Web Ink Now

So you want to write an ebook? 30 tips for success

Ebooks are one of the most effective forms of new marketing.

Ebooks have tremendous perceived value and therefore people tend to pass them on. They help solve problems and therefore buyers appreciate the content, branding the writer as someone worth doing business with.

Ebooks lead to sales!

Many people have achieved business success by writing an ebook. So can you.

Martin Soorjoo sent me his latest ebook The Black Book of Lie Detection: Effective techniques from a professional lie detector. It is really well done and I hope Martin doesn't mind, but I am using his ebook as our example.

What should I write about?

1. You should write about something that you know well. Martin is a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and expert in Body Language and has assisted individuals, companies and law enforcement officers in developing lie detection skills and detecting deception. Damn. He's credible!
2. You should write to solve a problem that people have. Martin's potential readers ask: How do I know if somebody is lying?

How should I write?

3. The ebook should be authored by a person. Don't make it by your company. You need the personal connection with readers. An ebook by "Premium Landscape Company" will not do as well as an ebook by "Mary Smith, chief landscape architect at Premium Landscape Company."
4. An ebook is a medium length document, maybe 20 to 30 pages. But since this is not dense text like a white paper, it is usually around 3,000 to 6,000 words.
5. Make it interesting.
6. Have a definite point of view.
7. Do not sell your products or services in the body of the ebook.
8. Write using conflict. Martin has a warning at the front of his ebook. And the content (is someone lying or not) drips with conflict.
9. At the end, in the biography section, have a place where people can learn more and can contact you if they want to work with you.
10. You will need a great title that intrigues people. The Black Book of Lie Detection
11. Use a subtitle to say what the ebook is about Effective techniques from a professional lie detector

How should I distribute?

12. Make the ebook a simple PDF document with no reader software required
13. Lose control of the content by making it totally free with no registration required. You will have 20 to 50 times more downloads than if you require people to submit an email address to get the ebook.
14. Add a Creative Commons license to encourage people to share.
15. Point people to a landing page where they can learn more, but allow people to point directly to the ebook URL if they want to. Here is Martin's landing page
16. Tell people about the ebook, especially those in a position to talk it up. I am writing about Martin's ebook because he sent me the URL via a direct message on Twitter.

Design considerations

17. Invest in a great design
18. Focus on the cover – the first thing people see
19. Use landscape orientation, not portrait (so it fits on a computer screen)
20. Include a biography section at the end with your photo where people can learn more
21. Use a header or footer with the title of the ebook with page numbers. (Sometimes people print out one page).

What about the landing page?

22. You should have a permanent place to point people. It could be on your blog or site or you could even make a micro site with a unique URL
23. Consider search engine optimization. The title tag for Martins's landing page is "How to tell if someone is lying – free lie detector ebook." I wouldn't be surprised if he gets to the front page on Google for the phrase "How to tell if someone is lying"
24. Use bold section breaks so people can determine immediately if the ebook is for them
25. Add the first link to ebook above the fold on the top of the landing page.
26. For those who do not download immediately, provide details on how you can benefit from reading the ebook
27. Add some author credibility at the bottom for those who need convincing

Martin's ebook and the related parts are excellent. But here are several things he might consider for the next time around

28. Make the landing page a permalink with the URL part of the SEO term. I am concerned that Martin's URL www.communicationdownloads.com/Links.aspx is not a permanent link.
29. Make the inside design a little less font heavy. The font choice should add to the text. I'm not a fan of the various colors at the top of some of Martin's pages because I think it detracts from the writing. However, this is a personal observation.

Question to Martin

30. How will you promote the ebook? How will people find it? A well done ebook has potential to generate hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of downloads.

Some other ebooks to check out

New Rules of Sales Enablement by Jeff Ernst

Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex, by Dr. Helaine Smith

The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free my ebook that has been downloaded more than 600,000 times. (Do a search for the phrase "viral marketing" and see where the ebook come up).

What did I miss in the tips? Do you have one to add?

Have you written a great ebook? Congratulations! Go ahead and add the link in a comment and let us know about your success. How many downloads did it get? Can you tie the ebook to sales?

The truth about blog and twitter content syndication

I'm a huge fan of blog syndication.

I write a post once on my Web Ink Now blog, push the button, and it appears in many places such as my Amazon page, sites like MarCom Professional, the search engines, Newstex Blogs on Demand, and more.

But many bloggers don't understand how syndication works and why it is important. And some are downright fearful of syndication.

The ability to provide blog content to many places through syndication is incredibly valuable. With no extra work, syndication allows you to reach a potential audience of millions of people you would not otherwise reach.

