Write Nonfiction in November

October is half over…That means it’s almost November. Time, once again, for Write Nonfiction in November! Whoo hoo!

I didn’t manage to post a blog last month. I was too busy setting up some really great guest bloggers for this year’s challenge. You’ll be so pleased with the line up!

And, to get things rolling, tomorrow you can listen to me talk about Write Nonfiction in November on The National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW) teleseminar. If you recall, last year one of my guest bloggers was Linda Joy Meyers, founder of NAMW.  Meyers and I will be chatting about Write Nonfiction in November, my response to National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO). For anyone new to this site, Write Nonfiction in November (WNFIN) is a contest that has fiction writers writing 50,000 words in 30 days during November. My blog challenges nonfiction writers to spend the month of November writing and completing a work of nonfiction. While they do so, the blog itself provides nonfiction writing, promotion and marketing information to help them sell themselves and their writing to publishing companies and readers. Additionally, via the blog comments, Write Nonfiction in November provides a forum for nonfiction writers to comment on their writing experiences during November each year.

During the NAWM teleseminar, I will discuss different types of nonfiction, including:

• journalistic articles
• personal essays
• inspirational essays
• booklets
• books

If time allows, I’ll also discuss:

• the difference between personal essay and memoir
• platform building on the Internet
• how to use your nonfiction skills to write articles to generate publicity for yourself as a writer
• how the business of writing can be a spiritual endeavor

NAWM  invites memoir writers from all over the world to connect, learn, and become inspired about writing their stories. The goal of our organization is to help memoir writers feel empowered with purpose and energy to begin and develop their life stories into a publishable memoir, whether in essay form, a book, a family legacy, or to create a blog.

Many memoir writers want to use writing as means for healing and transformation, so we assist in this goal by offering workshops, teleseminars, and interviews with writers and experts in the area of memoir, writing skills, therapeutic writing, spiritual autobiography, and healing through writing personal, authentic stories.

Myers, President of NAMW, has been a therapist for 30 years, and is the author of three books, a prize-winning memoir Don’t Call Me Mother, about three generations of mothers who abandoned their daughters, and two books on the ways that writing helps to heal emotionally and physically. Her new book The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story will be released in January, 2010, through Jossey Bass publishers in San Francisco. She teaches writing workshops nationally, online, and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Those who join NAMW receive a unique package of memoir writing resources including the NAMW welcome kit and a collection of online and hard copy resources to help memoir writers within all phases of the exciting journey of memoir writing.  Members also receive discounts on select NAMW teleseminars, workshops, retreats and other learning opportunities and materials.

To learn more about NAMW, contact info@namw.org or visit http://www.namw.org

Now…you do have to be a NAWM member to listen in on the teleseminar tomorrow. But if you are a memoir writer–or want to become one–this is a great time to go ahead a join this great group of writers.  So, hurry up and join and call in by 11 a.m. PST!

Here are the details:

Date: October 16, 2009
Guest Speaker: Nina Amir
Times: 11 am Pacific | 12 noon Mountain | 1 pm Central | 2 pm Eastern
Cost: Free for NAMW Members
Become A Member of NAMW Today to take part in this teleseminar!
To join: info@namw.org or http://www.namw.org

If you haven’t decided on a Write Nonfiction in November project yet, it’s not too late to start. In fact, with just 20 days left to the month you might consider writing an ebook.

With the introduction of the Kindle, ebooks of all kinds have become quite popular, but I’m not talking about producing a full-length work of nonfiction as an ebook. Long before the Kindle, writers and business people were taking advantage of some pretty simple technology that allowed them to convert their written products – concise, pithy, targeted handbooks, booklets and reports – into ebooks. (By the way, ebooks are basically PDFs like those you read with Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.)

Yes, even someone who isn’t that technologically savvy, like me, can produce an ebook. In fact, I’ve taken several of my booklets and turned them into ebooks using Adobe Acrobat. It’s really not that hard. (You just convert your MS Word document to a secure Adobe Acrobat document. That’s all there is to it.) I produced my booklet Building a Platform on the Internet One Article at a Time specifically as an ebook, and that’s the only way I sell it. (As far as I know, they can be read on a Kindle. I have not researched this, however.)

I want to make two points about why you should write ebooks: First, if you haven’t yet managed to get a book published or self-published one yourself, an ebook provides a great first book. Even if you are a published author, you can repurpose some of the material in your book, or you can write complementary copy, and put it into an ebook and make some extra money. Lots of people have made a mint selling ebooks.

Second, one way to build your platform involves creating a huge emailing list. List building is HUGE! If you have a mailing list of 20,000 names, you have a platform (or are well on your way to having one). Selling ebooks on your website provides a great way to add email addresses to your list. Each time someone buys an ebook, you’ve got another name on your list.

