Cartoonists, Authors, Writers - Create your own e-book

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Tips before making your digital book

The fact that your customer will not be able to physically touch your e-book before purchasing it means that your e-book cover graphic digitally should look as appealing as a standard printed book cover. In fact, cover design for e-books is sometimes even more important than for a standard book.

I believe it is also important to provide some sample pages or screen shots of the inside, so people have a good idea of what they are going to buy. This will cut down on refunds, plus encourages them to make the next step.

Do you have something about which you are passionate? About which you have experience? About which you have gained insights and knowledge that would be of value to others? About which your wisdom would best be shared before it is lost forever?

A good thing to remember is that e-books come alive with color. There are no limitations unlike printed books where adding color means added costs and added costs mean having to charge higher prices which leads to fewer sales. You get the picture.

1. Research: Research the competition, looking for the following: similar products, where they sold, by whom and for how much. Researching a product will tell you things like what the competition is, how to devise a marketing plan and what to sell it for.
   Every e-book is different, but what will sell it is you - as in, your experience, the spin you put on it, etc.
   As for marketing, you can read effective web sales letters, see where the competition is promoting similar products, assess whether others are offering add-ons, etc.
2. Outline: Take about a week to come up with an outline. Outline the chapters and what you want to cover in them.
   Don't formalize the names of the chapters until after they have been written.
3. Write: It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to three months to complete an e-book. It is good to give yourself a completion date and try to keep to that.
4. Quality Control: Hire a freelance copy editor/proofreader/editor to do the quality control on the e-book. It can take about a week for a freelancer to complete this.
5. Rewrites: Make the suggested changes given to you by the copy editor/proofreader/editor that you agree with.
6. PDF It: Turn the file into a .pdf. This is not really necessary, but it helps in keeping users from copying and/or editing your material and possibly reselling it.
7. Create Sales Letter: Create a page on your website to promote the book.
8. Create Thank You page: Create the page where after a successful purchase, the customer can download your e-book.
9. Create Marketing Plan: Decide what different options you want to use to promote the e-book. For example, by online advertising, email campaigns, your website, submitting articles to other websites, printed material, flyers, word of mouth, etc
10. Promote, Promote, Promote!

Selling your digital book online

The best way to make online sales is by getting others to promote it themselves. They pay for advertising, doing email campaigns, promoting it on their websites, etc and you just pay them if they actually make a sale.

All you need to do is create your e-book, set up a page that promotes it and a thank you page where they download it. Then add it to a online marketplace and the members will start their work in advertising it.

The key is to look after your affiliates and offer a great slice of the pie. You will make more sales by offering 75% of the sale rather than say 40% as with better rewards, the harder your affiliates will work for you.

An important thing to remember on your website is to have a clear call to action like an 'Order Now', 'Read more' or 'Product details' link. If the webpage is too busy or has too many links, visitors can either get distracted or close the browser window down. Have a look at Amazon or other successful online shops and they will have a very clear (visible) call to action like 'Add to Shopping Cart'.

There are a number of companies out there but I recommend ClickBank as they have over 100,000 affiliates who are ready to promote digital products. They handle the whole ordering process including the secure credit card transactions and have great tools and reporting features. ClickBank is the fastest and easiest way to create an affiliate program and to have an affiliate network generating sales for you. With so many affiliates now selling ClickBank products it is quite easy to get affiliates to sell your product.

Read more at www.clickbank.com/sell_products.html