Free ebook

A new free ebook from Newstex called The Truth about Blog and Twitter Content Syndication, helps you to understand what options are out there and what might be right for you.

Disclosure: I syndicate my blog through Newstex and I am an advisor to the company.

Before You Open Your Mouth: The Keys to Great Public Speaking

Nick Morgan asks: "Why is most public speaking so awful? Why do we subject our fellow human beings to this form of torture when there are so many better things we could all be doing, like cutting our toenails, baking snickerdoodles, or watching re-runs of The Prisoner?"

Nick is the author of my favorite book on public speaking Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.

I have worked closely with Nick on improving my speaking skills. He knows what he is talking about!

Nick just released a ChangeThis manifesto called Before You Open Your Mouth: The Keys to Great Public Speaking. If you do any public speaking at all, you should read this (totally free) manifesto.

"Why is most public speaking so awful? Beyond soulless venues and Death by Power Point, speakers make the same four mistakes over and over again, continuing the sorry state of the art."

Download Before You Open Your Mouth: The Keys to Great Public Speaking and learn what the four mistakes are (and how to avoid them).

Free social media ebook and video: New Media and the Air Force

The United States Air Force Public Affairs Agency, Emerging Technology Division just released a new ebook and video about how social media is used in the Air Force. The ebook and video contain excellent information for all organizations and should serve as a blueprint for social media guidelines for those who do not have them.

Ebook
New Media and the Air Force
(Please note that this file is nearly 2MB, so be patient)

Video
Air Force New Media
video on YouTube

For those of you who work in large organizations struggling with social media, please share this with your bosses.

Both the ebook and the video show how Airmen are using social media to stay informed and inform others. Airmen have the ability to communicate and tell the Air Force story better than anyone else. By reaching out with social media tools, they're able to it quickly and in their own voice.

As Colonel Michael G. Caldwell, acting director of public affairs for the United States Air Force told me: "We want 330,000 people to be in Public Affairs."

How will YOU create a World Wide Rave? Video and ebook

In my new video, more than a year in the making, over 100 people from all seven continents contribute to show how people spread ideas and tell stories.

Here is a direct link to the video on YouTube.

How did you do THAT?

New free ebook about how the video was made.

As I was passing around the work-in-progress video that resulted in How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?, everyone had a question about some aspect of it. How did you come up with the name World Wide Rave? The music is cool—what is it? How did you get so many photos and videos from around the world? As I answered each question, I thought back on the more than one year that the video has been in the works and the more than 100 people from all seven continents who contributed to it.

I chronicle the making of the video in a new free ebook that you can download here How Will YOU Create a World Wide Rave? Making of the Video

What's so cool about ideas that spread is that people WANT to share.

Thanks to everybody who contributed. If you’d like to put a banner on your blog, please do! I'd be honored. You can point to this post.

Blog Badge

Video by Your Business Channel
Mark Sinclair, Features Editor, with James Kirk, George Laycock, Jeremy Decoursey, David Chandler, Melanie Sinclair, Georgie Johnson

Sound Branding and Original Music by Audiobrain
Audrey Arbeeny: Executive Producer/ Creative Director
Jason Rothman: Lead Composer
Curtis Macdonald, Mitchell Yoshida and Audrey Arbeeny: Composers

Book, Poster, Website, and E-book design by Eymer Design
Doug Eymer, chief designer & resident genius
Tim Conroy, Production Wizard

World Wide Rave published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Matt Holt, Publisher and Shannon Vargo Editor, with Christine Moore, Kim Dayman, Jessica Campilango, Cynthia Shannon, Peter Knapp, Rose Sullivan, Deborah Schindlar, P.J. Campbell, and Lori Sayde-Mehrtens.

Editorial advice for World Wide Rave Kyle Matthew Oliver

Thank you to the following for their generous support of this project: Mark Fortier, Matt Sitomer, Mark Levy, Phil Myers, and Michelle Manafy.

I would like to thank the more than 100 incredibly generous people from all over the world who took photos, shot video clips, or participated in the photos that are shared with you in the video.

Singapore Management University: Michael Nestley, Ephraim Loy. Teoh Pei Ying, Jonathan Huang, Anirban Datta Gupta, Dorothy Poon, Tina Nirmal, Michelle Kusuma, and Apurva Prasanna

Social Media Breakfast in Minneapolis: Ring leader Graeme Thickens. (The only disappointment was they did not serve chipotle breakfast burritos that day.)

New Media and Public Relations class at Boston University, College of Communication: Professor Steve Quigley.

