What is an E-Book?
Before we consider what an EBook Download can do for your customers and clients, let's just consider what an EBook is. Just like an E-Mail is an electronic mail, an E-Book is an electronic book. An EBook is similar to any other book. It can be about any topic, written by any person and distributed to a relevant audience. It may be divided into chapters and contain pictures. But whilst an EBook shares some characteristics of a conventional book, there are some key differences to:
- An EBook can be published for free. Provided you have a means of getting this to people (either by email or downloadable from a website) then you haven't the outlay involved in getting a conventional book published.
- An EBook can contain audio and video. EBooks can come alive, much more than conventional books. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so how many words does a video paint?
- An EBook can contain website links. Ok. So a book can contain a website address, but in the paper version, someone would need to write down or remember the address, go to their computer and type the address in - if they can be bothered! But in an EBook, that they're already reading on their computer a link is just the press of a button away.
Why can EBook Downloads help me build my business?
Great question. Let me explain by asking you to consider who out of the following two are you most likely to give your contact details to:
- A company who wishes to place you in the marketing database so that they can contact you with products and services that they wish to sell to you.
- A company who wants to provide you with free training on a subject that is of interest to you.
I don't know about you, but I jump at the second one. I love being trained even more so when it's free. So if you're offering a free EBook download on your website, then that's a much warmer more pleasant way of connecting with people and collecting their email address as a prospective customer. Everyone knows the power of the list. If this is a new area to you then I highly recommend that you sign up to Armand Morin's Internet Marketing Newsletter - designed to give businesses advice and information on promoting their business online. It's a bible to me!
Your offer of a free EBook should focus on the fact that you are offering free training. It could be:
- Free training to teach knowledge about a subject that's linked to your company products or services
- Free training showing how someone can use your product
- Free training showing people how to get the most out of your website
There are literally hundreds of ideas for any business, whatever your business. One word though, focus on the fact that you are teaching to people not selling to them.
How do I make an EBook?
There are many ways to make an EBook. If you have a copy of Microsoft Word, you can write EBooks in there pretty easily. Remember the things you like about books. Plenty of pictures in there, not too crowded with the text and links to relevant pages on your website. When it comes making your EBook download file, there are a couple of options.
- Keep it in it's original format - For example, if you've written your EBook in Microsoft Word, then you could make the download file available as a MS Word file. Easy, but for me it leaves you wide open for your content being stolen or copied.
- Make a PDF file. You could convert your file into a PDF document. Whilst it is still possible to edit or copy them, it makes it more difficult for people to do so. Cute PDF writer is one of the best tools available to do this and it's free. PDF's are the recognised file format for the internet, intranets and CD ROMS and can be used by any organisation.
- Create a Professional EBook. My most favourite recommendation is to create a Professional EBook. This is very cheap to do so and the end result is that you will have an EBook branded with your company logos, that's downloadable and much easier for the reader to navigate through. You can even password protect the EBook to make sure that only people that should have access to it do. The best EBook generation software I've come across is EBook Generator by Generator Software. It's instantly available and you'll be creating EBooks within minutes of downloading it.
Can I charge for EBooks?
Yes! EBooks aren't always free and yes you can charge for them. Of course, that would depend on what information was in there but there's nothing to stop you from charging for an EBook just in the same way you'd charge for any other book you've written. But remember, if you're charging for an EBook, then make sure you use a professional EBook generation programme like EBook Generator by Generator Software. Why is this? You don't want the effort you've put into your EBook to go to waste by illegal copies of your book being distributed on the internet. Nor do you want to fall foul to the few out there that purchase your book, take advantage of your 100% refund guarantee only to keep the book and carry on using it. The password protection features of EBook Generator by Generator Software allow you to overcome these known issues with EBook software.
Other Ideas for Free EBook Download
If you do choose to sell your EBook, then you can consider giving away one chapter of your EBook as a free download in exchange for a name and email address then use those details to promote the full version of the book. Here's some other ideas for you:
- Give away a free "How To" EBook with every purchase of your product / service
- Package similar EBooks together and when you sell one or two, include an extra one free
- Set-up a weekly or monthly EBook service on your website offering a new topic each month for download - you can create your own EBook club
I'm sure as you get thinking about how you can build your list offering free training in the form of Free EBook Downloads, you'll soon start generating some great ideas.
Happy E-Book writing!
Ady
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