The rise of ebooks paved the way for any writer to easily become a published author. Writers scoured notebooks and computer files for stories forgotten in hopes of during a dream into reality. A somewhat unexpected benefit of the ebook revolution was the fact bloggers had another outlet for their writing, one that can and does make money.
For the average blogger there isn't a lot of money to made from blogging alone. But ebooks do sell, even with paying the distributor I made more from my book than I did from ad revenue on my blog.
Business bloggers, technology bloggers, inspirational bloggers, parenting bloggers have all turned to ebooks as a companion to their blog. In most cases, they are not writing new content for their ebook. They are just organizing past blog posts into a coherent message.
In addition to generating money, it is also a way to publicize your blog.
When I decided to "write" Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour, I wasn't really looking to make money, but to provide a valuable resource for authors. But it was successful enough to make a profit in under a year. And I continue to sell a few copies now and again, without really any marketing efforts.
I believe almost all bloggers have content that can be brought together and published into a book. Even book bloggers.
The first step is to determine what kind of content you have available and what audience would be interested in it.
Eve if all you write are reviews, you may still be able to package them into a book of critical essays.
You may decide to do a book of critical essays and another book based on anecdotal stories as a book blogger and maybe another book on the "state of a genre". If you dabble in poetry or fiction you can always package it into a collection or full blown novel. Some fiction writers blog their entire novel, getting feedback and building an audience chapter by chapter.
The third and final step in turning your blog posts into an ebook is doing it. I have plans for at least one more marketing book and possibly two blogging books. And I have had the content written for more than a year, yet I haven't taken the time to put it all together. There is more to creating a book than just copying and pasting a few blog posts into a Word document.
Your content may need to be edited to fit together or for an audience that isn't familiar with your blog. You may find that there is holes in your content or that you want to expand the topic you had done a blog post on. It is a good idea to add a little extra to your content that wasn't included in the original post.
You also need editing for grammar and style. You need a cover and a blurb (and I'm telling you writing a summary isn't as easy as it sounds!). Then there is formatting it and publishing it to various distributor sites. After that you can decide how much or how little you advertise and market. Remember that whatever you do in terms of publicity will also benefit your blog.
Have thought about or have you already turned blog posts into a book?
photo credit: eBook e Mac via photopin (license)
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