So – you are thinking of writing an ebook and not sure where to start or what to do?  I want to help you!  We have collectively written over ten books and we have the tips that can help you. 

Let me give you a short & sweet post about why I am saying yes to writing a book.  (#3 is my favorite!)

1- They are easy because you already love to write (if not, you can always just talk and have it made into a book by someone else!)

2- They bring in money every day.

3- You do the work once and you are done.

4- You can take as long as you want to write it… or you can have it done in a very short amount of time.

How do you decide what you are going to write about?

1- Look at your most popular posts

2- How can you EXPAND on those?

3- Can you combine multiple posts and expand on all of them to make an ebook?    I took my most popular post, Potty training in 3 days (we did this with all of our kids) and I took all of the posts in that series (5 of them).  I combined them on a Word Document.   I added to them (I added about 50 pages) to give every detail that someone would need to Potty Train their kids.

I asked people for their struggles (on Facebook) and used those answers to think about how I could help more people in my book.   I asked people what hurdles they had and then I answered them in the book.  I asked people how they found success and wrote a chapter titled “Advice from other moms”…  I made it so that you would walk away with your child potty trained… end of story.    (And because of this, word of mouth is what is selling my book… friends telling friends that it worked for them.)

How long does it take?

It really depends!
My first book, Potty Train in a Weekend, took me about one to two months.   I worked on it for an hour or two every night.  My second book, You Can be a Stay at Home Mom on One Income, didn’t take me too long because it was really easy to write.   I blog A LOT about saving money, so for this book, I just combined all of my money saving posts into one book.   I then went back & added details to each post.   I wasn’t in a rush, so I took my time (making it easier to write).   So, for example, I blogged about doing a toy swap to save money and then I went into the book and talked about how I sell toys at consignments, how I rotate toys in our home…   just added to it.

Again, I wanted to make sure that they walked away feeling confident with the tools that I had given to them.   This book is also a big seller of mine.  My next few books were much easier for me to write.

Do you need a program to write your ebook? 
E-book: Many people use CreateSpace, but I just used my Microsoft Word program.  I wrote it up, edited it, saved it as a PDF (so that no one else can change it) and then uploaded it into EJunkie (that is how they buy it).   It was seriously that easy!

Physical book:   I make 50% of my sales from the physical book, so don’t cut that out of your mind just yet.  I use Createspace for this and while I had some issues with it, it is worth the time and effort.

Does it cost money to make an ebook? 
My first book cost me around $25 for the first one and by the last one it was a few hundred (for editing).    (My sister in law edited my first few as a favor to me).

COVER: The cover can be as expensive as you want it.  It can be free or even just $1, if you make it yourself.   I found someone on Fiverr.com each time and had them make one of the covers.  I made the rest myself, including the books for this site.

CONVERTING: $20- this is the cost for someone on Fiverr.com to covert it into a Kindle-ready book.

FEES: I also pay the fees to Paypal, Ejunkie & Amazon with every book sale.

EDITOR:
If you don’t have money to spend, you can get around this part. (However, I do suggest trying to hire an editor.)
To get around having to hire an editor, I printed out 5 copies of my book.  I gave each copy to different family members, along with a red pen.  They went through it and marked it up like crazy and give it back.  I fixed the mistakes.    That’s all there is to that.   I just saved hundreds or thousands of dollars.   That was for my first book.  I didn’t have money to spend on editing, but now that I do, I usually hire several editors.

Will I sell a lot?
That depends on the book.   My Potty Train in a Weekend book sells a lot of copies, between Amazon and my blog.   I co-wrote a book with my dad on Car Buying, and it doesn’t sell as much because my blog isn’t where you would go to find out about cars, so the advertising isn’t there, whereas I am constantly able to advertise for my own books because I blog about saving money and potty training a lot (and organizing!)

*You can see how much I have made on my book sales in my Income Report. 

Resources:
In the end…  Yes, it takes work.  Yes, it takes time…  Yes, it can be frustrating when a day (or days) go by without a sale, but it pays off for me and for my affiliates.  (My affiliates make 50% of the sale.)

So- that is the low-down of writing an ebook.
I hope that helped!
Becky

Do you want more Juicy Blog Secrets?   Check out our book!

The post Should I write an ebook – All of your ebook questions answered. appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Today we are talking about how to make a 3d book cover image free online as Day 1 of our series: Best Blog Tools.

I wanted to show you what I consider to be my favorite find of all time, in the blogging world.   Most of you know that I love to write books.  I have written (or co-written) six books so far and I have several more in the works.

I have also designed all of my book covers, because it is fun and very easy!   I just buy my favorite image from dollar photo club and get to work.   Once I have my book cover designed, I have to place it onto a 3D book, to really bring the book to life!

Here is EXACTLY how to do this…

1. Buy your WHITE BOOK (or whatever color you want) from your favorite photo website.
2. Design your book cover (separately)
3. Create a new image in Pixlr Editor. 
   
4. Open the image of the white book
   
5. You will see your book here.
   
6. Open an image as a new layer
   
7. Find the cover that you want on your book.  (this is just a flat picture that you have designed for your book cover)
   
8. Under Edit, click FREE DISTORT. This will let you pull the book into any directions.
   
   Here is an example of how it looks while you are manipulating the cover.
9. Move the cover to fit perfectly on your book.
   Save it and you are done- you’ve just made a 3d book cover image for free!
   

Here is the finished product of that book:

Pretty easy, right?
PS- if you click on the book, you can buy it!  

