Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip—the final in this series—is:
13. Bundle your best posts as an ebook
This is a variation on the first post in this series, about creating a product, but for those of you feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a new product from scratch it can be a good first product.
In fact my own two first ebooks (both of which are still my best selling ebooks—31 Days to Build a Better Blog and The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography) are largely built from content that was previously published on my blogs.
In both cases, I added new content to the previously written content, and updated the existing materials. And in both cases my readers overwhelmed me with thanks for compiling previously scattered content into complete ebooks.
These 13 methods are just the beginning. I’m certain that there are a lot more ways to boost your blog.
Take a little time today to create lasting and significant improvement on your blog’s business model. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to add them below.
Such a brilliant idea, I am going to have to give it a try and see what happens. Thanks for the wonderful thought.
After reading your blog post I browsed your website a bit and noticed you aren’t ranking nearly as well in Google as you could be
ranking is not everything, there are many blogs / other websites that you can find on search engines. Even my blog could be in the top positions in search engines, with ranking that are still zero. Depending on the keyword, if you search by keyword problogger, blogger pro or pro blogger, then you can easily find sites problogger.net at the top of search engines (not like my blog).
Pretty sure that is a spam comment slipping through
Yep you’re right steve, it’s look like spam comment who want to damage the blog reputation.
This is really interesting. My husband and I have talked about the idea of a book, but all new content seems overwhelming. The idea that readers are comfortable with updated, but repackaged free blog posts as something they would purchase is intriguing. Can you include video in ebooks?
Darren,
This is a great tip and a good one for people who wonder “what can I do to make a lead magnet”
Anyone who has posted a few quality articles on a similar topic can easily rework them into a an ebook that (at very least) can be offered as a lead magnet.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Good content is good content.
-Steve
Hi Darren, I think creating an eBook from your site can be useful. Do you have any recommendations of tools to be used in order to create eBooks?
Hi Meg,
I think the simplest solutions is what I have used.
I have created several e books that I simply wrote in MS word and used a free online pdf maker to create the e book. I used a photo I had taken for the cover and the job was done.
It has worked very well.
David
Meg, there is nothing simple and effective as MS word to write an ebook. If you have office 2010 (and upward) you have awesome features to easily format, add links, headings, everything in an ebook. You can add tweet buttons too. When you’re all done just click save as and save the file as pdf. It is done.
I created my premium ebook “ProBlogging Action Plan” that way :)
Great post, I love this series as well. Bundling posts and making them available as an e-book is something I’ve thought about when I have enough content to do so. I would love to know your thoughts on offering an actual printed book (perhaps something spiral bound) as an option. Since mine would be somewhat of a manual, I like to be able to flip through pages while I’m working at my computer. I’d love to know if someone’s been successful at implementing the sale of a physical book/manual in addition to an e-book. Thanks again!
Yes! I’m compiling an e-book using my food allergy friendly holiday recipes and posts I did last year during Thanksgiving and Christmas. What would you say the best way would be to promote the free e-book and what sort of requirements could there be / should there be in order to get the download link? I’m reading differing opinions on it. Some say get their e-mail address for a newsletter, but I know many people are annoyed having to give out their e-mail addresses, opening themselves up to more junk mail. Suggestions?
You know, this tip would even work for people like me- yet to be published Authors- and for people who post their writing at http://www.scribd.com. Food for thought!
Great tip, I’ve started working on my first eBook, but have been wondering how much content to put in it. I have a fair number of posts, but not a huge number. How much content should a new eBook writer try to include?
Smart move for anyone wanting a quick product to build their mailing list.
Hi Darren,
So many capable, talented bloggers are missing the boat on this one.
You have the content. Simply repackage it. I’ve penned 13 ebooks and counting, all because I create usable content and am quick to repackage the material and publish it.
Thanks for sharing the tip!
RB
Ryan that’s simply awesome – 13 books! that’s amazing.
Great little idea, it also extends the life of your blog as well and is handy for people who are new to your blog. They don’t have to go back through pages and pages of posts, simply download the ebook
Good idea and something for me to think about as I’m building my blog business.
Thank you for the wonderful idea which gives me something to consider as I build my blog.
Hi Darren,
I am delighted to hear this suggestion since I made the same suggestion in an article I wrote about a year ago for Corrie Padgett’s site to help people increase their business without adding too much time into product creation. I am not trying to show off. I just feel great we are thinking like each other for moment in time.
Thanks for continuing to share great ideas,
David
Thanks for sharing this great idea if we have a blog with useful info that really benefits other bloggers or people we can give this a try and make a complete bundled Ebook.
I am a newbee at blogging. This is a great site for a beginner like me to learn the technicalities of blogging. Sor some funny reason I kept feeling as if a woman has written this stuff, until I read your name. Thank you Darren, guess I will be gluing to your site for quite some time now, rose
I’ve been working on building landing pages and drip campaigns out of some of my best content. I think this is the natural next step :-)
I’ve written 5 e-books so far from blog posts and articles I have written – one promoting an affiliate product, three promoting my own products (a paid e-book and a training program) and one promoting my offline business and its services (about to be released). The flexibility of this approach is what attracts me along with the ease of creating the e-books nowadays (as mentioned in other comments above). The other application of this approach, which I have employed successfully is to use the e-books to build your list via Giveaways. I have been able to add hundreds to my mailing lists through this approach.
1) How can I sell my e-books (.pdf) from my blog?
I have two traditional books available on Amazon, and utilize the affiliate links to sell those; I am at a loss for how to DIY for the e-books.
2) If I can manage it, am I better off selling my e-books via amazon? Wouldn’t using the affiliate program be like getting paid twice for the books?
Thx in advance for any light you can shed on this for me.
> db
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