Today’s guest post is brought to you by Tanisha Williams, founder of ChatEbooks, a social media ebook marketplace that connects authors and readers.
If you consider yourself a proficient writer, you’ve probably toyed around with the idea of writing a book. However, most of us are pretty busy and writing a book can be a tedious, stressful job to take on if you’re not prepared. Some writers consider publishing e-books instead of novels because it can be an easier method to get your words out there to the public. Short e-books can vary anywhere between 15 and 100 pages in length, and they don’t require much more than that. But how do you know where to start? More importantly, how can you get it done in a short amount of time? Today, we’re going to talk about 7 ways you can get an e-book published – and fast.
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FIND A CO-AUTHOR
As all writers know, starting a new project can be overwhelming when you’re not sure what content you want to feature or how to get the word out there. One great way to ensure that your e-book will become popular is to write it with someone else, preferably someone who is more successful than you are. You can discuss what topic you want to cover and split the work up evenly, and best of all – you get your name associated with someone else’s who is well-known in this area.
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WRITE AN ANTHOLOGY
If you want to write an e-book but are too busy to dedicate a ton of time to it, try getting content from other experts instead. You can ask 10-30 people to each contribute a chapter to your e-book. You can even use already-created content, such as guest blog posts, to create this new e-book. Make sure, however, that each chapter relates to the others. You should plan out what you want specifically for this book and discuss it with each contributor. Lay out a word count limit, a topic, a deadline, and a request for permission to publish their work. Make sure you also give them credit for their contributions. After this, you can simply add in the introduction and conclusion, as well as a chapter of your own.
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EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT METHODS
If you find that your best ideas tend to come out when you’re talking about them rather than writing about them, you could try speaking your book and transcribing it later using an online service. You also probably have voice recognition software on your mobile device, so you can opt for that as well. Sometimes speaking what you want to say can help you hear what the words you’re saying really will sound like to the reader more efficiently than simply writing them. This is also a fairly quick method as well.
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WRITE A QUOTATION BOOK
If you have a particular theme in mind, such as an inspirational book or a book focusing on methods to create something, try a book full of quotations. Find enough of them to fill up a short book – anywhere between 30-50+ – on the theme of your choosing. Then you can add your own words to those quotes and elaborate on their meanings. Talk about what they mean to you, what they mean to your area of expertise, or how your readers can benefit from remembering these quotations in regards to their endeavors. Inspiration sells well in the world of business, and this type of e-book won’t take everything out of you like another book would.
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TRY A TIP E-BOOK
This type of e-book can feature anywhere from 10 to 101 tips for an area of expertise. You could find one tip per page of your e-book; this way, you don’t have to worry about trying hard to fill up pages and pages of content on one subject. Find tips for things that you have a lot of knowledge about, or perhaps tips for questions you get asked frequently. The great thing about this idea for an e-book is that the book only has to be as long as the number of tips you compile. You can write about 10 tips to accomplish a task, or 101 ways of doing something.
Writing an e-book doesn’t have to be a daunting task, and it doesn’t have to take very long to finish. The main thing to remember is to deliver content that people are interested in. If you can do that, no one will care how long it took you to complete; however, you will reap the benefits of it for years to come.
Tanisha Williams is the author of two non-profit e-books 501c3 In 12-Steps and Simple Internal Controls That Protect Your Assets. Her desire for more interaction with readers was the key inspiration behind the development of her latest business venture ChatEbooks. ChatEbooks, launched in October 2014, harnesses the strengths of social media in order to help authors and their readers engage and connect within the context of the selling/reading experience.
