I would like to give you a challenge for the New Year. How about taking your passion and creating an e-book around that subject. You can do it simply and easily if you follow the instructions in a great little Kindle book that’s available for only $2.99. It’s entitled How to Write a Nonfiction e-Book in 21 Days that Readers Love by Steve Scott.
I downloaded this little book over the weekend and found it very helpful for creating simple to upload ebooks quickly and easily. Steve provides great guidance as he takes you through the idea stage to creating an outline. From there you create a rough first draft and cover art. To finish it off he has you polish your manuscript and create an uploadable file that you send directly to the Kindle marketplace. He will have your masterpiece online in no time at all. His goal is to have you write an ebook and have it online in 21 days or less.
Let’s start at the beginning. He takes you through the idea process by guiding you through six steps to create a killer nonfiction idea. He bases this on his experience with e-books that he has published in the past. Went you finalize your nonfiction idea, he then has you outline the topics in a simple to follow manner. The outline is the key to success. From the outline you then create your rough draft. He suggests that you spend at least two hours per day writing this first draft.
From experience, I find that writing two hours a day is a good goal. For me in two hours I can do at least 2000 words. I am a rather slow typist and writing can be a daunting task. However, I find that I can easily do 1000 words in an hour on most days. So to create a 10,000 to 15,000 word e-book (which is a relatively new standard) it would take a week to a week and a half to create a book using this timetable.
Once you have your rough draft done, he then has you set it aside for a few days and focus on creating an eye-catching cover. He suggests three different ways of creating this cover. I found his examples very helpful. An e-book cover is different from a standard book cover. It needs to be easily readable in very small graphic sizes. Amazon has two icon sizes. One is a medium-size graphic, the other is a very small thumbnail. If the title and idea of your book do not show up in these two sizes you will not be able to convey your idea to your intended audience.
Scott suggest using clip art or other simpler art forms when creating a title. If you look at his titles on Amazon, all of them are easily readable and quickly convey the information intended. He shows you how to do it yourself or to outsource it to a low-cost vendor.
Now that you have a finished rough draft and a cover, you need to go back and create a work of art with your draft. Steve gives you some hints and helpful tools to accomplish this. When you have your final draft massaged and ready to go, he has resources and step-by-step instructions to show you how to upload your finished file and cover to Amazon and how to market your book.
This Kindle edition is a great step-by-step guide to the process. You can read it in about an hour. I think if you pick it up and set a goal for yourself, you can realistically have an e-book completed in under a month.
I have a secret to using Steve’s book that I found doing some experimentation over the past week. I actually created the first draft of an e-book (over 12,000 words) in one day, and I’m a slow typist. I’m actually working on an e-book that details that secret that I hope to publish soon..
I highly suggest you pick up Steve’s great little book for $2.99. It is a great investment and will soon have you creating e-books that you can sell and profit from in the new year. Here is a helpful link.
How to Write a Non-Fiction book in 21 Days
Question: Have you created an e-book yet?