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.

Today we are talking about how to set up affiliates on E-junkie. I hope that it is helpful!

I love e-junkie, as I’ve told you in the past.  It is cheap ($5 a month) and it holds all of my e-books.

UPDATE: We have just moved to a new affiliate program for beckyandpaula.com, which you can sign up for here! We are SUPER excited about our new store and how easy this is going to make it for everyone to share it.

If you’re still interested in learning how e-junkie works, feel free to go through the tutorial below, but realize our e-junkie affiliate program will be going away shortly.

Lets dive right in!

Step 1- sign up.

Step 2:  Add your product

Step 3:  How many products do you have (is it a few different documents or is it one ebook, etc…?)
Enter the name of your book, etc…
Add your Thank You Message & any notes (my only issue with E-junkie is that sometimes the customers can not download your book, so I always include my e-mail here in case they need to e-mail me.   You could also include any other books that you have here… promoting your other products).
Add your price 

Step 4: This is where the fun happens!  Upload your product!

Step 5: Save this link!  You will use it anytime you make a buy now button (I make my own buttons on pic monkey & just link them to this URL)

Step 6:  Do you want to have affiliates?  Here is how you do that.

Step 7: Add Hop Link (if you want one).
What is a hop link?  If and when your affiliate adds a “buy now” button on their page, that button will take them to your page.  So, instead of taking them right to their ‘cart’s purchase the book, product, etc… it will take them to your sales page.  This is where you really sell them on the book. Does it come with any extras?  Are you offering a guarantee of sorts?   Why do they want it?  Sell them on it!

The buyers will be using your affiliate’s link, so your affiliate still makes the commission.

PS- YOU CAN SET UP DIFFERENT PERCENTAGES FOR EACH BOOK!!  SO- YOU MIGHT WANT TO OFFER AFFILIATES 10% COMMISSION FOR ONE BOOK & 50% FOR THE OTHER.  ITS UP TO YOU. 

That’s all there is to it!
If you are on the OTHER side of things, here is how to become an affiliate on e-junkie. 

Now that you are all set up, you can become an affiliate of one of our popular blogging books through ejunkie! We offer 30-50% of the sale to the affiliate, so you can make some good money recommending our books to your blogging friends! Sign up here.

The post How to set up affiliates using E-Junkie appeared first on Becky & Paula.