How to Create An eBook From Scratch?

Not sure of the basics of creating an eBook. From researching your target market, to formatting and publishing it. We’ll help you with all of it. 

Content creation is not easy. What is more challenging is to create engaging content within limited words.

In addition, it is difficult to predict how to make your audience visit your blog regularly or even push them to subscribe. And even if they do, how to keep track of it?

Writing an eBook is the option. So, if you are not creating an eBook, you are missing an ample opportunity. Writing an eBook used to be technologically complicated, but it's just a clinch with growing technology.

This article will show you how to make an eBook manually or through a free eBook creator to make it even easier. 

An eBook or electronic book uses a computer, mobile phone, or an eBook reader to view long-form text in book format. It is made of texts or images or both and can be made available digitally. 

Creating an eBook is a simple way to advertise your blog and to elaborate your write-ups. This blogger into author transition is a dream of many; however, not everyone actually does.

But did you know bloggers widely use free downloadable eBooks for marketing their blogs? 

Even though through recent statistics, it is evident that email is slowly taking away from the market and social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are taking their place, this is just a myth.

Good readers always consider fine email marketing. So, using this strategy to distribute your free downloadable eBooks can strike subscribers to your blog. 

You can also update your content with an eBook. For example, blog postings often use the content upgrade method, where you give out something related to the blog post in return for an email address. They have been shown to increase your email list size and generate high-quality leads.

Now, if you don't know how to create an eBook yet, let us assist you on how to create an eBook from Scratch. 

How to Create an eBook?

If you follow a step-by-step guide, eBooks are nothing tough to create. However, while creating an eBook, you must keep in mind that it must display your brand and attract more viewers. So, do not blindly go with the templates or designs. Instead, customize it as much as possible. 

So, let's make an eBook in the simplest way possible. 

1. Plan Your Content as Per Your Audience

It is evident that different age groups are attracted to different types of content. So, before proceeding with writing the eBook, you must know your audience well. Customer personas or avatars are often used in this process. 

Visualize your audience, their taste, and what they like because if you want to attract a specific type of readership using your book cover, writing style, font size, and metadata, you should use these factors to determine who your primary audience will be.

Secondary marketplaces should also be considered. Audiences that may be less evident but may nonetheless be interested in your book fall into this category. 

For example, if you are writing an eBook for kids, their teachers, parents, therapist, etc. can also be interested in reading these books, which are called secondary markets. 

Therefore, you must have at least 4-5 secondary markets along with your primary target audience. 

As research work, you can also search for books of the same genre, niche, or category of yours. When you look at what a successful eBook looks like, you will gain more confidence in creating your own. 

If you still face difficulty, you can talk to a professional or attend a workshop on selecting the audience for your niche and making content that interests them. 

2. Create A Structure of eBook (Chapters, Sub-Chapters)

The organization is vital in every aspect of life. And when it comes to reading, it is a must to make your readers comfortable and understand. Thus, before moving into the main content, you must always plan your book and create a structure. 

There should be a table of contents with descriptive names for each section in a great eBook. Only a few words are needed to make each point obvious. So, avoid being too wordy and stick to the main content of each topic. Try to keep your chapter names as small as possible. And lastly, make them creative, which creates suspense in your audience's mind. 

If your eBook is of an informative type, you can also use bullet points. But, first, decide which parts of the text are most suited for bullet points or graphs. You can also create infographics using informative text.

Try to list areas that could be used as captions or quotes and take notes on them. Long blocks of text can be visually broken up to help your audience understand the content before reading. 

Proofread your content and avoid any other types of errors as they can result in a misunderstanding by your readers. Before you move on to the writing part, make your content plan crystal clear. It will also help to write better and neat. 

3. Start Writing

Now move to the most crucial part, which is writing the primary material. You need to be very focused while writing your eBook. Try not to divert from your topic and stick to the main topic. Elaborate on all your pointers. 

One of the advantages enjoyed by blogger turned authors are, they can write as much as they want on a particular topic demanded by their audience. There's no need to be briefed. Thus, feel free to explain the facts as freely as you want. 

However, do not make your eBook too lengthy, as it can bore your reader. For this, try to be succinct, eliminate fluff, and avoid technical language. In short, try to read your content once from your reader's perspective before publishing. 

Do proper research before writing. If needed, you can also use references. Using citations helps in developing trust among your readers. Thus, everything should be checked for accuracy and cited.

4. Add Visuals (Graphs, Charts, Stats, Images)

An eBook without visuals is just equivalent to boring textbooks. So, how can you expect your reader to read such books? 

No matter what the purpose of your eBook is, always make it look attractive. So, after you have decided on your content and finished with the writing, it's time to add pictures, graphs, charts, and other visuals to make your eBook easy to read. 

Especially if your eBook is information-based, graphs and charts can do a lot of work. It would give a better understanding of your topic and would engage your readers till the end. 

For pictures, you can have your gallery or download from the internet with proper permission. This is a crucial step. Do not ever forget to take permission as it can cause copyright issues later. 

For graphs, stats, and charts, you can make your own through various online editing apps. Apps like Visme can help you in this case. It helps in making customized maps, graphs, charts, and other visual representations. 

