Twenty Steps to Internet Marketing Step 4: Thou Shalt Write an Ebook to Prove Thou Are an Expert - Internet Marketing Australia

An ebook is a book sold or transmitted on the Internet. It can be in HTML or saved in a .pdf file. It can be printed too, if that is what you want.

Ebooks can be sold or passed out free.

Free ebooks are sometimes loaded with affiliate links so the writer can pick up a few affiliate commissions. The writer gets his reward if the reader finds something to his liking and buys it.

Yes, the writer gets his cut.

Free ebooks can usually be forwarded by the readers to others, sold, folded and mutilated as long as nothing is changed in the ebook.

Ebooks sold for a fee can sometimes be quickly modified by software provided by the ebook writer so that the links are changed to the benefit of the ebook buyer. Then the reader can sell the ebook or just give it away and get the affiliate goodies.

Whatever the ebook, free or sold, affiliate links or not, it must contain real content valuable to the reader. If it is just a rehash of some other ebook, gives no important details, gives no new information, then it will not be accepted by the Internet.

Your readers will report that your ebook (program) is worthless, that the information is free elsewhere (for paid-for ebooks), that it is poorly written, that it is one big (or little) piece of junk.

If you sell such a dog, you will get many request for refunds.

I think I told you that if you are thinking about promoting a ClickBank® item, look at the refund rate first.

I suggest that when you write your ebook that you think only of the needs of the reader.

Are you writing in your niche market?

Are you an expert?

You will probably have to do some research before you start writing and as you move along.

Research means you will be searching for needed information to fulfill the needs of your readers. That information can come from books (those funny rectangular things with pages like your Bible for instance). Books are kept in things called bookstores and libraries. You can also find them at yard sales.

Okay, go ahead and do your research on the Internet. Put "cucumbers" in your Google or Yahoo search box. Find anything? I just tried it. There were over 4.5 million Google entries.

Be careful of what you say and stick to the subject until you have really exhausted what is important to the reader. If you do that, you will be accepted as one who cares about people and endeavors to give them reliable information. And don't hold back secrets-there are no true secrets on the Internet.

When you write your ebook, I suggest that you follow these simple rules:

1. Restrict your subject to what you know.

Don't try to write the "bible" on your subject in a single ebook.

Restrict your subject so that you can cover the material in a relatively short number of pages. A novelette is about 50,000 words.

Maybe a 5000-10,000 word ebook would be about right for your subject. You get to decide how many words.

For your information, articles are usually about 400 to 2500 words.

2. Write from an outline.

This means that you write a detailed outline of the subject you want to cover. This article is an outline filled with works, right? If you think about your subject, decide what you want to cover, and then write your outline, you are on your way.

3. Write the way you speak.

That way you will not try to be fancy but will generate a feeling of sincerity with your readers. Just tell it like it is. But don't use profanity, inanity, and more words than you need. Remember that modifiers are your enemy. Keep things as concise as you can.

If you say, "This is a really good important way to skin a cat," you are using too many modifier.

Why not say, "This is how to skin a cat?"

4. Copyright your work.

Copyright your work by simply placing copyright©2008 ( your name.) at the front of your work, perhaps on the bottom of the title page. What do you have at the bottom of your web pages? Do you have a copyright notice. Well, you still own them.

Look at several ebooks and see how the author is protecting himself. There may be a legal statement that the stuff in the book will not work for everybody and that results are not guaranteed, etc.

Is your brother an attorney?

5. Summarize your article.

You can write an abstract in the front or a summary at the end of your article. Remember that repetition helps your reader.

There is an old saying that says, tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said.

6. Add a list of good references.

You probably don't know everything, or do you?

There are some good helps to writing ebooks. Just make a search on the Internet for the free ones.

Also, templates can be used to write ebooks.

If you search the Internet for sites that have marketers tools, you will find what you need.

