At the core of deciding how to write an ebook is the principal that you should produce a book that people will want to read. This applies in old-school publishing just as much as it applies for modern digital formats.
To sell ebooks online the ebook author should take on board this marketing approach and effectively research the core theme of their book prior to sitting down and writing a single word. This article details one effective approach to research using the internet.
If you are somebody that is very much in tune with your target audience then perhaps you already know what your readers want. If on the other hand you are unsure, or you wish to confirm your hunch, then thankfully there is an on-line tool that can facilitate authors.
The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is able to collate information from Google’s indexes of the vast array of websites on the internet (find it by running a web search for the tool name). The tool allows you to enter either (a) words or phrases or (b) a website URL, and returns results of key words that users search for relating to this phrase/website.
As an ebook author, this tool can therefore help your research by highlighting how popular a phrase is that you may wish to use as a core theme. If there are only 50 searches per month for the phrase ‘butterfly net reviews’ then it is not something worth writing about.
If your book is going to target a specific group of people (for example, amateur photographers) then you could use the tool to enter a website URL for a web forum. Doing this provides a profile of the forum showing key terms that are regularly used. For example, the term ‘photography lighting’ might appear popular in the tool results, so if this is something which you feel that you are an authority on then it would make an ideal ebook concept.
Don’t rush this research phase. As the saying goes, an inch is better than a mile in the right direction. Bring together a list of terms and phrases that appear to be popular (according to the tool) and have a close relevance to the subject area you wish to cover in an ebook. Try to focus in on just one phrase that you consider using as the core theme of your ebook. This key concept forms the main thread through your book along which you can introduce related concepts (perhaps using the short list of key phrases from your research to guide sub-concepts).
The second element is the ebook title. Incorporate the key phrase into your title so that existing web searches will effectively target your book’s core concept, therefore making it more relevant to the customer’s needs. Using the exact key phrase works best followed by making reader-friendly variations. Using the above example a title such as ‘A comprehensive guide to digital photography lighting’ could make a good title for your ebook.
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