Now comes the most important tip of adding visuals; visuals always look good, but make sure not to overdo it. There should be a visible balance between the visuals and texts. 

For example, too many charts and graphs can ruin your writing, resulting in confusing your viewers. Therefore, try to maintain the equilibrium. 

5. Design eBook Cover

Now that all your primary content is ready, it's time to decorate your book cover. There are many apps and sites which provide free eBook templates like Canva, Visme, Creatopy. 

However, Canva, because of its easy-to-use features, is the most popular one to make eBook templates. 

But, if you are still confused about how to make a template on Canva, let us assist you. 

• Make an account: Launch Canva on your phone or laptop using your google account. If you already have an account, skip this step. After logging in, search for the “eBooks” design type. After that, get a new page to start with. 

• Search Templates: When redirected to the eBook gallery, you can see all the templates available for eBooks. There are plenty of them for every type, style, and theme. In addition, all the front, inside, and back cover page previews will be available to you. Choose the type which is suitable for your eBook. 

• Try the features: There are high-quality stock photos, images, illustrations, icons, and other graphics available with each template. So, after choosing the template, you can play with the tools and make your edits according to your requirement. 

Finally, you can download the end product in the png or jpg format, whichever is convenient. 

6. Create eBook (Use Services Like Kindle Create, Venngage, Notion Press)

You are almost there to publish your eBook. Since all your basic steps are finished, let's move to the last advanced stages. The next step is to format your eBook. Again, many online tools are available, like Kindle Create, Venngage, Notion Press, and many more. 

Kindle Create is a must-have if you are self-publishing Kindle eBooks using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

Since Kindle Create is an Amazon byproduct, you need to download it on your PC before getting started. The most exciting part is that it supports English and other languages like Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Malayalam, Marathi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tamil. 

Let's understand its usage in steps.

• Before you have logged in successfully, you need to click the early access option. It is mandatory if you need to unlock the beta features. Beta features are essential if you want to format paperback books so, since this article is about eBooks, it's not mandatory for you. 
• After you click a new project file, you can choose the type of book you are making. For example, if it's a comic, select the option and if it's a wordy textbook, select the novel option. 
• The next step is to upload your eBook file, either in pdf format or word document. 
• Then, you can do your formatting as per the requirement. You are free to choose the Title tag, headings, sub-headings, content, and others.
• If you have selected the beta features, you can design your eBook and paperback themes hand in hand. 
• There are certain preset themes in Kindle Create. You can choose themes according to your eBook type. However, this is only valid for paperback types. Suppose you publish it in Kindle eBook format; the writing style would automatically change into standard text format. 
• Keep one thing in mind, that Kindle Create is only for formatting purposes. This means that you need to keep your eBook ready. By ready, it means grammatically correct and in all ready form. So, make sure to do proofreading before uploading the file to Kindle Create. 

7. Publish

Finally, as your eBook is ready, make it available to your audience. The cost of your eBooks may vary with your purpose. If it has been made for marketing purposes, you can offer it free to your readers in exchange for their emails. This will help you in increasing your email list. In addition, it will also help you to keep track of your audiences. 

You can launch a landing page on your blog or sell them via Kindle or other eBook sites if you wish to sell them. 

8. Create Landing Page

A landing page is a must-have if you wish to sell your eBooks.

Unaware of what a landing page is? In the context of marketing, it usually refers to a page that is separate from your homepage or any other page with a singular and specific goal. Landing pages allow you to deliver on any promises you make in your content.

If you are planning to promote ebooks via paid ads or any other way, Landing Page is where your prospect will come first to download your ebook. It should be attractive, to the point, easy to understand.

So, this is how your eBooks are going to get more recognition.

9. Market Your eBook

Simply creating an eBook and publishing it is not sufficient for your potential audience to reach you. You need to promote it. The promotion can be of any form. For example, if you are a blogger, you can write an entire blog about your eBook and push your audience to read it. A landing page is a good idea to promote your eBook. 

However, you can also use catchy posters of your eBooks and upload them to your social media. Another way is to do direct email marketing. You can also mail the poster to all your contact mail ids. 

If you don't know what to add to your poster, you can only customize your eBook cover and publish it everywhere your audience hangs out. Of course, another effective way is Facebook and Instagram live. But, of course, if you are already a social media influencer, it won't be a big problem for you. 

Still, if you do not have much social media reach, you can request other influencers or friends to promote your eBook on their social media accounts. For this purpose, you can also announce a commission. If nothing works for you, Instagram and Facebook ads are another option you should check to promote your ebook.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The eBook or electronic book is a publication that is made available to everyone on digital platforms. These eBooks consist of texts, images, or both, which are readable on any electronic medium. 

Earlier, this platform used to have the digital forms of printed books but nowadays many books are only available in the eBook format with many reader-friendly modifications.

People prefer these books over printed copies because of their low price, easy availability, and the reader's comfort. A person can read these books anytime they want. 

So, if you are planning to write an eBook, you can have a big shot. Moreover, now that you know all the steps to write an eBook, it should be as easy as pie for you. All you need to do is to be creative with your work and remain consistent.