Writing Ebooks - How to Choose a Topic for Your Next Ebook

One of the biggest problems that any non-fiction writer has is to choose a topic for their next eBook. How can you do it and be sure that your reader will want to read it? After all, if your reader is not interested in the topic they are never going to pick up your book to read it. Literally, pick it up in the case of a printed book and theoretically, in the case of an eBook.

It may seem like an insurmountable problem but it really isn't.

The solution is to create a marketing plan for your eBook. Part of that plan will include choosing the topic for your book. There are four main methods you can use to ensure that your book is well received. Each is used for a different purpose and under different conditions.

The first method is used when you are first starting to build an eBook business. It is sometimes referred to erroneously as choosing your niche. However, it is really a matter of mixing niche marketing and micro marketing. It begins by micro-marketing. In other words, you choose a market or product that you wish to write in. Then you begin to compress that market until you have a small topic that you will address. For example, you might choose to sell into the money market and eventually pick a micro-market of building an information marketing business. In internet marketing, this is typically accompanied by identifying a niche or target customer. You then identify a problem your target customer might have and a solution to that problem. This solution becomes your topic.

The next method occurs when you've begun to build your business but you're customer list is still quite small. In this case, you can examine your solution and then determine the next place your customer will have a problem. This becomes your next topic. This method works well if you know your topic well or better still know your target customer. However, it is always possible that you will guess wrong. Your customers may not experience the problem in the same place as you predict. In that case, your customers won't be interested in reading your eBook. You'll have failed.

The third customer based method is to simply ask your customers where they are having problems. What is it that is preventing them from progressing? The solution to that problem becomes the topic for your next eBook or course. This works best if you have a large number of customers and if it is built into your email marketing campaign.

The fourth method is used when you are not building a business using eBooks. Rather it is used when you are building a business out of writing eBooks. These eBooks are typically being sold for the Kindle or iPad platforms using Amazon or the iBookstore. They tend to be independent and your focus is less focused on relationships with your customers. In fact, it's simply an internet version of the traditional book selling industry. In that case, you don't have customers. To make up for that fact, you can use Google to identify potential keywords or questions that your readers will be looking for answers to.

Creating An E-Book Cover - How To Get Your Professional E-Book Cover Designed For Only $5 At Fiverr

A colorful, professional e-book cover will help your new e-book stand out from the competition in the Amazon Kindle E-Book Store. When your e-book stands out, you sell more e-books. When you sell more e-books, you are very happy.

So if you want to be happy, don't skimp on a good e-book cover. Even if you have zero skills designing anything, for as little as $5 you can hire a professional designer on Fiverr to supply you with an e-book cover that will boost your sales quickly.

Fiverr.com is a very popular "micro-job" website featuring gigs encompassing a whole host of services -- writing, reviews, advertising, video, sending Twitter announcements -- but most importantly for you, there are skilled, qualified art designers who are a whiz at cranking out good looking e-book covers. All gigs are for sale for just $5. It's a bargain.

People selling their services on Fiverr -- or offering "gigs" -- briefly tell what they will do for the standard $5 fee. Most explain their offer in less than 50 words. They state what they'll do, how quickly they'll do it, and most add phrases like, "Will make changes to make you happy."

Some have accumulated enough positive reviews that Fiverr allows them to post "Related Gigs" -- these are add-ons or additional related services they can provide you, sometimes for $10 or $20.

If you've ever gotten frustrated dealing with a graphic designer who thinks you're wrong and they're always right, you'll appreciate this.

To hire one of these designers, create a free account at Fiverr.com.

Type "eBook covers" into the search box at the top of the page.

Sort the results by "Ratings." This will give you highly-recommended graphic artists listings. The good ones will prominently display their past work for your review.

Read through the reviews. Stay away from those who have lots of negative reviews.

It's not a bad idea to try someone just starting out. You'll be helping a fellow internet marketer get a foothold and build their portfolio, and you'll only be risking $5 if the project doesn't live up to your expectations. I'm betting, though, that you'll be satisfied.

Pick the "Gig" you like. You can send an email clarifying what work they will, won't or can't do. Once you're certain that you've found a good match, you can "Buy" the gig. You'll be directed to a PayPal checkout page to submit your $5 payment direct to Fiverr. They hold it in an account, and when the gig is completed, the graphic artist gets paid $4. Fiverr keeps $1 of the transaction.

Many of the good graphic artists will request information from you like:

What message are you trying to convey? Who is the target market? Do you want graphics included, or just words typeset on the cover?

You can send in a rough layout of your own. I'd recommend just letting their imagination take over. You can always request minor changes -- center this, change color of that -- although I wouldn't recommend making major changes to wording or switch from simple lettering only to full-blown graphics design at this point.

