandal that brought so much attention to our small community all those years ago.

One of the people I asked about Charlotte was an aging gentleman who was well into his late seventies. He remembered Charlotte and her family very clearly and had even kept paper clippings from her trial. The information imparted by this old gentleman proved invaluable, as it allowed me to pursue alternative avenues of research which I hadn’t previously thought about. One such avenue of research was related to Fredrick Bryant’s employment.

Fredrick died of severe arsenic poisoning, which the prosecution claimed had been administered to him by his wife, Charlotte. However, what was not mentioned at Charlotte’s trial was the fact that Fredrick was a farm worker and as such was regularly exposed to various pesticides containing arsenic.

Thanks to the aging old gentleman’s recollections of Charlotte and her family, I was able follow a line of research which uncovered evidence which suggested that Fredrick may have inadvertently poisoned himself.

Resorting to living memory as a starting point for my research into Charlotte’s conviction uncovered a wealth of information that was not readily available through other channels when I first started Truth, Justice and the Fallen Woman. Although the book has yet to be published, I am convinced that living memory will play an important role in how Truth, Justice and the Fallen Woman will be received by its readers. It is my sincere hope that the end product will raise questions about the soundness of Charlotte’s conviction, which in turn might lead to a judicial review of her case, albeit posthumously.

If you are into writing about recent historical events, then living memory may prove to be a useful tool to you in your search for information. You might be surprised at how much firsthand knowledge is stored in the minds of those who have actually lived through the events that you plan to write about.

Note: ‘Truth, Justice and the Fallen Woman’ will be available in e-book form in March 2011.

Marketing Your e-Book: The Challenge

The most challenging part of becoming a successful e-book author is in how to market your e-book.

The first thing to do before you jump feet first into the hurly burly world of online marketing is to define your marketing goals. You can achieve this in five easy steps

Ø Identify your audience – who will read your e-book?

Ø Determine the value of your e-book in relation to your audience’s needs.

Ø Plan how you intend to position your e-book relative to your chosen market.

Ø Decide which marketing platform you intend to use – article marketing, social networking, paid advertising, or even a combination of all three.

Ø Determine how much you want to allocate to your marketing budget.

Your marketing effort will very much depend on your budget and other resources at your disposal. As my budget is rather limited, I tend to use article marketing.

Article marketing is one of the easiest ways to stimulate interest in your e-book. There are literally hundreds of article directories on the Internet. These directories serve the purpose of supplying webmasters with free content for their websites.

Writing articles and publishing them to article directories for webmasters to use is an excellent way of drawing attention to your e-book.

In short, a webmaster browses an article directory for articles suitable for posting on their website or in their newsletter. In exchange for using your article, the webmaster provides you, the author, with a small space to advertise yourself and your latest work.

An alternative to article marketing is to harness the power of social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook and LinkedIn are social utility sites that connect friends, colleagues or people with similar interests. LinkedIn appeals more to the business professional, whereas Facebook has a much broader reach in terms of its demographics.

Social networking sites are an excellent place to showcase your latest e-book publication. Facebook, for example, has a set of tools for creating a fan page for your e-book. Visitors to your fan page can review your work and leave comments. With over 500 million active Facebook users, the potential for your e-book to go viral is enormous.

You can find out more on how to market on Facebook by reading ‘Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day’ by Chris Treadaway and Marj Smith.

If your budget will allow, you can always use direct advertising. Google Adwords and StumbleUponAds spring to mind here. Google Adwords is slightly more expensive than StumbleUponAds, but both offer a good service supported by analytical tools to monitor the progress of your ads. It is all a matter of how much you are willing to spend on marketing your e-book.

But before you begin using any of the above methods for marketing your book, why not let your relatives and friends know about your latest e-book publication? Send them a few pages of your e-book as a sample of your work. The idea is to create a buzz around your e-book by encouraging your relatives and friends to talk about what you have written.

If your relatives and friends like the content of your e-book, then why not ask them to circulate the link where people can buy it? You will be surprised by how quickly and efficiently this method of marketing gets your e-book noticed.

Whatever method you choose for marketing your e-book, do not use spam as a means of getting your e-book noticed. Spam does not work and it will quickly get your e-book URL blacklisted by the search engines.

Writing E-books: How to choose a topic

The biggest problem facing e-book authors is in knowing what to write about. It is also a problem that perplexes most newbie e-book authors when it comes to launching their writing career.

The ability to write well is one thing, but to write with authority on a given topic is something else. Simply plucking a topic from thin air and writing about it is not an option if you want to be a successful e-book author.

Knowledge is the key when it comes to choosing a topic for your e-book. As my old professor once told me many years ago, if you want to write well, then write about what you know. Writing from a depth of knowledge allows the words to flow from your finger tips onto the screen in the same way that water flows from an open tap.

