Write An Ebook: Make, And Then Keep Your Promise

Want to write and sell ebooks? It’s a wonderful home business you can create out of nothing at all, except your creativity and a little knowledge.

This week I’ve been coaching three ebook writers, and all had similar challenges: their ebooks were great, but not compelling.

Here’s what makes an ebook compelling: a title which speaks directly to the target audience’s challenge and promises to solve a problem — fast.

In this blog post, Ebooks – Four Steps for Success in Writing Your First Ebook | Angela Booth’s Fab Freelance Writing Blog, I showed you how to create a compelling title:

“Make a Promise in Your Title

Once you’ve decided on a topic, it’s time to focus and decide what you’ll promise your readers. If you’ve decided that your topic will be dog training, for example, your promise might be: “Stop Your Dog Nuisance-barking in Two Days.””

Let’s look at the example title, “Stop Your Dog Nuisance-barking in Two Days” more closely.

This title:

1. Has a clear audience (people with barking dogs)

3. Promises fast relief (solves the problem in 48 hours)

Notice that the title says nothing at all about “dog training” per se. The ebook won’t teach an owner how to train a dog. It focuses very directly on one specific problem, nuisance barking.

If you want to write ebooks which sell, all you need to do is make this promise: one problem — solved. Of course, you need to keep the promise you made in your title.

A compelling title focuses your writing

The big benefit of a compelling title (beyond making sales) is that it makes an ebook much easier to write, because it’s laser-focused.

For new writers, writing’s a real challenge because it’s easy to wander off track. A compelling title gives you a road to follow. When I’m writing an ebook, I write my title onto a sticky note and slap it onto the side of my monitor. At the end of a writing session, I throw away the sticky note. Next day, I rewrite the title and paste it onto my monitor again. This ensures that while I write, I watch the road — the title.

Make your promise, then keep it

My first step in coaching the students was to encourage them to create a compelling title by focusing on ONE problem they were trying to solve for readers.

We brainstormed titles, and once they were happy, I showed them how to revise their ebooks so that they kept the promise they made in their titles.

If you’re writing an ebook, I encourage you to create a compelling title. Then, just keep the promise you made in the title.

Please remember that if you own one of my ebook writing guides, I’m happy to coach you through the process of creating a compelling title.

Turn Your Words Into Gold: Write and Sell An Ebook In Just Eight Hours

Here’s what I love about writing ebooks: you write them once, and they keep on selling forever.

I know several writers who’ve taken to the Kindle platform like the proverbial ducks to water. One writer friend turns out a new Kindle ebook every month, like clockwork. The last time we spoke, she had 11 ebooks selling — and her income is rising month by month.

Another writer friend mixes writing her own ebooks, with writing ebooks for others. Currently she’s been commissioned to write a biography, and a family history, for the same client. She’s finding it huge fun, and she’s making more money than she’s ever made.

The benefit of writing and selling ebooks is that once written, they can keep on selling forever. Would you trade eight hours for an income stream?