Writing an eBook in conjunction with your travel blog can be a great way to challenge you creatively, promote your travel blog, and encourage casual readers to become subscribers. Before you dive in though it’s good to set out a direction and plan to follow. eBooks take more time and thought than any old blog post so setting a few markers and milestones along the way will help you finish a complete product.
Have A Specific Topic
Having a well defined topic not only makes for a better book but allows your writing to flow without your book being all over the place. What is it you want to write about – How to Make Money with Your Travel Blog, or Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles to Traveling the World are well defined subjects. “Traveling around the world” or “backpacking in Europe” can be good places to start but refine them so it’s easy to tell what exactly the eBook is about.
Add something to your title or subject that you can keep going back to in the eBook itself. “Traveling around the world on $20 a day” or “backpacking in Europe at 22” are good ways to personalize the title.
Build From Scratch Or Build Upon
Your travel blog is a wealth of information you can use to keep generating new content and your eBook is no different. Taking existing material and using it for your eBook can be successful, just make sure to add to what you’ve got and touch upon things that you can’t always get to in a short blog post. If you decide to build upon what you’ve got for your eBook make sure to provide new value in the book in addition to what you’ve got on your blog.
Starting From Scratch
Go in reverse and take the ideas you build in your eBook and find ways to incorporate them into blog posts and your other writing. Maybe there are a few posts on your travel blog you think revolve around the same topic and an eBook would be a good place to bring it all together.
- Consider a new angle – Perhaps you’re not very personal on your travel blog or stick with a single philosophy. Use your eBook to mix it up and show off another side of yourself.
- See what your peers are writing – You should have a big RSS reader full of feeds from travel blogs. If you don’t there are travel magazines, online journals, and plenty of other travel content out there. What are other people writing and what’s your take. Agree or go against the grain? It doesn’t have to be travel related – inspiration can come from anywhere. What’s on your mind right now?
- Collaborate – It can be scary opening up your writing projects to others but it’s a good idea to reach out to other travel bloggers and writers your familiar with from time to time. From asking for opinions to working together on some material for your eBook, talking with like minds will enhance your work. Embrace the community.
Set A Schedule
Don’t brood and spend an eternity on getting your eBook going. You don’t just get one shot – there are other opportunities to write about other topics and if your first book is terrible the worse that can happen is you’ll learn from your mistakes. Leave your insecurities behind and set a schedule that includes some basic milestones.
- Defining a Topic
- Completing the Introduction
- Section 1, 2, 3 (however you want to break it up)
- Finishing the Conclusion
- Sending Out Drafts
- Edits
- Finalizing the eBook and Getting It Ready For The World
Take The First Step
I won’t outline all of the details in this post on how to actually put together an eBook (that’s another post coming up) but the hardest step you’ll take is actually writing the first word. Open up whatever word editing program you like and start typing and let the words flow like water. Don’t worry about spell check, fixing grammar, or anything else.
Get something down on paper, in your computer, somewhere. Once you start it’s a lot easier than you think. You’ll be providing value to your readers both old and new. At the end of the process your eBook will be a great champion of your own blog and something you can consider selling or give away to your new subscribers.
