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The Main Reason Why You’re 100% Ready to Write an Ebook Right Now

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Odds are I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you went to school. I don’t know what type of work experience you have. Don’t know if you’re married, single, with kids or without.

What I do know… what I’m 100% sure of… is that you’ve got everything you need to write an ebook today. Not ‘just’ because I’ve written a kick-ass guide to writing ebooks (though that will give you the rocket booster you need to figure it all out).

I know you’re ready to write an ebook because you’ve lived a life. You most likely have a blog going or an affiliate website. Perhaps you’ve got an Amazon review site that you’re working on. Maybe you’re a freelance writer or you’ve been inspired to become one because you’ve caught a glimpse of How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire.

So what does your experience have to do with writing an ebook?

People buy ebooks for two different reasons

Actually it’s the same reason with different wording. In one instance they want to educate themselves on a process. For example, if I want to learn how to sew dresses, I’ll pick up a book on that very topic.

In the second instance, readers want to solve a problem. I might want traffic from YouTube, but I don’t know what kind of videos to create.

The disconnect from Starting Point A – me wanting to get traffic from YouTube, to Ending Point Z – me knowing how to get traffic from YouTube, is the reason why I’ll set out to buy an ebook.

You – and every other person reading this article – have experience doing something. Perhaps you’re not an expert on getting traffic from YouTube or teaching others how to sew dresses, but you’ve got experience doing something that other people want to know how to do.

And it’s experience that makes you fully equipped to sit down and write an ebook starting today. If you can verbalize your accumulated experience, you’ve got an ebook.

And if you’ve got an ebook, you’ve got a passive income source that’s going to put some cash in your pocket today, tomorrow and for years to come.

Questions to help you find an ebook idea from your experiences

I was talking to a girlfriend of mine who’s building a women’s shoe website. Although she understood the basic steps involved with building a website, there are many nuances she’s discovering on her own that weren’t in any of the books she read or the college classes she took.

She didn’t anticipate having to write SEO’d descriptions for dozens of shoes. She didn’t know the bank providing her merchant account would require her website to have an SSL certificate, which cost her an extra $80.

This is EXACTLY how ebooks are born — from petty little details you learn by actually going through the fire.

The questions below will hopefully help you see that your experiences are a lot more valuable than you imagine them to be.

1) What types of websites have you built or helped maintain? Are you a blogger? An affiliate? A review site builder? A directory owner? A forum moderator? Do you sell physical goods via eBay or Amazon?

2) What have you learned from the experience of building/maintaining that site? What were the most difficult problems you had to overcome? What were your methods/strategies for overcoming those problems? What research did you have to do? What did you have to learn that you didn’t know ahead of time? Was it harder or easier than you expected? Were there any surprise experiences? Were there any financial costs that you didn’t anticipate?

3) What misconceptions do people have that you want to clear up? In How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire I discovered that sometimes IT DOES pay to take on low-paying clients. This totally goes against the grain of many freelance writing experts who charge market rates. But I believe I provide a valid reason why a writer would want to buck the trend.

“But Dahlia, my experiences are NO DIFFERENT than other people’s experiences!”

I love reading business books, but for the life of me I can’t get through a Harvard Business Press title.

I LOVE the titles and the ideas, but the way they’re written… it’s too dry and blah-blah academic for my tastes. (No offense to any of the Harvard Business Press authors, of course. I take the blame for being the idiot here.)

But if you give me the exact same concepts by an AMACOM author (American Management Association publishing company), I can eat it up. I get it. It’s understandable and usable. Same ideas and experiences, different presentation.

This past weekend I started reading Engagement from Scratch: How Super-Community Builders Create a Loyal Audience and How You Can Do the Same! by Danny Inny over at Firepole Marketing. The book is basically a compilation of articles from several different entrepreneurs and bloggers who give their take on building a base of devoted fans.

All of the contributors have varying opinions. As Danny explains, this book isn’t a roadmap, it’s a compass. You take what works for you and go in that direction. If an author’s style doesn’t resonate with you, don’t follow their advice!

