What I Learned From Writing an eBook in Under 30 Days and Selling It for $19.95

The process was inspired by my friend that made $400K from his eBook in a similar field.

It has been a goal to write an eBook that could be helpful since 2014. My friend wrote his own eBook and made more than $400K USD from it.

The money didn’t change his life, although the process certainly taught him a lot of lessons that he later used in his career and his professional public speaking career.

For one reason or another, writing an eBook didn’t happen for me. During the holidays, I sat down and finally churned out an eBook on writing and social media. For clarity, when I say eBook, it means this:

A book sold in PDF format that is only available to purchase and download through a writer’s website and marketed through their email list, social media, and writers in their inner circle. Readers pay for the book using a writer’s payment gateway or “Pay Now” button and there are no middlemen.

The final parts of the process remain. There is still the book cover, editing, proofreading, copy to write for emails, and a landing page to be put together — but for the most part, it’s done.

There were many unexpected lessons I learned during the process that you’ll find helpful. Here they are.

I Was Selling Myself Short All Along

The biggest lesson after writing the eBook was that I was selling myself short. I didn’t truly believe I had any real talent as a writer and it caused me to turn down excellent opportunities because of the dreaded imposter syndrome.

Being forced to search my library of articles and notes to put together an eBook changed all of that. It became clear there were many techniques and skills that I could pass on. All the ideas had been ruminating in my head and waiting for a chance to be served up in one resource, such as an eBook.

We spend so much of our time perfecting one to two skills, and in the process, we forget about the talent and insights we have stumbled across. Don’t sell yourself short.

Forced Reading About the Craft of Writing

Writing an eBook forced me to read lots of books and articles on the subject to go beyond my own experience and find enough valuable content to fill up an eBook. Research is an exhausting process for me, and being forced to do it allowed me to find a way to cope.

The trick was to do one to two hours of research a day rather than try and complete mammoth, day-long sessions that would only lead to burnout.

So Much More to Learn

As much as I was selling myself short about my skills and expertise, I also discovered that there was so much more to learn. Reading work from Nicole Akers and Dave Schools showed me how many knowledge gaps existed.

Brilliant insights on reader behavior, headlines, and the craft of telling a story hit me in the face like a sharp rock, daily. On the one hand, you can be a master, and on the other hand, you can be a beginner.

There’s always a person smarter than you in any field, and that’s a blessing when you’re putting together an eBook or trying to be helpful.

Having to Organize Content Into Chapters

The beauty of an eBook is the formatting you have to follow. You have an overarching theme (the title of the book), chapters to break up timelines or a how-to process, headings to introduce new ideas, and subheadings to make your points and perspectives even clearer to the reader.

This standard book format forces you to think in a certain way. Each idea you have and every skill you want to teach has to fit into the container. You end up with parts you’ve written yourself.

Then, while you’re writing, you think of ideas you’ve written before that would be good to use and end up leaving your writing editor to find those ideas and paste them somewhere for later. Then, you remember ideas from people you admire that inspired you and end up pasting those ideas somewhere, too. The brilliance of the containers known as chapters is my favorite part of the eBook writing process.

Forced organization when it comes to your thinking is life-changing.

Having to Include Every Detail

When you write a blog post, you don’t always give every detail and are often led by the invisible ghost of word count.

When you write an eBook, that changes. An eBook is designed to be far more in-depth than a high-level blog post, and when readers fork out $19.95 of their hard-earned money, they expect to hear every detail and see that you have exuded effort.

I found myself going to extreme lengths to uncover exact dates, timelines, and people who gave certain advice. I also meticulously checked over quotes. This is a good habit to get in as a writer and creating an eBook lets you refine the skill.

Getting a Book Cover Done by a Professional

Blog posts often contain nothing more than a stock image. For many writers, they quickly find an image and they’re done.

