After the advent of iPad, kindle and tablets, growth of writers planning their own eBooks have taken a leap. These days few top notch bloggers are in need of Freelance writers who could write some chapters for them. Most of the cases many people won’t write all the chapters in their eBook instead they do it by hiring some good Freelancers who write their ideas in a more professional way and at the end they just keep themselves as the author.
By the Way as a freelance writer you need not worry on what to write as the person who hires you will explain what all you need to write and you just need to put them in proper words and sentences. So if you are interested in taking your career as a Freelance eBook writer then there are some professional elements which you need to keep in mind so that your client might call you back if they need another eBook written by you.
Some times the person who needs an eBook hires two to three writers and shares their work burden to get their product created soon. Now don’t ask me to show you the opportunities of eBook Writing Jobs as you might get many such offers on many freelance websites like oDesk where you can get opportunity to earn $200 or more depending on the job.
Now I don’t want to waste any of your time but will discuss on some missing elements to be present in an eBook which adds value to the product, person who hired you and you. May be you are a Ghost writer but if you are able to impart the professionalism, you have the chances of getting more clients or sometimes to decorate your portfolio with some of your quality work. This article is helpful to those who are writing an eBook all for themselves too.
Just go through the list of those elements which many eBooks miss, which does create some quality and add value to your eBook.
1. Title that Converts:
To start off the very first element you need to focus on is the Title of your eBook that converts. Title of the book is one of the main elements you need to take extra care on. You might have written a book on how to make money. For which you will obviously title it how to make money online or How to make money from Adsense or How I made $1000 from Amazon affiliates. These titles are very common these days.
But can you think of some title which will definitely make the person to buy the book without a second thought. If you have been interested to know how to earn from Adsense you might have heard about Joel Comm’s Book. His book on Adsense is the best seller in the make money from Adsense category. He has also released editions one after the other which apparently shows his success on the eBook.
Only thing which might have made this eBook a success is its title. Joel named his eBook as “The AdSense Code: What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense” I read this book it is indeed worthy for a Newbie who never have heard on Adsense. He writes on how to create a Blog or a Site and how to monetize it with Adsense, which ad units, placements that converts and even Adsense alternatives.
The topics mentioned in the book are not new especially for those who have been using Adsense for a year or more. But what makes sense is the title which does itch our hands to order it and see what Google never told about Adsense. So see that you have had a good title framed for your eBook else you won’t be able to impress a buyer to order your book. Keep brainstorming and take opinions from your friends on how they feel about the title, is it really making them to buy and read what it contains?
2. Dedications:
Most of the books do contain this page, it doesn’t contain any lengthy matter but just few words at the middle. It says something like this book is dedicated to my mom, dad, wife, son, daughter etc. You may ask do we really need this page? This page does provide the reader some value for the author that he or she has dedicated their work to someone so special.
3. Acknowledgments:
Immediately after dedications next element is acknowledgements which are just a statement of gratitude for assistance in producing your eBook. You might have your friends, relatives, and family members etc who might have helped you in writing your book so mention each one of their names as a token of gratitude. Some times reader will like to read Acknowledgments too.
I once read a book called “When Heaven Invades Earth” by Bill Johnson. In that book I read this Acknowledgements page where the author Bill gives a list of all the people who helped him and at the last he mentions a word on his wife who too helped him. He writes “To my wife Beni—you are for me a taste of heaven on earth. Thanks.” Those simple words created a good impression in me on the author to read the book further. So reserve a page for acknowledgements to all those who have helped you in writing your eBook and also for those who have written foreword and Endorsements.
4. Foreword:
Foreword is like the preface which contains small piece of information written other than the author on what that book holds. Foreword is placed immediately after the table of contents. So before a reader reads the first chapter he goes through the foreword. Mostly many omit reading foreword but at the same time many do read foreword to decide whether they would read it further or not.
After you finish writing your eBook find someone who is related to the topics what you have written and tell them to read the eBook and write a foreword on it. Usually you can have one or sometimes even two or more people also write foreword. This is the first impression your book gives to the reader so choose a famous person who is related to the topic you have written. At the end of the foreword mention the persons name, what he does and what he is famous for. This is a kind of testimony like for your eBook.
5. Endorsements:
Endorsements are almost similar to that of foreword but are not exactly like it. Foreword will be two or three pages and will be written by one or two people. But endorsements will be written by ten or more than ten people who have read the book and gave their opinion in five to six lines. It is like the comments which we receive after a blog post or the review we get after we sell our product. So initially you might not need this in your book if it is the first time but if you are going with your second edition then just include these in the very beginning pages of the book so that people would know how your first edition was and what they could expect in the second edition.
6. Table of contents:
Many of us don’t forget to add this but still if you are in a hurry to get your eBook fast and have missed this see that you have it in its place. See that all your pages are numbered and you have placed the page numbers correctly for the chapters in the Table of contents page.