That’s exactly why I can sell a freelance writing ebook even though there are dozens of other freelance writing ebooks out there. My beliefs, words and style of explanation are different than other peoples.

And that’s precisely why you’re ready to write an ebook. The big question is why are you sitting on the fence? If you are, I’d be curious to know the reason why. Leave a comment below.

Filed Under: Writing and Blogging Tactics Tagged With: ,

8 Reports in 1 Month – A Look in to My FAST Writing Strategy

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In Creating Ebooks that are Impulse Buyer Magnets one of main principles I advocate is volume.

Not necessarily volume in terms of the number of pages you write. But volume as it pertains to the number of ebooks you write that are related to one another. I believe you should have at least four ebooks of related topics if you want to see a steady influx of sales.

And no, I’m not talking about back end sales.

I can tell you (because I’m doing it in other niches) that if you have four ebooks on your website and they’re all related to the same topic, you’re going to make some decent passive income dollars or euros or pounds or whatever it is you use to pay your bills. But it’s important that you have them all selling on your website – like I’m doing here in the sidebar of this blog.

If you have only one ebook for sale on your website, and everything else is a back end product, I find that you actually LOSE more sales. People come back to a blog over and over again, but they don’t re-visit an information product even a fraction as much. True story.

So if you’re selling most of your information products through one funnel-type ebook, you only have a handful of chances to make a sale. Whereas, if I put all of my ebooks on the blog in front of you, you’re going to constantly see them which increases the opportunity for me to make a sale.

This is why having a blog versus a traditional sales letter website is so valuable if you intend to sell ebooks. By their very nature blogs generate return visitors, sales letter websites don’t always.

The more ebooks you have the more sales you make

Seems pretty obvious. But you should really see this theory in action.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was selling two ebooks on this site. Two weeks ago I added the press release ebook. During the week that I added the press release ebook, sales for ALL ebooks increased by roughly 40%.

I didn’t do any extra blogging. No promotional work. I just added the press release ebook to this site and visitors started buying all of my ebooks. This isn’t an unusual phenomenon. I’ve seen it happen on other sites before.

Knowing this, it’s time to take some lessons I learned over the past few months and crank out a few new titles here. My goal for the month of March is to write at least eight new reports. I told myself 15 pages max, but I always end up going into the mid 20’s to 30+ page range. I’m not going to get hung up on that part as much as I’m going to keep myself on a tight time schedule.

Each title can only take 3-4 days for me to write. I just wrote How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire in three days and it’s a total of 29 content-filled pages.

How to write fast – a synopsis into my personal strategy

Let me be honest with you… I can’t write fast all the time. It’s normally a cyclical thing for me. I can write fast for a few months and then my brain needs a break.

And sometimes I can write fast at one thing and not write fast at other things.

For example, when I’m writing a ton of press releases I go into fast writing mode. But it’s hard for me to write both press releases and ebooks fast simultaneously. I get burned out pretty quickly. So I’m limiting the press release clients I take right now so I can put all my concentration into writing these reports.

The reason why I’m not so stressed about fast writing these reports is because I can switch up the topics every few days. I work better when I’m not totally immersed in one topic for weeks at a time. I need the freshness of different topics to keep the momentum going. The topics can be related, but not the exact same thing.

If I’m going into a fast writing cycle I like to have a set number of projects that need to be completed. And it needs to be a slightly demanding amount. I need a number that’s big enough to make me nervously excited in the morning.

As silly as it sounds, I wouldn’t get half as much done if I said I was only going to do a report a week. That’s not enough fuel under my hind quarters to keep me moving. I need that tight deadline stress and a bit of unreasonableness.

I also work better if I have a beer mid-way through my day. After several hours of intense writing, I’m usually wound pretty damn tight. I’m excited, but also a bit mentally taxed. I need something to loosen up my neurons again. Sipping on a beer loosens my brain so that I’m able to get back into a stream of consciousness. Otherwise I find myself going back over the work I’ve done and editing the shit out of it. That’s not what I’m supposed to be doing.