Writing an eBook is different. Because people are paying you for the content, it’s standard practice to have a cover done by a professional. The quickest way I have found to do that and end up with a killer illustration is to jump on a crowdsourced design platform like 99 Designs and create a contest.

It costs about $400-$500, and designers from all over the world will send you sample covers based on your brief, right to your inbox. You get to act like the judge in a beauty pageant and select the most gorgeous one. Then you get to send that book cover to your friends and family and have them rate their favorite to shorten the list.

Seeing the magic of a custom-designed illustration is awesome, and the attention to detail required for this process can be duplicated on your social media channels or blog posts.

Excited by the Process

Writing an eBook is exciting. The idea of releasing something into the world that you created and seeing it help people gets my juices flowing. An eBook is different from a blog post. You might, as a writer, write one eBook a year if you’re lucky, whereas you could publish dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of blog posts in a year.

An eBook is that once-in-so-often glory moment that you celebrate quietly behind closed doors as a writer.

If nothing else, writing an eBook about literally anything can bring the joy back into your life and remind you of your ability to be a teacher, entertainer, comedian, or writer.

The Long Days Are Exhausting

Friend: “What holiday destination did you visit over the break?”

Me: “My break was spent locked in my home office.”

***Jaw drops to the ground*** Friend: “Really?”

In Australia, holidays are like a demonstration of your Aussieness. To not go on holiday, hit the beach, fire up a BBQ, and “throw a shrimp on the barbie, mate” is a crime punishable by fellow Australians who hurl VB cans of beer at you (jokes).

I spent much of my recent holiday break writing this eBook. The days were long, and by the end of it, I was stuffed. My family had to do without me on some days, and that always takes a toll on even the strongest family bonds and romantic relationships.

With social media or a blog post, you can whip something up and have it up in less than a jiffy. With an eBook, it’s not so fast. You have to be prepared with the grueling process. You exert huge amounts of effort, climb your Mt. Everest, and then scream in silence out the window of your home office.

It’s a deeply personal journey that tests your enthusiasm, challenges your writing skills, and makes you want to give up many times. Just enduring that process is exhausting, and in the end, rewarding.

Setting Up a Landing Page

When the book is written, you’ve got to find a place to put the eBook. I’m the worst web developer since the dudes in the 90’s who made the original “Ask Jeeves” website with its butler mascot.

There’s no hiding, though. The process of writing an eBook comes to a grinding halt if you don’t put up a landing page and let people see your creation.

This is where you reach out to people who are more technical than you and get some help. The person that does your landing page can later help you with other projects, and that’s a valuable outcome besides having your eBook displayed on the internet for people to buy.

Charging Money Reminds You That You Have Value

Once you have a landing page, you need a pay button or shopping cart.

By signing up with a payment gateway and getting a merchant account or a PayPal button, you get closer to the idea that you’ll be charging money for your eBook. This is a reminder as a writer/teacher/parent/blogger that you do have value and can charge for it.

The eBook can become the catalyst for this realization that might just lead you, later on, down the path of entrepreneurship — another powerful result.

Knowing you have value is a lesson we all need to be reminded of more often.

Uncertainty Around the Results

Now that your eBook is live, the uncertainty about the results sets in. Will anyone actually buy this damn thing you poured your heart and soul into?

The uncertainty is immense. It’s not just how many copies you sell; it’s your ego and reputation at stake.

The only way to ride the wave is to forget about the results. The process of writing the eBook, as you can see for yourself, is enough. You did your best, and now it’s time to move on to the next project.

To Sum Up

Writing an eBook was a great learning exercise that I will be doing more often.

It can teach you to not sell yourself short, learn more about your craft, how to set up a landing page and charge for your product, see your areas for development, be inspired by those who know more than you, become reinvigorated by the process, get better at organizing content into containers, and deal with the inevitable uncertainty.

Each of us is an expert in something. Perhaps it’s time you wrote an eBook on the subject and charged $19.95 (or more) for it.

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