The post how to make a 3d book cover image free (Series: Best Blog Tools) appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Introducing our quick-read, packed-full-of-information, must-read book:
Why your BLOG is FAILING… and how to fix it.

In this book, we (Becky, Paula and Holly) talk about the main reasons that we see blogs failing.  Most of the time, it is an easy fix, like design or promotion, that can make the biggest difference. We purposefully made this book under 30 pages to enable you to read it in a day and GET GOING on your changes.  We know that you are amazing and sometimes it just takes a little tweaking to find what works for you and your blog.

Here is a glimpse at our chapters: 

Chapter 1- Your images aren’t helping your blog.

Chapter 2- You aren’t branding yourself

Chapter 3-  You aren’t using SEO correctly

Chapter 4- Your social media isn’t working to your advantage.

Chapter 5- Your blog isn’t earning an income (or the income that you want)

Chapter 6- You are boring your readers (but not for long!)

Chapter 7- Your time management skills are lacking (shh… we won’t tell anyone!)

Chapter 8- You don’t believe in yourself or your blog.

The best part? 

This book is only $2.99 right now!   Yes, yes… that’s right folks… step right up! (Did that sound like an auctioneer?)

Honestly- that is the best part.  Our goal was to make this book very low in price to give you the best bang for your buck.  We want you to be earning an income on your blog, so we wanted to keep this one at a low price and you can take what you learn and turn it into an income.  Then you can come back and buy our other book, Blogging on the Side: Where passion meets profit, and take it to the next level!

You can buy it right here:

The post Why Your Blog is Failing … and how to fix it {ebook} appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Do you want to turn your blogging passion into blogging profit?

This book, Blogging on the Side (where Passion & Profit meet) is perfect for the blogger that has been blogging for ten years and the blogger that is about to begin.   In this book, we give you practical advice to take your blog to the next level, meeting your blogging goals- whatever they may be.   We share our best tips for creating powerful images, maximizing traffic, earning more money to turn your blog into that of a full-time income, and so much more.

This book holds every tip, key and lesson that we think is invaluable for bloggers.  We are taking what has taken us years to learn, and putting it all into the one book for you to read and apply today.

To top it off, we are offering our customers a resource page.   When you buy this book, you will receive an email containing a secret password.  This password will let you into our resource page, found here, where you will find discount codes that ONLY we can offer and advice that will continue to be updated.  We will share the best videos, resources, tips and bonus promo codes for blogging courses/products there. (scroll to the bottom to see some of our current promos)

We wanted to write this book to give you the BEST things to do TODAY to better your blog.  There is so much information out there that a lot of times you don’t even know where to begin.  Now you do.   BEGIN HERE.

Here is our Table of Contents, to give you a better understanding of what our book is all about:

Table of Contents

Foreword……………………………………………………………………………….. 6
Introduction – A Tale of Two Bloggers…………………………………………… 7

Section One

Can I Be a Blogger?…………………………………………………………………. 12
Finding Your Voice…………………………………………………………………. 18
What Is Your Why?…………………………………………………………………. 21
Which Type of Blogger Are You?………………………………………………… 24
Blog Platform – Blogger Vs. WordPress………………………………………… 27
Why Is No One Reading My Blog?……………………………………………….. 30
Before You Go Viral………………………………………………………………… 33
Privacy for Bloggers……………………………………………………………….. 36
Finding Balance…………………………………………………………………….. 40
Getting Your Family on Board…………………………………………………… 45
Getting Your Blog Seen……………………………………………………………. 49
It Takes a Village (To Raise a Blog)……………………………………………… 53
Design Elements: The Basics……………………………………………………… 61
Design Part 2: Advanced Design………………………………………………… 63
Images………………………………………………………………………………… 65

Section Two

How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level………………………………………. 70
Finding Time………………………………………………………………………… 75
How To Be Successful – Without Being Stressed……………………………… 79
All About the Money……………………………………………………………….. 85
Affiliate Sales………………………………………………………………………… 89
E-Books……………………………………………………………………………….. 92
Ads for Sale…………………………………………………………………………… 96
Sponsored Posts……………………………………………………………………… 99
Make Your Own Products………………………………………………………… 105
Rock Social Media…………………………………………………………………. 107
How to Schedule to Make the Most of Your Online Time………………….. 113
Make A Media Kit………………………………………………………………….. 117
How to Make Money Outside Your Blog………………………………………. 119
When to Hire Help………………………………………………………………… 121
Section Three

Avoiding Burnout………………………………………………………………… 126
The Legal Stuff…………………………………………………………………….. 130
Conferences………………………………………………………………………… 133
Be Confident………………………………………………………………………… 135
Keep Learning……………………………………………………………………… 137
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….. 139
Resources……………………………………………………………………………. 140

Take our blogging tips and put them to good use- and do it without stressing, without worrying, without feeling overwhelmed (yes, it is possible!)  Let us help you navigate the blogging world, figure out what is right for for YOUR blog, to get it where YOU want it to be.    Whether it is earning an income blogging (you can see our incomes by clicking on the OUR INCOMES tab on the top menu) or by using your blog to change the world… let us help you with our tips!

 Let your passion and your profit meet, while you enjoy Blogging on the Side.  

bonuses 

On our resource page you’ll find a code for 40% off the AMAZING publishing course by Angela England! Huge discount for you!!!

We also have discount of up to 33% off for iblog magazine!

The post Blogging on the Side – where passion meets profit {Book} appeared first on Becky & Paula.