How to Write an Ebook In Record Time

How to write an ebook? You must be joking!

Not in the slightest. And I think every person –– writer or not –– should write a book or ebook at some point in their life. Ideally, sooner rather than later. Here’s why:

Americans spend about $1 billion every year. – Statista.com
Two of the top passive revenue sources on the web are online are courses and ebooks. You create them once. They create a lifetime of value and money for you.
It costs $0 to create, write, publish, and distribute your ebook.
Your ebook could generate hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in additional passive income.
Writing a book is one of the best ways to build your brand, visibility, credibility and authority in your market, whether you’re a writer or not, regardless of the industry you work in.

What do you think now? Sounds a little more exciting, right?

Whether you’re a writer or not, there’s no reason we all shouldn’t write an ebook to share our unique insight, experiences, and expertise to help others and grow some side hustle income.

This blog is the all-encompassing guide for how to research, write, publish, and promote your ebook. We cover how to choose your topic, validate your market, do your research, and then outline, write, publish, promote, market, and sell your ebook.

If you’re looking to write an ebook but don’t know where to start, this is it.

Why Everyone Should Write One ebook

If the passive income potential wasn’t enough to motivate you, here is a breakdown of some other critical reasons we should all right at least one ebook in our lifetime.

1) You Learn How to Write Well

The process of writing an ebook will make you a better writer. By the end of the process, your ebook will be more refined, and you’ll have new skills that you can apply to future writing projects and jobs. Since most of the workforce went remote in 2020, writing has become one of the highest-demand and highest paying no-degree or certification-bearing skills on the market.

2) You’ll Grow Your Confidence as a Writer

Most people are intimidated by writing. They avoid it at all costs.

The feeling of accomplishment that comes with writing an ebook is unmatched. Once you see the finished product and how much it can help people, you’ll show yourself that you’re capable of anything. You might even be hooked on writing more.

3) Skill Building

One of my favorite aspects of writing an ebook is how many skills you gain in the process. Even if you write a “bad book” and it makes $0, you will acquire and improve skills that command serious job market value.

Here are just a few of the skills you’ll improve along the way:

Research capabilities
Market examination and validation
Competitive analysis
Written communication
Meta-learning: Learning how to learn well and fast.
Editing
Proofreading
Digital marketing
Social media marketing and writing
Critical thinking
Examination
Human and consumer psychology
Design
Online publishing platforms
Outsourcing: Hiring other skilled contractors to help you with proofreading, editing, book cover design, etc.

The list is endless. The best time investments and projects we can choose in life are the ones where even if we “lose”, we win. Even if you don’t sell a single copy, you’ve won by gaining a metric ton of skills that all have verifiable market, job, career, and professional value.

4) Character Building

Writing an ebook is a fantastic character-building exercise. You’ll learn how to push through when you don’t want to write, how to motivate yourself, how to stay disciplined, how to be organized, how to work on a tight schedule, how to handle criticism, how to deal with haters, how to accept compliments gracefully, how to handle rejection, how to be persistent and never give up on your dreams.

The grit and determination it takes to even write one short book (50-100 pages) over a few weeks is an investment that will pay you back dividends in so many ways over the course of your life.

5) Say that You Published a Book

Most people have an idea for a book but never write one.

Saying you wrote and published a book is a huge social booster. How many people do you know who can say that? “I wrote a book” has weight.

When you can say you published a book, you immediately gain people’s interest.

6) Boost Your Resume

If you’re looking to change jobs or move up in your career, having an ebook under your belt is a remarkable resume booster. It’s something you can list as an accomplishment and use as an example of your work. Add it to your portfolio for future job applications or pitches to prospective clients.

7) Career and Professional Growth

If you wrote your book about a specific craft, skill, industry, role, profession, or how to solve a specific problem, this can be a huge opportunity for getting your foot in the door with clients or companies in the future.

write an ebook to expand your Career and Professional Growth

It not only shows the knowledge and expertise you have in the field, it indirectly showcases you are:

Tenacious
Determined
Organized
Knowledgable
Committed to and tackling big projects

What client or employer doesn’t want to see that?

8) Build Your Brand

“Isn’t brand building for influencers?” No.

Brand building is for anyone and everyone. Especially those dedicated individuals (like yourself) that are committed to growing, learning, creating, and increasing your earnings.

Maybe you want to be known as a go-to expert in your field or an authority on a certain topic in your professional or social network. Whatever it is, an ebook is a powerful tool for building your brand, visibility, and credibility inside and outside of your social network –– and increasing your ebook sales.

Think of your brand as your professional reputation online. What are you doing to build it and grow it? The more you can elevate your brand, the more opportunities, income, and freedom you can create for yourself.

It also may be the segue to growing your professional network and revenue through brand or business partnerships, relationships with other experts in your field, and the opportunity to become a paid consultant, create and sell online courses, get paid for speaking at conferences or seminars –– the sky’s the limit.

What You Need to Know Before You Start

Okay, so you’ve sold me on writing an ebook. But writing a book is a HUGE undertaking, right?

Writing an ebook may sound daunting, but it’s way more doable than you think it is.

Some of the most helpful, useful, and memorable ebooks I’ve read in my life are only between 50-100 words. That’s it.

Furthermore, a 50-page book is only 15,000 words. A 100-page book is only 30,000 words.

Sound like a lot? Let’s break it down further.

With the right tools, strategy, mindset, and schedule (which all help a ton) –– even as a new writer –– you can write between 1,000 to 1,500 words in about an hour per day. Especially if you have an outline to work off of, which you will know how to build by the end of this blog post.

What You Need to Know Before You Start writing your ebook

Set the bar low for your first ebook. Let’s start with 50 pages or about 15,000 words. With this math in mind, you should be able to completely write your first book in 10-15 days. Isn’t that awesome?

Oh, and another thing that will alleviate some stress. Blank pages are intimidating, but unless you’re talking about creative writing, you don’t have to write from scratch.

In fact, you’re going to be outsourcing most of your book with

Credible online resources.
The top search results on Google for your area, industry, profession, or niche.
FAQ content, search queries, keywords, and questions people are asking online.
Other books in your industry or niche.
Software and online tools that make your job easier.
Potentially, interviews with other experts in your area.
Your own professional development, character story, and expertise.

P.S.- If you’re already a confident freelance writer and just want the links to the tools we use in this process, skip to the end of the blog. If you’re new, stick around.

How to Write an ebook: Solve a Problem

“Choosing a book idea. Where do I even get started?”

This is also easier than you think.

Each one of us faces these kinds of problems in our everyday lives. People (aka- your readers) are always looking for answers to their burning questions and solutions to their problems.

That’s where ebooks come in.

How many people do you know who’ve read at least one book that’s had a profound impact on their life? I’m not talking about fiction here. I’m talking about real-world, real-life application books.

When I start to think about it, that’s everyone I know!

Now, what did the first step of their journey look like? They had a question they needed to answer. When you dig deeper, they had a problem they needed to solve.

If you can provide unique and valuable answers and solutions for your and other’s problems –– you already have a book you can write.

“So where do I get started?”

Choosing your topic starts with establishing your expertise.

1) Take a Skill Inventory

To get a book idea, let’s start by taking an inventory of your skills.

Ask yourself this:

What do your friends come to you for help with when they have a problem or challenge?
What’s your professional area of expertise? If not current, previous.
What are your interests and hobbies?
What problems or challenges do you want to solve in your own life?
What problems do you have the experience or qualifications to help others solve?

If you can answer this question, you’ve probably got your topic: “To anyone who knows me, I’m the go-to person for _____________________ .”

Write down the rest of that statement for yourself right now. If it’s more than one thing, keep writing.

This could be anything from relationship advice to cooking, baking, travel, health, fitness, investing, good shows, great movies, coupon-clipping, parenting, studying, test-taking, handy work, DIY home projects, smartphone trouble-shooting, car repair, fashion, shopping, coupon clipping, hosting parties, making cocktails, photography, music, design, or you name it!

Don’t think you have the expertise or aren’t happy with what you’re a go-to person for? Let’s make you an expert in something else…

2) Become an Expert in 90 Days

Now, this is going to extend your ebook writing timeline. but you’re going to develop an entirely new skill set and acquire “expert-status” first. Then, I can teach you how to write an ebook.

Here’s what you need to know: The word “expert” is a misnomer we use frequently.

Expertise is relative.

To new writers, I’m a great writer. To writers better, more educated, or more senior than me, I’m just a good writer.

The reality is, if you’re better than average in ANYTHING, you’re qualified to help and teach the average crowd.

Here’s the quick and dirty on how to become an expert in record time (about 90 days depending on your availability

Choose a high-paying niche or industry: Get my free ebook on the 20 Highest Paying Jobs for Freelance Writers. I cover the highest-paying writing jobs and industries to get into. If you’d rather choose yourself, check salary data on any job using Glassdoor, Indeed, or Ziprecruiter’s salary tool.
Read 3-5 Best Selling Books in that category: Block out time in your schedule to read one book per week.
Document and Share Your Journey: Build a blog for yourself on Medium, WordPress, or Jounroportfolio (takes about 20 minutes). Write 1-2 blogs per week detailing what you’re learning from the best-selling books in your category. Document and share your blogs on social media as you read through these books. This will help build your brand and reputation as a writer and industry expert in that area and amongst your peers. Take notes on topics these authors are covering, problems they’re solving, as well as how they are writing about it, teaching it, and conveying their message. Also, make note of what topics aren’t covering, what they aren’t doing, what they’re missing, and what they could improve? What they’re missing or leaving out are going to be crucial added-value content you can bring to your own book.

The above three steps alone will get you to write 70-80% of your own book, just through your own learnings from these books and the information you retain from them via regurgitating and summarizing in your own words, in your own blog posts.

Note: If you already are a go-to person, like the niche you serve, but haven’t done the above process –– I recommend starting here. It will make writing your book way easier and will likely even lead to your first few sales.

3) Validate Your Topic and Market

Are other people interested in this and paying for it?

That’s the biggest question every writer should ask before they start writing a book.

This is where we do our market validation –– gauge the competition, interest, and average customer value to see if enough people online want to know more about this topic and if, how, and where they’re spending money on it.

Our goal here is to gauge the overall online interest in your topic, then validate these people already paying money for books like yours or related products, services, or courses.

Through this market and product validation process, we can prove if our book concept will be profitable or not before we make a single keystroke.

Validate the Topic and Market for your ebook

Here are a few tools for how you can validate your market, consumers, and topic:

Google Trends: Uses search data to measure consumer interest over time.
Google Keyword Planner: Check the search traffic for keywords related to your topic. See if people are paying for ads to advertise for these topics and how much they’re spending.
Build a Facebook Audience: Build a Facebook audience on the FB ads platform around your topic to see how many people are interested in it.
Check the Average Customer Value: What are the prices of books, courses, products, and services related to your topic? How well are they selling? How many reviews do they have online? You can quickly math-up a quick figure on how much people are already spending to gain your knowledge, experience, or solve their problem. To confirm further, check this same information on course websites like Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, etc.
Check the Amazon Kindle Store: Are there books on this topic? If so, how many? How many reviews/purchases do they have? Is it just best-selling authors and industry experts, or are there other writers in the space selling books as well?

You should now have a very clear picture of how large your entire niche from market size and competitiveness to a rough ballpark of average customer value.

If your primary motivation for your book is your income potential and making money, you can further validate this by running some quick math. I highly recommend it.

Note: This is Noah Kagan’s process for how he validates a topic, niche, or market, and I love it.

how to build a facebook audience to validate your ebook

For this example, let’s say that you’re a low-carb baking expert.

Facebook Audience: Take the total number of people in your FB ads audience interested in things like low-carb baking, keto baking, sugar-free baking, low sugar baking. Let’s say there are 12 million people on Facebook in the US interested in those topics.
Take 1% of that audience: Multiply your total audience size by 1%. Let’s assume this is the number of potential people you could sell in the market. In this example, that would be 120,000 people.
Multiply that by your ebook price: Let’s say most ebooks in your market sell for $10. So 120,000 x $10 = $1.2 million (before any expenses related to selling the book).

Not bad, right? If you validate a market in this way, Kagan’s rule of thumb is to make sure that your earning potential is at least $1 million. That should be enough incentive for you to write.

How to Write an Outline for Your ebook

So at this point, you’ve basically written most of your book via your new blog, or at least have it rolling around in your head with the knowledge you’ve distilled from the top authors and books in your space.

At the very least, you have all the knowledge and observations you need to write a compelling and helpful book for your audience.

This is where the internet comes in. A helpful book, especially when it comes to learning a skill, trade, or solving a problem, is mostly just addressing frequently asked questions and detailing your processes in the answers.

Look at the books you read or most of the blogs you’ve read on your topic. Every single one of them was the result of one or many Google searches that probably started with “how to…”

If all the knowledge and resources you’ve accumulated up to this point weren’t enough, here are tools you can use to source the FAQS (and outline) for your entire book:

SEO Tools: You can use SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, and Google’s Keyword Planner to find the most popular keywords, questions, blogs, and articles written on your topic. Read the top listed search results to see what questions they’re answering and what problems their solving. Again, ask, “how could I do this better and differently? What would I keep and throw away?”
PAA Data from Google: You can use Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) data to find the most popular questions being asked about your topic. Simply start typing your search query around your topic into Google and look at the suggested autofill search data that populates beneath your search. That shows you some of the most frequently searched queries and keywords around your topic on Google.
Quora: You can use Quora to find popular questions and discussions related to your topic. Simply search on Quora and look through the top questions and discussions.
Reddit: You can use Reddit to find popular questions and discussions related to your topic. Simply do a search on Reddit and look through the top questions and discussions. When you have a list of popular questions, you can start to answer them in your book.
Existing books, videos, and content on the market: Refer back to the books you just read. These are the most popular and helpful books on your topic. Look through the table of contents and look for questions that are being answered and the topics the authors are covering.

Save all of these valuable questions and links into a Word or Google Doc so you have them saved. These are most likely going to be the individual chapters or sections of your book. See if you can get somewhere between 8-15 of these to really flesh out the content of your topic and your ebook.

Now that you have a list of questions, it’s time to start mapping out your outline.

How to Write an ebook: Create your Outline

Another seemingly unnerving yet surprisingly easy task. Don’t worry about the order of the chapters in your book yet. Instead, treat them like useful, standalone blogs, instructional, or sections that you can put together and rearrange later.

How to Write an ebook from Start to Finish

Here are a couple of helpful quotes to put on your desk as you write your book:

Write without fear. Edit without mercy.
Writing is for capturing your thoughts. Editing is for clarifying them.
Never edit as you write.

When you sit down to write a chapter or section of your book. Write all of your thoughts down without stopping. Write your full hour, 1,000 words, or 1,500 words.

When you’re done, you can go back and add resources, quotes, links, and data to back up your points –– but don’t let that stop or slow you down you while you write.

You can edit or revise your writing daily, but only after you hit your target word count.

When you write, just write. Nothing else. No side missions or distractions. Go to your quiet place or put on some noise-canceling headphones and get in the zone.

How to Edit and Proofread Your Ebook

Congrats! You just finished your first draft.

After you’ve written all of your sections, it’s time to proofread and edit it. Go through each section using the Neil Strauss method of editing. It includes multiple passes of your book, chapters, or sections to ensure you leave no stone unturned.

Edit for Yourself: Do you like what you’re reading and giving your audience? Are you happy with your work? In your mind, is it serving its purpose to your audience?
Edit for your Theoretical Fans or Target Audience: Think of your target audience or theoretical fans. What would they love about your book? What would they like more of?
Edit for your Critics: Think of the critics and haters that may try to tear your book to pieces. What are your book’s weak points? How could you strengthen or eliminate them? Any gaps you need to close?

As you go

Use one color of highlighter in your document to highlight the best 10-20% of your book.
Use another color to highlight your worst or lowest value 10-20% and anything confusing.

Emphasize, highlight, or expand on your best. Minimize, clarify, or eliminate your worst.

Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to edit the book in one day. Take a few days or a week to get it done, but set a deadline for yourself so you don’t procrastinate.

I highly recommend that a friend, spouse, significant other, or coworker proofread, edit, and make notes for you. If not, see if you can find a proofreader or editor on Upwork or Fiverr that’s in your budget that you can hire to do that for you.

Formatting, Design, and Final Steps

Unless you’re interested in learning a few more skills that will help you out as a writer, marketer, and self-published author, this is another great step to outsource to other freelancers on Fiverr or Upwork.

For creating a design for your book, you can use Canva, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, or another favorite design app you already use.

You’ll likely want to convert or export your document as an EPUB file, which is the industry standard for ebooks. You can export a word document as an EPUB file using:

Google Docs
Scrivener
Apple Pages

To format, design, and convert a Word Document to an ebook, I use Designrr, which is incredible. If you want to save some money, Designrr is a great alternative for only $47/year. They even frequently run promotions for $27 for lifetime access.

I recommend looking up the formatting requirements for the platforms you want to publish on. and going from there.

Where to Sell Your ebook?

The most common platforms to publish your ebook on are Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble Nook, Kobo, Gumroad, and Scribd. You can also sell your ebook as a PDF on Gumroad or through your own website.

You can also self-host and distribute your book through your own website or social media. You just need to set up a payment portal or page using software like PayPal, Square, or Stripe. Then, you can email your customers your ebook directly or set up automation for that by signing up for an email list service like Mailchimp, Convertkit, or Sendfox.

How to Market and Promote Your ebook

There are a million different ways you can promote and sell your book. Here are some of the top ways to market your ebook as practiced by some of the best self-published authors

Make your ebook available on all platforms: Publish to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Gumroad, Scribd, etc. to increase your book’s availability, visibility, and probability for sales.
Get your First Sales Through People You Know: Get your first few sales from friends, family members, acquaintances, coworkers, and anyone who’s asked you for your expert advice. Encourage them to leave 5-star reviews on your book. Positive reviews are critical for ebook exposure and sales, so try to get as many of these as possible right after launch and on an ongoing basis.
Create an audio version of your book: Either read it yourself or use a text to speech software to create the audio version for you. This is another aspect of your book you can outsource to readers or voice actors on Fiverr. This opens you up to individuals that prefer listening to books or only listen to audiobooks, increasing your sales potential.
Bundle your ebook with other products or services: Offer so much free added value with your book that people can’t ignore it. You can offer other items with your ebook for free like the audiobook version, a consulting call, a short video course, worksheets that can be used with your book, printables, free or discounted apparel (t-shirts, stickers, coaster, hats, etc.), your own NFT, a short video course, a thank you card, or access to a private Facebook group for other aspiring experts or pros in your industry or area of expertise.
Promote it on your own social media regularly: Use your social profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snapchat to promote your book. Use a social media scheduler like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule and queue your posts and put your social promotion on autopilot.
Guest post on popular blogs in your niche: Reach out to other bloggers and writers in your niche to see if you can create a free guest post on their website to provide value to their blog and audience while promoting your book
Reach out to podcast hosts in your niche to see if you can be a featured guest and offer your industry expertise, and promote your new book, of course.
Start your own podcast: Reach out to other experts and peers in your industry so that they can share their expert insights on topics related to your book. You can even use these interviews and their expertise to add more value to your book. Just be sure to get written consent and permission first.
Create a free giveaway, raffle, or drawing: Promote it on your website, social media, or your blog. Offer people a chance to get your book free if they sign up for your email list.
Run ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn promoting your book.
Give a percentage of your ebook sales to charity: Promote this on your website or social media so people know that part of their purchase is going to a good cause.
Offer a discount or coupon code: Promote that on your website and on coupon websites.

How to Write an ebook 5-10x Faster

Dictation Software for ebook Writers

Use dictation software to write your ebook. This will help you write faster, and it will also help you get your thoughts down quicker. I recommend using Otter.AI, but there are a lot of other great dictation and transcription software on the market.

Here’s the thing, it’s way easier to speak your book than it is to write it.

how to write an ebook - dictation software for ebook writing

Few of us are writers. All of us are communicators, speakers, and conversationalists. And speaking is far more natural for all of us than writing is, and you can record your book while you’re doing other things.

If inspiration strikes you in the car, on a walk, cleaning, or in the middle of doing the dishes, you can open up your voice recorder or dictation app and “write your book” while you’re being productive and working on something else. This can make your book fun and conversational vs. overly stark and formal.

AI Writing Software for ebook Writers

If you want to take your ebook writing to the next level, then I recommend using AI-powered writing software. This type of software will help you improve your writing, catch errors, and give you feedback on how to make your writing better.

I recommend using Jasper.AI, Copy.AI, Rytr.ME, or Peppertype.AI. These tools do exactly what they sound like they’ll do –– write a lot of your book for you, plagiarism free.

These are all great writing software that can help you write your ebook faster, easier, and with fewer errors. They can create everything from book titles, blog titles, social media posts, and outlines to full paragraphs of AI content based on the inputs you give it. They’re awesome and have totally changed my career as a marketer and writer.

Speaking of, test letting the AI create your book title for you. I’ve found they can create some really powerful, eye-catching headlines by the dozen. Don’t fry your own brain cells. Let the AI write you a title that sells your book for you.

I’ve written about them extensively, and I preach their benefits often enough. Be sure to read my post on the Top 10: AI Writing Generator Software.

Writing Assistant Software

If you want to get help with your grammar, spelling, and sentence structure while you’re writing your ebook, then I recommend using writing assistant software. These software programs will help you improve your writing and catch errors.

I recommend using Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or Hemingway Editor. These are all great writing assistant software that can help you write your ebook faster, easier, and with fewer errors.

How to Write an ebook: Capture Your Ideas

Use a cloud-based note-taking software like Google docs or Evernote to capture your ideas, thoughts, inspiration, links, notes, and more for your book in real-time.

I use Evernote daily to

Save links and articles as references.
Save email campaigns that catch my eye.
Clip marketing copy that I think is unique and clever.
Take notes for books, articles, blogs, or business ideas.
Save helpful software recommendations from other creators or writers.

How to Write an ebook: Top Tips

Here’s my bullet-point breakdown of some other top tips on how to write an ebook to the best of your ability and beyond:

Selling your book is all about the title or hook. State the key benefits of your book at the beginning, but you may not want to write your title until the end. A lot of times, your book title will come to you while you’re writing the book.
Block out a writing calendar that works for you, and stick to it.
Don’t edit as you write. Ever. Write your book all the way through. Edit when you’re done.
Don’t talk down to your audience or be pretentious.
Be conversational.
Write in your audience’s language –– tone, diction, and lingo.
Dictate your ebook. Let the software write it for you. It’s way easier and faster than writing.
Make it relatable: Interspersing your personal story in your writing is an essential component of creating a great ebook. Readers want to connect with you –– the author. It makes your content and story stick and resonate with them infinitely more. Inject pieces of your personal story and adventures in the topic matter to connect with your reader, their struggles, and their aspirations.
Make your writing engaging. Keep it interesting.
Make your book actionable: Since we’re talking about solving problems and teaching skills, put activities and calls to action in your chapters. Keep them motivated by giving them practical activities to apply their new knowledge and skills.
Show Your Readers the Benefits: Readers want to see the benefits of reading your book, not the features. Readers want you to paint them a picture of the transformation process that will happen to them throughout reading your book. What will they be able to do or accomplish when they’re done reading?
Offer more than your competitors: Now that you’ve done your market research and validation, make sure that your book is offering more, better, or something unique in comparison to the existing books in the market.
Use data and credible references to back up your points whenever you can. Data makes content more believable, compelling, and memorable.
Give yourself some space and time before you edit your book. Writing a book may be one of the biggest undertakings of your life. Take a week off and give yourself some space from writing and reading before you edit your book. Time off will give you a better, fresher perspective when editing and proofreading.
If you can afford it, shop on Fiverr or Upwork to outsource your book to a proofreader and/or editor.
If you don’t have the time or skills to design your book cover, invest in a book cover designer on Fiverr, Upwork, or other online freelance platforms.
If you have the time and want to learn a new skill, create your own book cover design using Canva or another design application

In Closing

Writing an ebook can be a fun, rewarding, and lucrative experience. If you follow the steps in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to writing a best seller. Just remember to choose a topic you’re passionate about, do your research, outline your book, write your book, market your ebook, and make money off writing ebooks.

What are you waiting for? You have everything you need to start writing your ebook today.

Go for it!

References