7. About the Author:
Some people won’t even touch the book if they find a new author. Most of them first do read on who the author is and what he does. We may not be famous yet we need to add a page on the author at the end, mentioning qualifications and a short biography. Sometimes you might have good titles like best speaker, best entrepreneur try to mention those if you have any. People buy those books which are mostly tagged New York Times Best Seller author. If you are a best seller then don’t forget to tag these lines in your biography and do mention the list of your previous works. Author’s biography too sometimes increases the sales of the eBooks.
8. Back Cover:
Last but not least the most convertible element is your back cover. This is what most of the people look in a book store first before they buy a book. There will be its price, about the book, about the author and about publishers. In an eBook people might not scroll to the last page but having a good back cover helps you to minimize your efforts if at all you plan to make your eBook go offline, I mean if you want a hard copy of your eBook. See that you have made a good back cover with a brief introduction of the author, small paragraph on what the book contains and as usual price tag and the publishers details.
If your eBook is equipped with all the above mentioned elements then without wasting any time publish your eBook and start counting sales and reviews given by the customers who bought in your eBook. If you are a freelance eBook writer then explain these elements to your client and tell them how useful it would be to create a product that converts. So are you planning to write an eBook or work as a freelancer who would surely provide value to the client then let me hear your thoughts as comments.
These are great elements that should be in the checklist for the authors…
I think beyond that, promotion is the biggest thing which has to be done before even publishing if you are really wanted to sell it out.
Great share Vijesh 🙂
One of the best things about Amazon is that it allows readers to place both back paper copy and the Kindle copy at the store.
Hi Saeed,
What you said is true promotion is the biggest thing to be done in order to sell our eBook. There are several ways on how one can promote their eBook. Thanks for stopping by giving a valuable comment…
Nice sharing Vijesh. I am not into writing books because of busy schedule as I have a day job as well. But these tips might be helpful when I plan to do. Very good write up!. Keep it up.
Oh man what you did to this blog? I can’t read this way, the sidebar is under the post content, the post content is like a landing page. All plain text, I had to skim this article and comment right away. 🙁
Hi Daniel,
Actually the theme i am using got an update which turned my blog into responsive design suitable for mobiles too. So that’s the reason why you faced that problem if you are viewing it in your desktop or laptop just press Ctrl & – and you will get back the things to normal…
Thanks for your comment…
Hi Vijesh,
Some of the ebooks they skipped all that specially if this is a technical book. Of course, they have the Disclaimer first. Then they go straight to the Table of Contents. Introduction is always the first one…which many times the author introduce himself. Then there goes the meat of the content.
Perhaps the proper way of doing it is what you have laid here exactly. At least, thats how I always see in the old fashioned way. But I have bought more than 40 ebooks and not every single one of them have the Dedication, Acknowledgements, Foreword, Endorsement…it’s like they cut all that to get straight to the bottom line. Now book written by Tad Crawford for instant who is the author of “Legal Guide for the Visual Artist” he was a book publisher already before kindle was even invented and so he’s got everything what you have mentioned here.
I’m surprised myself why some of the ebooks don’t have the same format what you have laid out here. Everything is instant now…they cut through everything.
Anyway, have a great weekend my friend.hope you take it easy…
Angela
Hello Vijesh,
I must confess to you that i am a novice when it comes to ebooks creation and i must say that i am still learning on how to create a better e-bbok (if not the best). I know know that e-book is the same as a hard cover book right?
Thanks for the lovely post. I have booked-marked it for future purposes .
Hi Vijesh,
Your post comes at the perfect time, since I’m working on my ebook right now. After reading your post I opened up my Scrivener and added a few of the items you suggested, …which means more work for me 😉 But that’s ok, because when it’s completed it’s going to have an extremely professional touch to it. Thanks for the tips!
Aloha,
Robb
Hey Vijesh,
I always expect these kind of creative and helpful articles from you. even i am not a book writer but i learn a lot from this post. These tips will definitely help to a book writer.
Anyway thanks for the info. keep sharing such kind of useful stuff.
Hi Vijesh,
Great write up. The crowd of the ebook is increasing day by day and competitions are over crowded. In this situation promotion is the key ingredients to sustain its worth and your points as well.
I sometimes feel like writing ebook but not feasible atleast in near future owing to loaded with the layer after layer liabilities. Thanks for sharing your beautiful piece again.
Wonderful 🙂 This is really such a wonderful article to learn more about a Book for while publishing. Thank you so much for wonderful writing.
great post about publishing ebook nice one thanks for the article vijesh.
Hi Vijesh,
You have shared an important and clever points worthy of thorough examination before publishing an eBook. From title that converts to the last point on back cover, all mentioned points are valid and on point.
Thanks for sharing.
Hello Vijesh,
Great write up. These are some obvious pages or elements which we find in a book but people forget to add in their ebook. These elements add a grace to the e book.
Nice tips for e book publishers. Thanks for sharing this informative article.
Have a nice weekend. 🙂