NOTE:  The following is part of a regular series entitled “Del, how do I…?” in which I’ll give you practical steps for accomplishing a specific objective.

You’ve probably heard that creating your own eBook can be a great way to make money online. The problem for most people is the task of actually writing a book seems so overwhelming.

I’m going to give you some steps and techniques that will make it almost push-button simple.

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The First Few Steps To Your First eBook
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eBooks deliver complete, instantly available, expert knowledge in a single, easily handled package. I suggest that you write your eBook on something you are interested in. This is the first step in making the process easier.

Selling eBooks comprises of three phases:
1)  Researching and developing an idea for the book
2)  Writing the eBook
3)  Marketing the eBook

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Researching Topics
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I suggest that you start out by brainstorming 3-5 potential topics that you are interested in for your eBook.

Then you should research the profitability of the topic. I’ll talk more about this below.

Your main objective is to write on a subject that has long term appeal. After all, you would like to derive as much profit out of your eBook as possible. It’s necessary that your subject does not get outdated in a couple of months after you wrote it – otherwise it’s going to need continually updating.

One of the best ways to research to profitability of your subject is by analyzing top searches at Search Engines. Many search engines as well as other popular portals such as Search Terms keep track of the most popular searches over a period. Besides, there are many other tools such the Keyword Live Software from Analog X that monitors top search terms at major Search Engines. You could use these lists to figure out the most popular subjects.

The next step is to carefully analyze some of the most popular subjects. You can use popular keyword search tools such as WordTracker or Overture’s Search Term Tool to determine popular search terms similar or relevant to the one’s you have listed.

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Writing the eBook
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In general there are three ways you can write your eBook. You can:

1. Write it yourself
2. Have it ghostwritten
3. Buy the rights to someone else’s copy

Remember, our focus here is to have an eBook ready for sale in 48 hours or less. Here’s how you do it:

If you want to write it yourself, here are three powerful ways to get your eBook written quickly.

1. Recompile Method
Just like a text book, you can create summations from various books and publications and recompile them into your eBook.

2. Author Participation Method
Go to an online article directory like ArticleDashboard.com and search for articles on your subject. Find 50-70 different articles on your subject and contact each of the authors by e-mail, tell them you are writing an eBook, saw their article and would like to include it as is (with their contact information) in your book. Take the articles from the authors that agree and put them in a logical order flow. List each article in your table of contents and your finished.

3. Use the Public Domain
In a nutshell, the Public Domain is a collection of books and other writings that no longer are copyright protected. This means that you can copy them and sell them as your own. For a listing of over 20,000 digital public domain items go to www.Gutenberg.org.

Ghostwriting
If you would like someone to ghostwrite for you I would suggest you go to a freelancer site like elance.com (www.elance.com). Be sure to state your time frame in your quote – 48 hours or less.

Private Label Rights
There is a whole world out there of Private Label articles, reports and eBooks you can buy and use as your own. Forget about our goal of 48 hours you could have an eBook ready for sale in 2 minutes. There are a number of sources out there and I’ll give you my favorite at the end of this post.

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Marketing the eBook
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The final step is marketing the eBook. In the near future I’m going to have a post on my blog that goes into great detail about that. What I want to cover here is the importance of a good eBook cover and other graphics. Contrary to the popular saying, people do judge a book by it’s cover!

Also, the quality of your cover and other graphics will be a big factor in how much you can charge for your eBook. If it looks like quality it will sell for a quality price.

Follow these steps and guidelines and you can have your very own eBook in 48 hours or less!

And that’s how you do it!

RESOURCES
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Creating an eBook – www.eBookGenerator.com
Creating Quality eBook covers – www.eCoverGenerator.com
Private Label Rights – PLRSO.com