You can probably buy an ebook writing guide at ClickBank®. Before you do, sign up at ClickBank so that you will be able to sell their products. Then go to your ClickBank link and buy the ebook writing guide. Surprise, you will get a commission for selling the book to yourself.

If you  join WAU, you will have a program to help you write an ebook.

Once you have written your masterpiece, you can sell it on ClickBank®. ClickBank® will pay out a commission to the affiliate that sells your ebook and give you the rest except for a small service fee.

Did you get that?

You can be in business with out much work.

Well, more specifics on ClickBank® later.

Just write the way you talk.

If you are not too good at grammar, someone in your family is.

Okay, take it to a school teacher. But get it checked.

Keep your paragraphs short.

Keep your sentences short.

Cut out unneeded modifiers like very, really, etc.

Avoid the helping verbs when you can. They are: be, is, was, were, am, are, been, being, have, has, had, do, does, did, will, would, can could, shall should, may, might, must.

Hey, that is not all I learned at Jackson Elementary. I learned the eight parts of speech too. They are verb, adverb, adjective, noun, pronoun, conjunction, interjection, preposition.

Passive verbs and sometimes certain helping verbs (auxiliary verbs) put you in what is called "the passive voice."

Having been overwhelmed, I hastily ran up the crooked path to the sanitarium.

Ugh!

Try this: Scared stiff, I zigzagged up the path to the sanitarium.

Try to stick to nouns and verbs without modifiers as best you can.

Use exciting words. Try these babies if you are trying to sell: Confidential.. Crammed.. Delivered.. Direct.. Discount.. Easily.. Endorsed.. Enormous.. Excellent.. Exciting.. Exclusive.. Expert.. Famous.. Fascinating.. Fortune.. Free.. Full.. Genuine.. Gift.. Gigantic.. Greatest.. Guaranteed.. Helpful.. Highest.. Huge.. Immediately.. Improved.. Informative.. Instructive.. Interesting.. Largest.. Latest.. Lavishly.. Liberal.. Lifetime.. Limited.. Lowest.. Magic.. Mammoth.. Miracle.. Noted.. Odd.. Outstanding.. Personalized.. Popular.. Powerful.. Practical.. Professional.. Profitable.. Profusely.. Proven.. Quality.. Quickly.. Rare.. Reduced.. Refundable.. Remarkable.. Reliable.. Revealing.. Revolutionary.. Scarce.. Secrets.. Security.. Selected.. Sensational.. Simplified.. Sizable.. Special.. Startling.. Strange.. Strong.. Sturdy.. Successful.. Superior.. Surprise.. Terrific.. Tested.. Tremendous.. Unconditional.. Unique.. Unlimited.. Unparalleled.. Unsurpassed.. Unusual.. Useful.. Valuable.. Wealth.. Weird.. Wonderful.

The above exciting words may not be too welcome in your ebook, but they may be needed on your landing page to sell your ebook.

As for spelling, there is the good old spelling checker on your computer. But watch out for homonyms like wear and ware.

Also watch out for their and there, then and than, etc.

What I'm trying to tell you is that the wrong word may be spelled correctly and the spell checker will move right along leaving you with that incorrect word,

I'm old. I type "and" when I want the article "an."

Old and senile is what they say.

Humor is sometimes good in your writing. Here is a joke I got off the Internet and I modified because I can't leave anything alone:

Two men and a bartender were in a bar at the top of a skyscraper. The first man gets up on the window ledge and dives out. Just before he would hit the ground, he pulls out of the dive and lands safely on his feet. In a few minutes he appears at the door of the elevator and walks back into the bar.

The second man said, "That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Are you an alien or something?

The first man said, "Just human. But I have to drink two of those drinks called "Light As A Feather" to do it. This is the only bar that has them."

The second man went to the bartender and ordered two "Light as A Feather" cocktails and drank them down. He went to the window, got up his nerve and jumped, smashing himself on the concrete below.

The bartender said to the first man, "You are mean as hell when you are drunk, Superman."

Keep Truckin'!

Fly Old Glory!