Not a lot writer’s admit to such “loosening” methods for getting the job done. Some do well with exercise or a cup of coffee. I have done both.

Right now I’m in a mid-day beer mode. Next month I might be doing 300 sit-up’s at noon to get rid of the Hoegaarden beer belly I’ve slowly accumulated. The point is, you have to do what’s going to work for you. You’re no different than millions of other creative types with their nutball rituals. Neither am I. Thank goodness for that… the world needs more of us.

Outlining my reports ahead of time is also a vital part of the strategy. Granted, I do revise (a lot) along the way, but I need to have a working plan in front of me when I sit down. That definitely helps keep me in a writing flow.

And finally, I’m a big, HUGE proponent of the Pomodoro Technique. This is when you work for 25 minutes and then have a five minute break. After 4 Pomodoro’s, you take a 15-30 minute break.

This was probably the BEST change I’ve made for writing faster. It used to take me 60-90 minutes to write a single press release. A week after I started using the Pomodoro Technique, I’d cut that down to 30-40 minutes per release. That timed session forces you to think more efficiently — at least it does for me.

I use the online Focus Booster App to keep track of my Pomodoro sessions. There are other apps available out there.

If you’ve never tried the Pomodoro Technique before, I strongly suggest you give it a go on your next few writing projects or even your blog posts. If you don’t see an improvement in your speed, I’ll be very surprised.

Do you have any fast writing suggestions? I’d love to hear how you whittle your words in record time.

 

Filed Under: Writing and Blogging Tactics Tagged With: ,

The NO experience, NO formal education route to becoming a well-paid freelance writer in 8 weeks or less

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As some of you know from reading previous blog posts, I’m a freelance press release writer. I run Buyer Friendly PR, and I’ve been doing it since October 2011.

This is actually my second incarnation in the freelance writing field. A few years ago I wrote articles and blog content for business owners… a ghost guest blogger of sorts. I had no experience writing articles or blog content professionally back then. That was my first foray into the client scene and I just kind of winged my way through it.

But let’s be honest — it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to write a blog post. (Obviously.) I’m here on a wing and a prayer and a high school diploma.

The story I’m about to tell today is slightly more interesting. You see prior to me launching my press release service, the only experience I had was writing a handful of press releases for myself. For this very website, in fact.

I hadn’t taken any classes. No coaching sessions. No interning at some PR firm. Just me and my few press releases on the road to success.

There’s a reason I didn’t blog much here in December 2011

So like I said, I started my press release writing business back in October. From the official hanging of the shingle, it was never slow going.

By December I had so many clients I could barely keep the pace. I was swamped with work. Overwhelmed with $150 orders.

The level of amazement I felt was like a deer caught in the headlights.

I mean I had an inkling that I could do well writing blog content for other people. But with no significant press release writing experience, I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to float that boat. Not only did the boat float, it happily carried a ton of cash paying customers.

My press release writing income for the month of December almost started to rival what I was making selling ebooks. This was all extra income during a time of the year when most providers swear business is slowing down.

A series of well orchestrated steps BEATS experience!

I admit, before launching that press release writing business, I mapped out a flow chart of steps I would take to get from Step A (the beginning) to Step Z (thousands of dollars a month in press release writing income).

I won’t bore you with the details of that entire flowchart, but I will tell you a little bit of what worked.

The first thing that worked was selling myself cheap for the first few weeks. Dirt cheap. Scarily cheap. Not-enough-to-go-to-dinner-with-the-family cheap.

I know you hear a lot of freelance writing experts say that you should NEVER sell yourself cheap, but that’s not always true. There’s a way to sell yourself cheap and not corner yourself into that price range forever. And there are some very legitimate reasons why you might want to be a low baller.

Secondly, I didn’t let my cheap rates dictate the quality of my work. I worked just as hard on those bargain basement priced press releases as I do with the $150 ones.