Women in Business Connection: Shelly Berman-Rubera

Team HubSpot: Mike Volpe, Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, and Ellie Mirman

GoWeb3D Experiences: Dave Elchoness and Rahul Dutta

Ranch Lions and Wild Things, Polokwane, South Africa: Nico Prinsloo, Viv Bristow, and Frank Kasakamula.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Dave Scott, Tom Stafford, Charlie Duke, Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, Vance Brand, Ed Mitchell, Al Wordon, Walt Cunningham, and Fred Haise.

Marketing Over Coffee Podcast: With John Wall and Christopher Penn

Pragmatic Marketing: Steve Johnson, Adele Revella, and Graham Joyce

The New York Islanders: Josh Bailey

Fire Station 8, Charlotte, NC: Adrian Cornette and Jason Almond

Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group: Marie Dufresne, Mark Bootherstone, and Fredrik Savin

Erin Weed
Keri Nelson
Brenda Haines
Yuri Afanasov
Chris Brogan
Laura "Pistachio" Fitton
Gary Vaynerchuk
Dr. Helaine Smith
Dianna Huff
Bob Hoey
Tim Washer
Jackie Ann Patterson
Lisa Genova
Paul Teutul Sr.
John Hodgman
Phil Lesh & Friends
Steve Garfield
Seamus Walsh
Debbie Weil
Krishna De
Mark Gladding
Reitaro Watanabe
Sandy Jeschke
Bruno Jarry
John Tatusko
Steve Yastrow
Prakash Dogra (with Leisha and Prakarsh)
Patrick Prothe
Sérgio Bastos
Tobi Singer
Donna St. Jean Conti
Gustavo Alvarado
Dimitris Christofileas
Leo Wurschmidt
Paul Baiguerra
Margarida Godinho
Damian Taubaso
David Martin
Michael Ray Hopkin (and family)
Felix Alvarado
Eugenie Verney (and daughter)
Robert Landreth
Carl-Johan Savin
Jonathan Kranz
Andrew Peters
Ricardo Prieto
Jeff Barry
the Barefoot Hawaiian
Tracy Johnson

Apologies to those I’ve missed or whose names I have misspelled. My bad. I know I’m bound to screw up a few times. (Let me know if I missed your link and I can change).

A special thank you to our canine friends who posed for photos: Pukko & Bailey

Your challenge:
How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?

Lose Control of your Marketing! New free ebook

Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure.

(Please note: This link brings you directly to the PDF ebook with no registration required and no landing page. It is a 1.2MB document, so please be patient.)

Do you market like the Grateful Dead? Or like Led Zeppelin?
(Find out in the ebook).

Here are some other things you'll find inside:

"For many executives, an obsession with ROI is just a convenient excuse to shy away from something new and untested. Yet that's exactly what the best ideas for creating a World Wide Rave are—new and untested."

"If you're obsessed with ROI measurements that worked in an offline world, then you're just making an excuse. If you worry about losing control of your message, then you're making an excuse."

"For decades, companies have offered Web content as lead bait. But the goal should be to get the word out about your organization, not to misuse the Internet for the sake of an outdated technique."

"For your ideas to spread and rise to the status of a World Wide Rave, you must give up control. Make your information on the Web totally free for people to access, with absolutely no virtual strings attached."

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure. And please share!

(Please note: This link brings you directly to the PDF ebook with no registration required and no landing page. It is a 1.2MB document, so please be patient.)

Learn to fly in 2009

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a fan of ebooks as a great way to deliver information. When I find one that I like that is in a new market, I love to share with you. Sometimes what people write ebooks about are downright surprising – that's often what makes them work.

Max Trescott just released Learn to Fly, an ebook that is the perfect format for getting information out to people about a process—Learning to fly an airplane—which is non-trivial and often unclear to people.

Download Learn to Fly: Live your Dream and Get a Pilot's License! here

Sharing your passion with the world

Max began learning to fly at age 15 and became a part-time flight instructor while working at HP. In 2004, he left HP to found Glass Cockpit Publishing, a publisher of aviation training materials, so the eBook format nicely complements his more traditional products. And it does a great job in introducing people to his work. His passion is preserving and growing general aviation in the U.S. so that it remains available for future generations. He is the President of the SiliconValleyGA, which protects and promotes General Aviation in California's Silicon Valley and he is the "2008 National Certificated Flight Instructor of the Year."

Max told me that he came up with the idea of doing a blog a year ago while "stuck" in Jackson Hole waiting for an airplane to be repaired. (Hey I can relate, I do my best reading in airports! But in my case it is while waiting for commercial planes). It was a fortunate wait for Max because the ideas inspired him to start a blog as a vehicle for raising his profile.

