How To Structure Your Ebook

This is a follow on from last month’s post,

First of all, you’ve got to…

Know what to say

What do you want people to have learned by the time they’ve come to the end of your book? That’s the central message you’ll hang your book on. If your area of expertise is quite broad, choose an angle within that topic to concentrate on. That’ll help you narrow down the information you use. If you still don’t know what to say, think of what you’re passionate about and let your passion be your guide.

Once you’ve figured out what to say you’ve got to…

Decide how to say it

What form will your words take? Your writing style is just as important as your content. Think about how you speak and about how you deliver presentations? If you’ve a bang-bang bullet-point style of presentation, you could go for an advice manual format, with lots of step by step guides and take homes at the end of each chapter. If you’re pressed for time, you could gather some of your best blogs and ebooks and compile them into an ebook.

If you’re more of a storyteller, you could mix your advice with anecdotes that illustrate your point, about inspirational people you’ve known, or interesting case studies of work you’ve done with clients. You could also go for an academic approach, drawing on the latest research and trends.

Now it’s time to start drawing up..

Your chapter structure

Your chapter structure will break your main point down into manageable chunks. Write an outline which indicates what subjects you will cover in each chapter. While you’ll have an overall message, each chapter will also make its own point. Begin by describing your aims and what people will expect. In the middle, you’ll get into the meat of your ideas and outline how your readers can act on them. And conclude by summarising what you’ve said.

And last but not least…

How long will it be?

You’re busy. You don’t want to feel that you’ll be writing forever. The good thing about an ebook is that it doesn’t have to be long. A lot of people do up ebooks to hand out as freebies to their customers that are only 10-15 pages long. So it should be possible for you to turn it around quickly.

Now it’s time to…

Get Writing.

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