Expert Ebook Writing: 5 Steps to Get Started

If you’re an expert in your field and want to publish a digital book, how should you get started writing content?

1. Write down 3 – 5 of your most compelling stories, ideas, nuggets, mistakes, or experiences you think interest your readers.
2. What’s your point? (What’s your unique message you want readers to know that will impact their lives?)
3. Write out a working title and a tag line that clearly states what the book is about and what it is designed to solve for readers.
4. What’s your conclusion, what you want readers to do, think, believe, act on…? What’s your call to action?
5. Write an outline that explains in a sequential order how you will provide benefit to readers.

(Please note that in each of these steps, the word “readers” is mentioned. Your readers are clearly at the heart of your book. In other words, you aren’t, they are.)

At this point you can continue writing or start looking for a ghost writer. Ask yourself, is it worth my time to learn how to do this and actually write the sentences, or hire a writer who already knows how to string together sentences, paragraphs, chapters from preface to conclusion, to notes, etc.?

If you had trouble writing down the outline of your book in a way that makes the reader the hero of the story, then perhaps you should write another kind of book other than an expert ebook that solves readers’ problems. You could write, for example, “everything I know about nuclear fission,” or “what I’ve learned about leadership development.”

In which case, you might write an autobiography or a memoir. It’s all about you. If you want to write an expert ebook that helps other people solve challenges, however, keep the reader at the center of your ebook.

As interesting as you may be, let’s be frank: readers care more about themselves than you. By all means, put as much of your own personality, charm, wit, and intelligence into your book and tell your own stories. But do so wisely and in the service of writing effectively for your readers.

Keep the focus on your readers. Always tie your stories and advice into what bothers them. If you’re any good with putting in just the right amount of personal wisdom with practical steps for readers, they may even want more of your ebooks and eventually – who knows – your memoirs.

(Image: freedigitalphotos.net by Stuart Miles)