The e-book cover image is then posted to your Fiverr account dialogue page often that same day -- allowing you easy access to download it and then upload to the website where your e-book is being sold. Just be aware that Fiverr actively discourages direct communications between buyers and sellers, probably to prevent them circumventing the Fiverr system. Accounts can be closed for violations of the website's terms.

Time is money, and spending just 10 minutes finding and hiring a professional graphic arts designer for only $5 on Fiverr is a good way for you to keep more of both!

Leveraging Social Media for Search Engine Off-Page Ranking Factors - del.icio.us, Flickr, Squidoo

SES San Jose, 2006

Attending morning SES (Search Engine Strategies) sessions after a 4am wake-up, airport crowds, public transit shuffles and schlepping luggage all morning - I was a bit cranky by the time I finally arrived at the San Jose Convention Center for morning sessions. So please forgive my mood here, but the "Leveraging Social Search" session seemed a bit lightweight and without any solid suggestions for attendees.

First speaker Gary Stein, Director of Strategy, Ammo Marketing, mentioned the famous "Jib Jab" videos as viral social content and skimmed over stats from a PEW Internet study on why people say they blog. Top reasons many people do it for "Creative Expression" most do it for documenting experience. The third most popular reason was to share knowledge and experience.

That third ranked reason seems the best reason for marketers, the easiest to exploit for commercial reasons and the most likely to lead to valuable, lasting and worthwhile (marketable) content. Stein's role is that of a "Word of Mouth" or "WOM" marketer, so one can see why Jib Jab and positive blogger endorsements are near and dear to his heart.

Reputation management and true Word of Mouth (WOM) can span a very wide chasm between start-ups and potential success for the lucky product marketer - but there are also bad boys out there badmouthing vulnerable companies and products to extort "protection money" from nervous early stage companies. Many SEO's have been approached by anxious company reps seeking a way to overcome bad (high ranking) blog and forum posts for their company name or product trademark.

But the difference between suggesting that businesses go out and gain all those positive blog comments and actually getting those endorsements from bloggers in your marketing space are two very different things. All marketers would dearly love some clear and direct methods of gaining those social kudos online short of "Astro Turfing". (Supposed grass root marketing planted by WOM marketers.)

Next up on the panel was Scott Meyer, President and CEO, About.com,who made a quick intro to his portion of this panel by offering 4 key (power) points.

1. Success in social media equals Engagement plus authenticity times Target Audience Reach

2. Look for the Riches in the niches Social media takes many forms

3. Learn but don't be intimidated.

4. Cede only as much control as you are comfortable with. (Protect your brand)

While he suggested that those points were the critical take-aways of his presentation, he did expand on them. He classified About.com content as "mundane and not sexy" and emphasized it was editorially controlled, and thus not true social content. (I'll agree to the mundane label and add somewhat shallow as my own editorial comment on About.com) Meyer emphasized several advertiser tie-ins to About.com content and pointed out the recent NBC Torino Winter Olympics 2006 event coverage by About.com guide James Martin.

The social media label has been applied widely in this new space and more forms of that amorphous category are emerging every day. One of those emerging is the new "Plum" where entrepreneur Hans Peter Brondmo is doing something that might be called a variation of del.icio.us or maybe Squidoo.com where people "collect" stuff and tag it. The site is not officially launched as yet, but descriptions on the "learn more" page of the site suggest it will share aspects of both of those, plus a few more.

Brondmo outlined social content creation with a reference to a variant of the famed 80/20 rule where 80% of content is created by 20% of users.

An aside here: I love that the top search result for the 80/20 rule or "Pareto Principle" is About.com, since we just heard from the top man at About.com, I classified it myself as "shallow" and it turned up while researching "Social Media" in a story on search engine strategies. Rich.

He suggests a variation on that at 90:10:1 meaning that 1% of people contribute content 10% participate in the dialogue (comment or discuss), while 90% are consumers only - suggesting what he called "Info-Voyeurism" when he said, "We like to watch." Brondmo suggests that "open Source Marketing" asks the question "Can you control a mob?" and proposed an answer of sorts by suggesting that you do that through "Trust" in a community or system.

Wrapping up presentations was Brian Monahan, VP, ITG Emerging Media Lab - Director of "user gnerated content practice" with what he referred to as the self expression of "Me" media. Monahan showed some free form video clips solicited from several video bloggers which were done in response to a questionaire provided to them.

Those video clips elicited several smart (and funny) remarks from the video bloggers in response to the questions presented to them. Monahan suggested that those respondents or content "Generators." He said study suggests that they were highly opinionated, crave recognition, were "class clowns," sarcastic & reactive rather than original. Not much input beyond that of "I like it or not".

The conclusions drawn by each of the speakers appear to be that user generated content and social media are powerful beyond belief and that it is changing marketing in ways we have yet to fully grasp. Attendees looking for ways to successfully fulfill the session title (Leveraging Social Media) certainly went away frustrated that they were given no help find a way to exploit social media and leverage it to advantage, because they were not provided any true suggestions short of using the companies represented on the panel in one way or another to advertise or market.