Have you wanted to learn how to fly? I took a few lessons on college and would probably have kept going through to getting my license if I had enough money at the time. Now that I do have the financial resources, my wife won't let me. Too bad. But if you do, check out the blog and ebook that Max has published.

Better yet, if you’re in professional services, you can learn from what Max has done.

Why don't YOU start a blog or write an ebook? It will make your business soar. 2009 is the year to take off and fly in your market. (Sorry for the bad jokes).

55,000 free hotdogs and a dozen free videos

There's been some debate recently about totally free content vs. gate content. On one side are people like me who say put your stuff out for free (my ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing that has been downloaded around a quarter of a million times in 2008). On the other side are people like Bob Bly who believe that gated content (such as white papers that require an email address to download) is the way to go. Many people suggest a combination.

Last week I was in New York spending time with my publisher at Wiley. After work, we went to see Canadian indie band Wolf Parade. But in order to get into the proper mood for the show, we first hightailed it up to Rudy's Bar & Grill in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.

Rudy's serves free hotdogs. A lot of free hotdogs. In fact last year they gave away 55,000 free hotdogs. They also sell a hell of a lot of (cheap) beer. The place was packed when we were there.

I was wondering as I ate my second dog and drained my third pint if we’d have been there without the free hotdogs? And I wondered if I’d be seeing Wolf Parade without checking out their music for free on MySpace first?

Here's an Editorial Review for Rudy's Bar and Grill – by Rose Martelli

The Scene
Rudy's is one of the last bars in Manhattan where suits, slackers and lifetime ne'er-do-wells commingle in a laid-back, beer-laden haze. It's always loud and crowded, even when the backyard "garden" is open. And when you're ready to date out of your comfy little social circle, slap on your sluttiest lipstick or your spiffiest blue jeans and head here. Chances are you'll cozy up in one of Rudy's little red banquettes with someone new before long.

The Draw
Heated on one of those fast-food rotisseries and served with a plain white bun and a little mustard, the full-sized hot dogs are always free and always available--so long as "the hot dog guy" is behind the bar. The blackboard lists about 12 brews on tap, from Bud to Checker Cab Blonde Ale; Rudy's Red, the house brew, is dirt cheap but rather weak.

Wolf Parade at Terminal 5 on July 31, 2008

Business-to-business ebooks: Spreading your ideas for free

Readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan of ebooks as a way to show the world that you're smart and worthy of doing business with. Ebooks have potential to spread your ideas far and wide. For free. My own most recent ebook, The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free, released in early 2008, has been downloaded a remarkable 250,000 times.

E-books have become a very significant medium, partly because people can instantly see the value of a product that looks like for-purchase content but can actually be downloaded for free. In my opinion, e-books should be material people want to read, compared to the dense and usually boring white paper, which our buyers feel they should read but often don't.

Many of the ebooks I've written about in the past such as Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex are for consumer markets.

For business-to-business companies used to the more traditional white paper, an e-book is a radical departure for one simple yet revolutionary reason: the goal. An e-book is about spreading ideas. But for most companies, a white paper is about generating sales leads.

If you've created and published a white paper for your business before, it's highly likely that you put all sorts of controls over its dissemination. If you offered it online, you probably required readers to fill out a Web form before they could download it. The form required them to supply their name, affiliation, email address, phone number, and perhaps more details like the size of their company. Most companies apply the same "give to get" philosophy to offline white papers, requiring interested readers to supply a business card or fill out a reply form.

An e-book is different, or at least should be. Make the content totally free with no registration requirement at all so people are more likely to download it and share with colleagues.

For example, an e-book called The Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook: Finding the Right Recipe for Organizing Enterprise Metadata from Dow Jones Client Solutions, is written for information professionals. It is a creative way to communicate about some complicated concepts like information tagging and metadata use in large organizations.

The ebook has been very popular with the corporate librarian buyer persona - a major target market for Dow Jones Client Solutions - who find the ebook through partner links on Association sites such as the Special Libraries Association, and events such as the Semantic Technology Conference, Taxonomy Boot Camp, Enterprise Search Summit, and KM World.

Disclosure: I've done consulting work for Dow Jones and have spoken at many of their events around the world. However, I did not work on the Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook.

A viral marketing story suitable for bedtime

Perfect for a summer weekend, check out this ebook of Seussian commentary on the difficulties YOBI CIO Jen O'Meara encountered with "new marketing".

Then, watch as Jen uses YouTube to explain what to do when viral marketing just doesn't work.

(She even bangs her head against her desk…again.)

Here is a direct link to the YouTube video