5 Steps to Writing an E-Book for Your Business

Keeping your customers engaged is a priority, one you may spend an inordinate time obsessing over. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re on the right track when no one seems to be commenting on your blogs, subscribing to your video channel or signing up to get newsletters. 

Enter the e-book.

You may have seen an offer at one time or another on a website: “Order our free e-book now! Enter email address to receive free download!” Look how much those two sentences accomplish—something free! Exclamation marks make you feel like you should do it NOW! And they’ve instantly gotten your permission to sign you up for their catalog or newsletter. 

It may seem like writing a book isn’t in your realm of expertise, but if you have any kind of business, you have knowledge to share. Let’s suppose you own a woodworking business. You could offer tips for woodworking hobbyists, tell the story of how you started a business, give guidelines on taking care of wood furniture, etc. 

So how should you start?

Choose your topic. What goals could you help your customers achieve? What information do your clients crave? Brainstorm, and if possible, come up with multiple ideas. If you are reasonably successful with your first free offer, you may decide to sell others!

Create an outline. This is just a basic what-do-I-want-to-say summary where you list the ideas you want to convey and try to put them in a logical order. Will you need statistics or other information? This is a good time to figure out what you may need and where to put it.

Write.  Yes, you will face a blank page or screen. But you have your outline in place and you can have as many do-overs as you think you need. Set aside some time and just write. Author Stephen King purportedly writes six pages a day. Your e-book can be whatever length you choose, and you can take as long as you would like. But it won’t happen if you don’t start! 

Proofread and edit your e-book. This may be when you need to bring someone with a fresh eye into your project. You want your finished work to read as professional, so it’s imperative to have another person look it over for you. If you don’t have anyone, and can’t afford to hire someone, at least put your work aside for several days or weeks so you can look at it more objectively.

Get your book to the subscribers. You will want to save your e-book in a PDF format and upload it to your website’s server. You’ll need a way to capture the email addresses of would-be subscribers, so you will need to create an opt-in form. As for the delivery, it can be attached to an automated email reply, thanking customers for their subscription.

 Have you ever thought of adding “author” to your skill set? Writing an e-book could open a new world for you and add value for your customers at the same time.