How do I get past the fear of wasting time writing a book that doesn’t sell?
– by Jim Edwards
One of the primary things that stops many people from writing their own ebook comes down to fear. Fear of writing an ebook that doesn’t sell.
This fear can often debilitate even the most competent writers, let alone someone who wants to dip their toe in the waters of self-publishing for the first time. As someone who wrote his first book in 1994 and published his first ebook in 1997, I’ve felt this particular pang of fear more than once in the last 20 years. But, as with any fear, knowledge and action will help you get past any mental roadblock.
These four “magic buttons” will help you sail right on through to the promised land of self-published ebook success!
Research Carefully
Most people write a book because they get a “killer idea” and just “know” that everyone will need it. As soon as you think “everyone” needs your ebook, you’ve set yourself up for some major heartache. Careful research ranks as the first and, debatably, the most important step in the ebook writing process. Careful research comes down to knowing, without a doubt that:
1. People are interested in your topic. The fastest way to gauge interest is to look at the Google Keyword tool to see how many people search for a specific topic and its related search terms. The other way is to look at the number of books on that topic for sale on Amazon, as well as to see if your main search term is one of the automatic suggestions in the Amazon search box.
2. Are they buying? It’s really easy to see how well books sell on Amazon. When you do your research in step 1 above, just look at the sales ranks of the books that show up in your searches to gauge market size in a niche. Any book with a rank of 20,000 or lower is selling well on Amazon.
Focus on Solving Problems
For non-fiction ebook topics, solving a problem is the easiest way to help boost your chances of selling more copies. People with a problem, especially an intense problem, will spend time and money (or both) to solve it. Solving problems also makes creating a title, description, cover, and keywords for your book MUCH easier because you have a central focal point.
If you want to succeed with your first (or next) ebook, figure out which problems your target audience really struggles with and help them with a fast and effective solution neatly wrapped in ebook form.
Make It Fast and Good!
The surest way to fail with an ebook is to never get it written. The second surest way to fail with an ebook is to write a bunch of crap content. Write the damn thing while you’re young enough to enjoy it. The type of ebook I’m talking about here can be as short as 30 pages (500 words per page in your word processor). The only caveat to this 30-page length is that your content’s quality level must top the charts. You can’t publish crap and expect to get much traction before the negative backlash of public opinion will stop your sales dead in their tracks.
Reframe Possible Outcomes
Whatever you focus on typically becomes your reality. If you focus on crappy sales, you’ll get crappy sales. If you focus on creating great content instead of selling your ebook online, people love and want to tell their friends about, that’s what you’ll most likely get. But if thinking positive doesn’t get your mindset turned around on this issue, then let’s take a look at the “worst-case scenario.”
Worst case scenario: Your ebook doesn’t sell. So what!
You have so many options for using your ebook content to build your business, it’s enough to make your head spin. Here’s how you can use your ebook even if it doesn’t become a best-seller:
1. Free bonus to join your list
2. Chop up into articles to drive traffic
3. Convert to video on YouTube to drive traffic
4. Chop into Blog Posts for SEO
5. Free Report for affiliates to brand and share
6. Sell (resale) rights to the content
7. Turn your ebook into a coaching program
8. Automatically deliver as a paid / free course via autoresponder
Bottom line: if you want to be successful with your ebook, do your research, turn out great content, get it done, and be open to new possibilities. Only good things happen when you follow these steps.
By the way, if you want to get your first – or next – ebook written and published in a week or less, I can show you multiple strategies for doing that! You just CHOOSE the method that fits your style best, and then knock it out. Fast, simple, and easy! Check out http://eBookWritingProfits.com
Jim Edwards
Selling online since 1997, Jim is an Internet Marketing Expert, Author, Elite Mentor and Coach
He specializes in helping individual entrepreneurs, small business owners and authors to understand how to use technology to build your online business.
Jim is the author of dozens of ebooks, hundreds of webinars, over 1,000 blog posts and articles.
His flagship ebook “How To Write and Publish Your Own eBook… in as little as 7 Days” – newly revised and updated with V2.0 – has been helping book and ebook authors create their own best-selling ebooks since 2001! Get more information about Jim and how he can help you get more readers, make more sales, and skyrocket your credibility here => http://eBookWritingProfits.com