I'd say that they have failed to leverage this SES reporter's opinion.

Leveraging Social Media for Search Engine Off-Page Ranking Factors - del.icio.us, Flickr, Squidoo

SES San Jose, 2006

Attending morning SES (Search Engine Strategies) sessions after a 4am wake-up, airport crowds, public transit shuffles and schlepping luggage all morning - I was a bit cranky by the time I finally arrived at the San Jose Convention Center for morning sessions. So please forgive my mood here, but the "Leveraging Social Search" session seemed a bit lightweight and without any solid suggestions for attendees.

First speaker Gary Stein, Director of Strategy, Ammo Marketing, mentioned the famous "Jib Jab" videos as viral social content and skimmed over stats from a PEW Internet study on why people say they blog. Top reasons many people do it for "Creative Expression" most do it for documenting experience. The third most popular reason was to share knowledge and experience.

That third ranked reason seems the best reason for marketers, the easiest to exploit for commercial reasons and the most likely to lead to valuable, lasting and worthwhile (marketable) content. Stein's role is that of a "Word of Mouth" or "WOM" marketer, so one can see why Jib Jab and positive blogger endorsements are near and dear to his heart.

Reputation management and true Word of Mouth (WOM) can span a very wide chasm between start-ups and potential success for the lucky product marketer - but there are also bad boys out there badmouthing vulnerable companies and products to extort "protection money" from nervous early stage companies. Many SEO's have been approached by anxious company reps seeking a way to overcome bad (high ranking) blog and forum posts for their company name or product trademark.

But the difference between suggesting that businesses go out and gain all those positive blog comments and actually getting those endorsements from bloggers in your marketing space are two very different things. All marketers would dearly love some clear and direct methods of gaining those social kudos online short of "Astro Turfing". (Supposed grass root marketing planted by WOM marketers.)

Next up on the panel was Scott Meyer, President and CEO, About.com,who made a quick intro to his portion of this panel by offering 4 key (power) points.

1. Success in social media equals Engagement plus authenticity times Target Audience Reach

2. Look for the Riches in the niches Social media takes many forms

3. Learn but don't be intimidated.

4. Cede only as much control as you are comfortable with. (Protect your brand)

While he suggested that those points were the critical take-aways of his presentation, he did expand on them. He classified About.com content as "mundane and not sexy" and emphasized it was editorially controlled, and thus not true social content. (I'll agree to the mundane label and add somewhat shallow as my own editorial comment on About.com) Meyer emphasized several advertiser tie-ins to About.com content and pointed out the recent NBC Torino Winter Olympics 2006 event coverage by About.com guide James Martin.

The social media label has been applied widely in this new space and more forms of that amorphous category are emerging every day. One of those emerging is the new "Plum" where entrepreneur Hans Peter Brondmo is doing something that might be called a variation of del.icio.us or maybe Squidoo.com where people "collect" stuff and tag it. The site is not officially launched as yet, but descriptions on the "learn more" page of the site suggest it will share aspects of both of those, plus a few more.

Brondmo outlined social content creation with a reference to a variant of the famed 80/20 rule where 80% of content is created by 20% of users.

An aside here: I love that the top search result for the 80/20 rule or "Pareto Principle" is About.com, since we just heard from the top man at About.com, I classified it myself as "shallow" and it turned up while researching "Social Media" in a story on search engine strategies. Rich.

He suggests a variation on that at 90:10:1 meaning that 1% of people contribute content 10% participate in the dialogue (comment or discuss), while 90% are consumers only - suggesting what he called "Info-Voyeurism" when he said, "We like to watch." Brondmo suggests that "open Source Marketing" asks the question "Can you control a mob?" and proposed an answer of sorts by suggesting that you do that through "Trust" in a community or system.

Wrapping up presentations was Brian Monahan, VP, ITG Emerging Media Lab - Director of "user gnerated content practice" with what he referred to as the self expression of "Me" media. Monahan showed some free form video clips solicited from several video bloggers which were done in response to a questionaire provided to them.

Those video clips elicited several smart (and funny) remarks from the video bloggers in response to the questions presented to them. Monahan suggested that those respondents or content "Generators." He said study suggests that they were highly opinionated, crave recognition, were "class clowns," sarcastic & reactive rather than original. Not much input beyond that of "I like it or not".

The conclusions drawn by each of the speakers appear to be that user generated content and social media are powerful beyond belief and that it is changing marketing in ways we have yet to fully grasp. Attendees looking for ways to successfully fulfill the session title (Leveraging Social Media) certainly went away frustrated that they were given no help find a way to exploit social media and leverage it to advantage, because they were not provided any true suggestions short of using the companies represented on the panel in one way or another to advertise or market.