For example, you might be a keen gardener who specializes in growing roses in an urban setting. If this is the case, then you should write about your experience of growing roses in confined spaces. Your e-book may not reach the New York Best Sellers List, but you can be assured there will be plenty of gardeners willing to buy your e-book just for the information you can impart on the topic of growing roses in an urban setting.

Alternatively, you could be an experienced DIY motor mechanic with a penchant for doing up old cars. There are plenty of DIY motor enthusiasts who would love to read about your experience of breathing new life into an old Chevy 57.

Whatever your specialty, there are plenty of potential customers ready to buy your ‘KNOW HOW’.

Once you have identified your chosen specialty, you will need to define the extent of your knowledge so that you can transfer it into print. Mind mapping is a simple but useful aid for revealing your strengths and weaknesses on any given topic relative to your specialty.

To mind map, you simply take a large piece of paper and write in the center of it, in big bold letters, your specialty. Working from the center out, you fill your page with what you know or do not know about the specialty you are going to write about. The secret to a good mind map is to use single descriptive words or short phrases to describe the extent of your knowledge. You can even use pencil drawings if you are so inclined. The idea behind the mind map is to create a set of reference points for generating ideas for your e-book.

You can further enhance your mind map by carrying out research. Research will not only plug the gaps in your knowledge, it will also lend credibility to your work. Moreover, research will help you to define your e-book topic when it comes to writing on your specialty.

When writing your e-book you should always bear in mind that people want answers to questions and not generalizations. E-books filled with generalizations hold little value for readers and will not sell. In short, there is no market for generalizations. Markets are broken down into demographics of age, interests, income and, more importantly, needs. Answer your market's needs in relation to your specialty and you will quickly find a demand for your e-book offerings.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Writing E-books for Profit

There is a multitude of online opportunities open to the wannabe e-entrepreneur. From building membership websites, selling products on e-bay, blogging, publishing your own e-books and affiliate marketing, it is all a question of choosing the right opportunity that matches your demeanor and interest.

Perhaps the most open of all the opportunities available to wannabe e-entrepreneurs is the world of e-book writing and publishing. If you are passionate about a particular topic and you can write about it with some authority, then writing and publishing e-books might just be for you.

Writing and publishing your own e-books has several advantages over other areas of Internet marketing. The most notable of these advantages is the control that you have over the revenues you receive on the sale of your e-book product. In most cases you will be able to keep 100% of the profit.

E-books also have a sense of immediacy about them, which makes them the ideal e-commerce product for Internet marketing. Buyers of e-books can download their chosen e-book within seconds of paying for it, thus satisfying their need for instant gratification.

The other advantage of e-book authorship is the relatively low cost of production and distribution. Once written, you can reproduce and sell unlimited copies of your e-book at no further cost to yourself or your business.

Moreover, unlike affiliate marketing, you do not need a blog or a website to host or promote youre-book product. You can simply upload your e-book to an e-book publishing platform/host.

E-book publishing platforms are the Internet’s equivalent of a book store. Visitors can browse e-books much in the same way visitors browse books at the local bookstore.

E-book publishing platforms handle the payment transactions related to the sale of your e-book. When your total sales reach a certain threshold, say $100, you get paid. E-book publishing platforms normally charge a 20% handling fee for the use of their facilities.

Reliable statistics on how much e-book authors actually make from writing and publishing e-books are relatively hard to come by. But if you write your own e-book and sell one hundred copies of your work for $10 each, you do not need to be Einstein to know that $1000 is a sizable chunk of pocket change. Considering your e-book might have only taken you a day or perhaps even a week to write, $1000 is not a bad return on your effort.

The downside to writing e-books is the fact that the Internet is awash with e-book publications. These publications vary in size and quality but they are all, nonetheless, vying for the same dollars as your e-book. Your problem as an e-book author is one of differentiation. You need to differentiate your e-book offering from the rest of the market.

The key to differentiating your e-book from the rest of the market rests on your ability to identify a niche that is not saturated by competitors. So be prepared to do market research before you dive into your e-book writing project. Market research will save you time and energy and will help you to produce a better e-book product.

In the final analysis, whatever your e-book niche, you should always bear in mind that it is the quality of your product that will deliver on going sales. There is no point in having good sales copy if your e-book does not live up to the hype. E-book buyers can be extremely fickle. If they feel short changed by your initial e-book offering, then they are unlikely to buy your next publication.

If you want to learn more about how to succeed as an e-book author, then click on the following link: http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=63918

Writing for Cash – The Myth and the Reality

If you are reading this article, then you are clearly interested in writing for money, or least given some thought to the idea. You have also no doubt researched the idea of writing for cash on the Internet and downloaded a handful of e-books or reports telling you how to turn your writing into a source of income.