I wanted to write a really great blog this year on the importance of ebooks and how to produce them, but I’m no expert on the subject. (I’ve just told you most of what I know.) So, I asked Ellen Violette, The eBook Coach, to write a blog for me on this subject. Ellen co-wrote Sell More eBooks, Low and No Cost Tactics  to Explode Your eBook Sales and Downloads with Jim Edwards and has developed many workshops and programs designed to teach people how to create and market ebooks to grow a six-figure income from the ground up even with no technical skill and no business or marketing skills. Ellen was kind enough to offer readers of Write Nonfiction in November (WNFIN) six tips on creating great, saleable ebooks. If you want to try your hand at writing one, read on.

Why You Need an eBook and

How to Create a Super-Profitable One

Ellen Violette

The eBook Coach

eBooks are a very powerful marketing tool for any business. They give you credibility, visibility and expert status.  They create multiple streams of passive income, and they bring people onto your email list at a very low price point-which then gives you the opportunity to sell them higher-priced items.

Also, even if your business is primarily offline at this time, sending people online can help you create a list of very loyal customers that can increase your profits and sales over time as well. And by offering ebooks you’ll be way ahead of the competition.

Not only are ebooks a powerful tool for creating a list, you can also sell ebooks for a much higher price than a book and it’s almost pure profit! With traditional books, you are lucky to make $1 or $2 at the most, and it’s difficult to sustain yourself with such low profit margins. Also, it can take years to get a book deal and then even more time to actually get the book to market! (And, that’s if you can even get a deal!) 

Also ebooks create a lot of content that you can repurpose to create those higher-priced products and increased sales so you save a lot of time. You can create tips, articles, ecourses, videos, podcasts, special reports, blog posts, and even whole coaching programs from your ebook. So you can see the advantages of writing an ebook are staggering.

The problem for most people, though, is even if they understand the power of ebooks; they don’t necessarily take action and actually write one. Maybe they are intimidated by the process, or they hate to write, don’t know how to write, don’t think they have the time to write, or they just don’t know where to begin.

But anyone can create a profitable ebook if they just follow these six easy steps:

Step 1. Figure out what you are passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about your subject, it’s difficult to sustain your focus, and you could easily lose interest in your ebook before you even finish writing it. And marketing takes a lot MORE time, so be sure to ignite your passion! 

Step 2. Figure out what you are good at, because it’s hard to succeed at something you don’t have the skills to pull off.

Step3. Look at where your passion and your skills intersect. You’ll probably come up with three or four options. Pick the one that is most interesting to you and which has a viable target market (which we’ll look at in step 4).

Step 4. Once you pinpoint your passion and your skill set, then look for a target market that wants what you have to offer. A good target markets is one that is:

• Online
• Has money to spend
• And is very eager to buy what you’re selling.

When you have passion and skills combined with a viable target market, you have a winning combination!

Step 5. Identify your purpose. Look at why you want to write this ebook. You have to know the purpose your ebook will serve in your business before you can write it. And knowing the purpose will also help you decide whether you want to give your ebook away or sell it.

If you are looking to generate leads, you’ll want to write an ebook that you can give away; if you want to generate cash flow, then you’ll want to sell it. (How you market your ebook will depend on the purpose of your ebook, so knowing your purpose is of paramount importance.)

Step 6. Be original. See what’s already on the market, and then write something new and fresh. You want to write an ebook that will catch the attention of your audience. If your ebook is just a rehash of what is already out there, nobody is going to buy it.

When you follow these steps you stack the deck in your favor and you have the best chance of creating an ebook that will produce massive sales and profits for your business. So write about what you love and what you are good at, find a target market that wants it, figure out the best way to position it in the market, make sure it’s unique and then watch the money roll in!

About Ellen Violette

Ellen Violette, The eBook Coach, is the creator of The Quick-Start 3-Day eBook Authoring Workshop, eBooks With No Writing and eBook Profit Marketing Secrets.

She’s also an author and speaker and has appeared at Mega-Book University and Wake Up Live The Life You Love, as well online with Alex Mandossian, Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen’s Enlightened Millionaires, Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing Association, and many, many more.

Ellen is also an accomplished copywriter and web-copy doctor as well as a Grammy-nominated songwriter.

She lives in Redondo Beach, California with her husband, and partner Christen Violette a trained Clinical hypnotherapist.

To learn more about her workshops and product and to get nine free secret ebook tips to making money on line and a complimentary subscription to her eBook Profit Secrets Newsletter ($147 value) go to www.theebookcoach.com.