Ebooks Archives - Copyblogger

Written by Sonia Simone | August 10, 2017 | 0 Comments

The Copyblogger Guide for a Wildly Productive August

Productive? In August? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

This month we wrap up the summer (in our hemisphere, anyway), get ready for the school year, and head into the final third of the year. The key to making this time productive is to work on the right things — and not throw our time or energy away on the wrong things.

On Monday, I talked about that cornerstone of “premium content,” ebooks. Once upon a time, an ebook was the way to “monetize” your site. Attract an audience, give them great free stuff, then package up some additional great free stuff in an ebook and rake in the bucks.

The fundamentals are still sound, but given the ebook-splosion we’re facing today, it’s smart to think about how to make your own ebooks truly successful. Write a good one is a solid start, but it’s not the only thing you need to keep in mind. I have some thoughts on that in the post.

On Tuesday, Stefanie got into walking that fine line between million-dollar dreams and ramen reality. Dreaming on its own doesn’t get you very far, but dreams can be the start of something amazing. She outlined how you can use your expectations to drive excellent work and keep yourself focused … and start moving toward what matters most to you.

And on Wednesday, Jerod Morris shared some real talk about staying on task when something really important comes along to smash all of your routines. Like … an adorable baby. Great problem to have, still a potential productivity killer.
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Written by Sonia Simone | August 7, 2017 | 9 Comments

Making a Living Writing Ebooks: Here’s How It Works Today

Once upon a time, there was a straightforward solution to “monetizing” your website when you got tired of trying to make AdSense work:

Write an ebook!

Having something of your own to offer, even a simple $7 ebook, virtually always beats trying to monetize your traffic with advertising.

And that’s still true. (In fact, sales of ebooks hit $9 billion in 2015.)

But as more and more people have taken that advice, we need to get a little more strategic to build strong businesses around ebooks.

It can still be done, and I’ll be talking about folks who are doing it. But you can also let ebooks become part of a bigger game, within a larger digital business strategy.
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Written by Stefanie Flaxman | June 20, 2017 | 17 Comments

A Simple Plan for Managing and Completing a Content Project

On June 20, 2009, I was reading Copyblogger and I got a new idea: I should write an ebook.

At that point, my writing and editing business was less than a year old, and I had never written anything that resembled a book.

Could I actually do it?

I knew I wanted to try, so I established a plan on July 1 that would help me write, design, and self-publish an ebook on my website by September 15.

I’m going to share that plan with you today, so you can adapt it to any type of content project you’d like to finish by the fall. You’ll also learn some habits I like to avoid when there is a specific goal I want to accomplish.
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Written by Pamela Wilson | August 1, 2016 | 0 Comments

Writers: Discover How to Step Up Your Game with Our Free Ebook

We love writers around here. Have you noticed?

Professional writers. Aspiring writers. Struggling writers. Successful writers. Writers of all kinds!

To show our appreciation, we put together a free ebook for writers called WORD. Because in our experience, writers are also readers, so an ebook seemed like the perfect delivery system for our information.

We gathered our best articles-written-for-writers from people like Sonia Simone, Brian Clark, Stefanie Flaxman, Beth Hayden, and this other writer you may know. 😉
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Written by Henneke | September 12, 2013 | 37 Comments

How to Leverage the Power of the Kindle Ecosystem to Build Your Business

Image of Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite

As if you’re not doing enough.

You have a website. You update your blog once a week. You’re growing your email list. And you try to maintain some presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Why the heck would you worry about Amazon and Kindle?

I used to hold the same opinion.

I liked the idea of writing a book. Who doesn’t want to be a published author?

But having to format, launch, and promote a Kindle book didn’t sound appealing at all. And apart from the snob factor of being an author, I couldn’t see how producing a book could be a valuable use of my time.

Could it seriously generate business leads?

Why You Need to Become an “Independent Publisher”

Image of Old Books on Shelf

If you’re thinking about writing a book, you should be thinking about self-publishing it.

More and more established writers are choosing the independent path. In fact, the number of independently published titles tripled between 2006 and 2011.

There are many reasons for this change, including retaining artistic direction, a higher percentage of profits, and the increasing lack of editorial and marketing support offered by traditional publishing houses.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg …