International Practice: Articles: How to Start Writing an Ebook

By Biana Babinsky

Turn on a talk show or open a magazine and you will see quite a few interviews or question-and-answer sessions with experts. At the end of the show segment or the article, there is a recommendation to buy the expert's book to learn more about the topic at hand. These experts already know that having written a book makes them experts, and the fact that they are experts makes people want to buy their book.

What can you do to be like them? Write an ebook! An ebook will show off your expert status, and you will be able to sell your ebook online immediately, as soon as it it finished. An ebook is a great income stream that you can sell to your clients and web site visitors.

To start, you need a plan. When I sit down to write, I usually have a topic, an outline, and an idea of how long the piece is going to be. Having these three pieces of information in advance keeps me focused on writing, and not on planning or making topic and length decisions.

So how do you do the preliminary work and decide on topic, outline and length? Here is how:

1. Choose A Topic. What are your clients already interested in? If many of your clients are interested in a particular topic, it will make a perfect theme for an ebook. If, on the other hand, you feel that your clients would benefit from a wide range of ideas, consider writing a booklet full of helpful tips first.

2. Create an Outline. It is very important to create an outline for your product - it guides you through your writing, and it gives you an idea of the expected length of the finished product, and it helps you include all the information into your product. Somewhere between five and ten sections is ideal.

Without an outline, you might omit an important piece of information that will be useful to your readers. When you have an outline and use it to guide your writing, you can't make this kind of mistake. An outline also helps you progress through your thoughts n a linear fashion.

3. Select a Length. Your outline and topic(s) should give you a good idea of a length for your project. Given 2-4 pages per section in your outline, you now have 10-40 pages for your finished product.

Go ahead and start. Wouldn't you like to hear the word "author" followed by your name sometime this year?

About the Author: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach, consultant, author and entrepreneur. She works with coaches and consultants to help them fill up their practice, gain clients all over the world and create passive income streams. Visit http://internationalpractice.com/free_newsletter.html to subscribe to her newsletter full of tips about promoting your practice online.