Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

#21 My Ebook Creation Strategy (And It’s Issues) – Tues 14th July 2015

iniartworksmallToday I am going to be talking about my ebook creation strategy and some issues I am having with the strategy.

Hey guys, Ryan here from Instructions Not Included. And today, I’m going to be talking about my ebook creation strategy and some issues that I’m having with that strategy.

What I wanted to do was really take what I was doing and leverage it. So, I created a lot of free content to drive traffic to my website to eventually drive people to my products and that’s how I drive sales and drive my revenue.

But I kind of wanted to amp that up and make the free content that I create also convert into low-end paid products so I could get passive income streams through things like Amazon.com or just selling ebooks on my website.

And so, I started experimenting with this with podcastfast.com, which was my new website about podcasting. So, I created an 8-part mini series or 9 parts if you count the introduction, which basically walks people through exactly how to start and setup a podcast.

Everything from buying equipment to recording a podcast to setting up a website to getting your podcast listed in iTunes and Stitcher, which is where people download the podcast.

So, I spent a lot of time, probably like a month or two months creating this mini series. So a lot of work went into it. It’s on Youtube, it’s on my website, but I actually wanted to leverage that content to create an ebook out of that that I could sell. So, hopefully I could get back some of the time that I’ve invested over the one to two months into making this mini series. I wanted to actually convert that into a semi-passive income.

So I thought, you know what, awesome idea. I’m just going to take the transcriptions for this and I’m going to convert it into an ebook. Well, good idea from the forefront but I probably didn’t actually pick that best topic for it.

Creating a podcast is a highly technical thing when it gets down to setting up your website, setting up the podcast for your website and all of that sort of stuff. So what I didn’t realise was that if I wanted to convert this from video format into written format, then there has to be a whole bunch of screenshots to go with that written format so that people can follow along.

And look, it’s not the best way for people to consume this content but who am I to say how people should consume content? If they want an ebook, then I should be able to provide them with an ebook. So, I am keen to do it but I just didn’t realise it would be so much work.

To give you an idea, I just finished part number 5, which is actually chapter 6, because we’ve got an introduction as well. And I’ve just had 39 screenshots that I had to create for that chapter. And I’m looking forward at the next chapters, part 6, 7 and 8, and combined, there’s another 91 screenshots that I need to take. And these aren’t just screenshots that I need to take, I then need to put arrows and explanations on the screenshot as well.

So, it’s extremely time consuming and that’s not even to mention the fact that I need to go through the transcriptions, I need to edit the transcriptions to make sure that they are correct sentences and that they’re formatted properly for a book and for a book that I’m going to sell to people. So it is so much work to get this ebook out.

So, I’m actually thinking of giving up on the Podcastfast ebook because just looking forward at those 91 screenshots and the chapters that I need to do and I just really don’t want to do it. So, look, I think I’ll push through but am I going to do it all this week, definitely not. It’s just too boring and I absolutely hate it.

I guess the revelation that I’m getting out of this is if I want to create content that actually converts into an ebook, I need to pick different topics that will be just solely word-based and that won’t need pictures to go along with it. So when I’m thinking about things that I need to create in the future, like there’s an ebook I want to create for OnProperty, about how to save a deposit.

I would love to create an ebook or something for teachspeaking.com and so I just need to think, when it comes to creating videos, the free videos that’s going to be free content on the website, I need to think, okay, well how will this convert into an ebook? I need to make sure that the way that I’m creating those videos means that when it converts into written format, I don’t need pictures associated with it.

So, there’s this whole other level of thinking that needs to go into the videos and the content that I create so it can go across different platforms and different types of content; video, audio and written text.

So, I guess that’s my big revelation from today. I just didn’t realise how much work it would be to create this ebook. But, you know, I’m happy to have learnt this. So moving forward, I can create content that will more easily convert into an ebook. And look, something that I really want to do and really want to explore, is actually to create this content, get the transcriptions and then pay someone to convert the transcriptions into an ebook for me.

So that’s something I’ll probably explore with my next ebook and tell you guys a bit more about if and when I go down that track.

Well, thanks for listening today. That’s just where I’m at today. I’ve stopped now. I did this 40 screenshots or 39 screenshots for this chapter. The 91 or how ever many it was that I have moving forward, they’re just going to have to wait a little while because you know when you just get bored and you’re not enjoying yourself, it’s probably time to go and do something else.

Plus, I’m going to be investing another week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks into getting this ebook out there and how much am I actually going to make from this ebook on podcasting and is it worth me spending my time in those weeks to actually create that ebook? Is it going to deliver me enough income over time to justify it? I’m not sure, time will tell and I’m sure that if you’re listening to this and there’s a lot of future episodes, then the ebook will probably be out and we’ll be able to track how many sales we’re getting for it and how well it’s doing.

So, this has been interesting. Until next time, if you want instructions, go and buy some furniture.



One response to “#21 My Ebook Creation Strategy (And It’s Issues) – Tues 14th July 2015”

  1. Alex says:

    Thanks for sharing. I’m really keen to start up a podcast series but had no idea where to begin. This will hopefully help me a lot.

    Thanks,

    Alex

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