Third, I didn’t try to make my bargain seeking clients fit the $150 price mold. I didn’t have to. There were an abundance of clients at the el cheapo rates. And there are an abundance of clients at the healthier $150 price point. It’s just a matter of going to the right places at the right times. That’s where most freelance writers fall short.

They try to get too much money too soon because they’ve been preened to believe “I’m worth it!!!!” Or they try to get big bucks from the wrong client base.

One thing I’ve learned from this entire experience is that you’ve got to be calculated with your moves.

If you’ve got some writing chops to work with, you CAN make six figures as a freelance writer

My success isn’t some wildly unusual occurrence.

As special as my boyfriend tells me I am, I know this only applies to my girlfriendly skills, not my writing prowess. I’m a pretty good writer, but I don’t consider myself a word wielding prodigy.

My strength lies in figuring out how to make money with my writing and replicating those steps over and over again. That’s why I was a success in my first freelance writing life. And I’m convinced that’s why I was a much bigger success this go around.

If you’re interested in taking the shortcut route directly from “I have no experience as a freelance writer” to “I’m making a shitload of money as a freelance writer,” let me show you my game plan.

It’s all mapped out in my latest 28 page report, How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire: The “Do-What-You-Gotta-Do” Guide for putting serious money in your pocket in 60 days or less. 

First let me tell you what this report isn’t going to teach you (because there are A LOT of freelance writing books that waste a ton of space on irrelevant chatter):

I’m NOT going to tell you how to get a business license or set yourself up as a corporation.

I’m NOT going to tell you how to deal with taxes and all that legal mumbo jumbo.

I’m NOT going to tell you how to write a business plan or a mission statement.

I’m NOT going to tell you how to set up your office, do invoices (are you kidding… I only take cash up front!), or figure out your optimum writing schedule.

NONE of that stuff is relevant to making money fast as a freelance writer.

Instead I’m going to give you the gold nuggets, the pieces that really matter. They include:

  • The ONE KEY TRAIT you better learn to cultivate if you want to be an in-demand freelance writer — and how to master it fast;
  • Why specialization is mainly craptastic unless you do it the way I’m going to teach you;
  • 7 writing niches that are always, always, always in demand — (recessions mean nothing when pitted against these suckers);
  • How to tackle a writing niche, even if you’ve never tried your hand at it before;
  • The one thing most freelance writers DON’T want to do… and how this revelation is going to set you up for financial abundance in a few weeks;
  • 3 Reasons why being hammered with low paying clients is a serious blessing in disguise;
  • How to go from dirt cheap prices to a happily higher rate without missing a beat. I was getting orders from cheap chasers and luxury seekers at the exact same time. That’s a VERY nice problem to have!
  • How to find clients even if you only have minimal experience in a writing niche… I’ll tell you exactly what you’ll need to make clients hire you;
  • The one thing you need to do today to get higher paying clients tomorrow;
  • 4 Features you must have on your website and 1 “surprising” option.

How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire costs $9

If you’ve ordered any of my other ebooks then you know I only teach what I’ve tried and I know. This isn’t a general how-to guide. I’m not going to explore every possible writing niche out there.

This is MY PERSONAL 28 page strategy for developing two successful freelance writing businesses (as a ghost guest blogger and a press release writer) at separate times in my career. This is about learning how to use your existing skills to get work fast.

Will it work for everyone? Probably not. But if you’re a blogger and you’ve got readers and they like your stuff, then it’s a good chance you’ve got the mojo to make it happen.

And if not, there’s always my…

60 day “plain-and-painless” guarantee

I want you to be 100% happy with How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire. If you’re not, send me an email and I’ll refund your payment via PayPal within 24 hours.

No hassle, no fuss. Seriously.

GIVE ME How to Become the Freelance Writer Everybody Wants to Hire Now!

Hurray! I see you’re ready to order…

Once you place your order, you’ll immediately be directed to the download page, plus you’ll get an email with the download link.

If you have any problems, I’m here.

Buy Now

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