I'd say that they have failed to leverage this SES reporter's opinion.

Leveraging Social Media for Search Engine Off-Page Ranking Factors - del.icio.us, Flickr, Squidoo

SES San Jose, 2006

Attending morning SES (Search Engine Strategies) sessions after a 4am wake-up, airport crowds, public transit shuffles and schlepping luggage all morning - I was a bit cranky by the time I finally arrived at the San Jose Convention Center for morning sessions. So please forgive my mood here, but the "Leveraging Social Search" session seemed a bit lightweight and without any solid suggestions for attendees.

First speaker Gary Stein, Director of Strategy, Ammo Marketing, mentioned the famous "Jib Jab" videos as viral social content and skimmed over stats from a PEW Internet study on why people say they blog. Top reasons many people do it for "Creative Expression" most do it for documenting experience. The third most popular reason was to share knowledge and experience.

That third ranked reason seems the best reason for marketers, the easiest to exploit for commercial reasons and the most likely to lead to valuable, lasting and worthwhile (marketable) content. Stein's role is that of a "Word of Mouth" or "WOM" marketer, so one can see why Jib Jab and positive blogger endorsements are near and dear to his heart.

Reputation management and true Word of Mouth (WOM) can span a very wide chasm between start-ups and potential success for the lucky product marketer - but there are also bad boys out there badmouthing vulnerable companies and products to extort "protection money" from nervous early stage companies. Many SEO's have been approached by anxious company reps seeking a way to overcome bad (high ranking) blog and forum posts for their company name or product trademark.

But the difference between suggesting that businesses go out and gain all those positive blog comments and actually getting those endorsements from bloggers in your marketing space are two very different things. All marketers would dearly love some clear and direct methods of gaining those social kudos online short of "Astro Turfing". (Supposed grass root marketing planted by WOM marketers.)

Next up on the panel was Scott Meyer, President and CEO, About.com,who made a quick intro to his portion of this panel by offering 4 key (power) points.

1. Success in social media equals Engagement plus authenticity times Target Audience Reach

2. Look for the Riches in the niches Social media takes many forms

3. Learn but don't be intimidated.

4. Cede only as much control as you are comfortable with. (Protect your brand)

While he suggested that those points were the critical take-aways of his presentation, he did expand on them. He classified About.com content as "mundane and not sexy" and emphasized it was editorially controlled, and thus not true social content. (I'll agree to the mundane label and add somewhat shallow as my own editorial comment on About.com) Meyer emphasized several advertiser tie-ins to About.com content and pointed out the recent NBC Torino Winter Olympics 2006 event coverage by About.com guide James Martin.

The social media label has been applied widely in this new space and more forms of that amorphous category are emerging every day. One of those emerging is the new "Plum" where entrepreneur Hans Peter Brondmo is doing something that might be called a variation of del.icio.us or maybe Squidoo.com where people "collect" stuff and tag it. The site is not officially launched as yet, but descriptions on the "learn more" page of the site suggest it will share aspects of both of those, plus a few more.

Brondmo outlined social content creation with a reference to a variant of the famed 80/20 rule where 80% of content is created by 20% of users.

An aside here: I love that the top search result for the 80/20 rule or "Pareto Principle" is About.com, since we just heard from the top man at About.com, I classified it myself as "shallow" and it turned up while researching "Social Media" in a story on search engine strategies. Rich.

He suggests a variation on that at 90:10:1 meaning that 1% of people contribute content 10% participate in the dialogue (comment or discuss), while 90% are consumers only - suggesting what he called "Info-Voyeurism" when he said, "We like to watch." Brondmo suggests that "open Source Marketing" asks the question "Can you control a mob?" and proposed an answer of sorts by suggesting that you do that through "Trust" in a community or system.

Wrapping up presentations was Brian Monahan, VP, ITG Emerging Media Lab - Director of "user gnerated content practice" with what he referred to as the self expression of "Me" media. Monahan showed some free form video clips solicited from several video bloggers which were done in response to a questionaire provided to them.

Those video clips elicited several smart (and funny) remarks from the video bloggers in response to the questions presented to them. Monahan suggested that those respondents or content "Generators." He said study suggests that they were highly opinionated, crave recognition, were "class clowns," sarcastic & reactive rather than original. Not much input beyond that of "I like it or not".

The conclusions drawn by each of the speakers appear to be that user generated content and social media are powerful beyond belief and that it is changing marketing in ways we have yet to fully grasp. Attendees looking for ways to successfully fulfill the session title (Leveraging Social Media) certainly went away frustrated that they were given no help find a way to exploit social media and leverage it to advantage, because they were not provided any true suggestions short of using the companies represented on the panel in one way or another to advertise or market.

I'd say that they have failed to leverage this SES reporter's opinion.