Many of the e-books or reports you have read probably waxed lyrical about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that newbie and established writers are making from publishing their work on the Internet. Moreover, amongst all the hyperbole you will have come across testimonies testifying to the magic of a particular writing system. Some of these testimonies may contain an element of truth. However, what these testimonies fail to tell you is the fact that a majority of wannabe writers will not make a penny from their writing, no matter how great the writing system might be. This is understandable since the promoter of the writing system wants you to buy the product. So let us dispel the myth right now: not everyone can or will earn money from their writing.

There are several reasons why many wannabe writers never cut the mustard when it comes to turning their writing into cash. The most obvious reason is the lack of effort on the part of the wannabe writer to write effectively.

I recently came across several e-products where the author was trying to promote him or herself as a marketing or writing guru. Each of the texts that I read had potential but sadly most of them were littered with grammar and spelling mistakes. And whilst no one is perfect when it comes to the written word, I expected something a little better from those who were promoting themselves as leaders in their field.

Although not everyone can be a Hemmingway or a Stephen King, the least an author can do when they are trying to sell their writing for cash is to run a grammar and spell check over their work. Better still, they should learn a little about the art of writing before going to press.

If you are serious about making money from your writing, then be prepared to invest time, effort and energy to improve your skills as an author. It takes practise and a willingness to learn in order to become a proficient writer. The writing process merits respect from all those who are planning to make money from publishing their work.

The key to becoming a profitable writer rests in your ability to entertain and to captivate the reader through eloquent prose. If the reader is distracted because of too many spelling or grammatical errors in your work, then the reader will almost certainly go elsewhere for their reading material.

Once you have lost your reader because of bad spelling or grammar, then it is unlikely that he or she will come back to read the other material you have on offer. In short, to become a profitable writer you must approach the task of writing as you would any other profession – with due care and attention to detail.

Writing, like other professions, requires an understanding of your tools. Furthermore, you need to be proficient at using these tools if you want to become a successful author. You need to know how the written word works in terms of communicating ideas, excitement, tension and passion. Without this knowledge and the skill to use it you will fail to gain an audience for your written material.

At an elementary level, if you want to earn money from your writing, then you need to know how a sentence is constructed. You will also need to know how to use verb tenses to convey the appropriate sense of time and place. Once you have mastered the art of sentence structure, then you will need to learn how to stitch paragraphs together so that your writing comes across as a clear and coherent message.

There are plenty of resources on the Internet and in local libraries to help the budding writer master the art of writing. The local writing club or circle is a good place for writers to begin their career, not to mention a great place to exchange ideas with more experienced writers.

Writing clubs or circles present the wannabe writer with an opportunity to test their work and to gain feedback on what they have written. Constructive criticism from those in the know is always useful to anyone who is serious about improving their writing skills.

Learning to write is a lifelong process and one that should be encouraged. While there is money to be made from writing, not everyone can hope to make the grade as a profitable writer. However, this should not prevent you from trying, so long as you are willing to put in the effort.

Writing is an enjoyable pass time even if you do not make money from what you have written. You do not need to be a bestselling author to benefit from your prose. Writing is a skill that can enhance the quality of your life both at work and at play. So whilst you might be considering a career as a profitable writer, try to think of the other benefits that come with improving and developing your writing skills.

Why People Fail to Make Money from E-books

There are many reasons why people fail at writing and publishing e-books. But most of those reasons are related to the individual’s disposition rather than any problems associated with the e-book publishing industry.

First, most individuals entering the e-book publishing industry do so without fully understanding what it is they want to achieve.

Second, developing an e-book publishing business takes time and energy. Impatience is probably the biggest contributing factor towards people giving up on e-book writing and publishing as a possible source of income.

If you decide to become an e-book author/publisher, then be prepared for a lot of hard work over a long period of time. Even though there are no guarantees that your efforts will be successful, determination and hard work will swing the odds in your favor.

Third, becoming an e-book author/publisher is about learning the tools of the trade
The world of e-book publishing is very different to the one most of us encounter at the shopping mall where glitzy packaging entices us to buy the book. The Internet does not have that touchy feely experience about it most of us have become accustomed to when we go shopping. On the contrary, e-book publishing requires you to get your message across in a sincere and direct way that convinces prospective customers to purchase your e-book offering.

Learning about what works or does not work in the world of e-book publishing is imperative to your success as an e-book author/publisher. And the best way to learn about what works or does not work is to use the tried and tested methods employed by the more successful and experienced members of the e-book industry. Taking note of what the professionals do will give you a solid base of knowledge from which you can develop your own ideas.

Fourth, choosing the right e-book niche is vitally important if you are to succeed as an e-book author/publisher. You do not want to enter a market already saturated by competitors. You are a newbie and will soon become overwhelmed by the size of the competition. Survey the e-book landscape before you take the plunge. Choose something that matches your talent and your demeanor. Market research will prevent you from making the wrong, and perhaps costly, decisions.