A word or two about writing ebooks

I’ve been researching writing and publishing ebooks and thought it might be useful to put together some of the tips I’ve picked up for those of you thinking of following this path.

1.      My top tip – If you’ve never written a book, or thought about writing a book, an ebook is a great way to start. Whereas the thought of writing hundreds of pages for a traditional book can be overwhelming, writing and publishing ebooks is much more manageable. For a start, they are shorter. And you don’t have to agonise for hours about whether you will find an agent or a publisher – you can publish them yourself. Easily. Cheaply.

2.      Debbie Dragon at ReliableWriters.com says you should start with a road map. It's excellent advice. By putting together your road map - marking the start, finish and landmarks along the route - you’re making the project manageable. You're dividing the book into bite-size chunks, and you’re working out about how long the book’s going to be. Once you’ve decided on the topic for your ebook, open a document in your word processor or text editor and add the following:

a.       Title page – just the title and author – nothing fancy at this stage

b.      The chapter headings listed as a table of contents (the main topics you plan to cover)

Then write each chapter as though it were a separate article.

3.      Write. It does seem odd to say this, but when I started I ended up preparing outlines but never actually writing the books. If you don’t write it, you can’t sell it. You can’t even give it to your family.