Write a B2B eBook

1. Write an eBook: Business-to-business e-books are one of the most popular kinds of marketing content, mainly because they help businesses communicate complex ideas. This also means that B2B e-books are not easy to write. Ebooks after all, our long. E-books cover complex subjects and e-books as writing assignments while they're intimidating. If the thought of you having to write a 30 page ebook fills you with dread. But if you know that you have to write one anyway, take this course. Hi, I'm Alan sharp and welcome to my course on how to write a B2B e-book. In this course, I guide you step-by-step through the process of writing an e-book. I teach you how to pick a topic, discover your goals, and say something original. I explain how to interview subject matter experts. How to craft a working title, how to craft an outline, how to write an introduction. And lots more. In this course, I help you overcome the major hurdles to writing an e-book. Namely knowing what to say, who to say it too, and how and why. To structure your e-book. During this course, I illustrate what I am teaching by reviewing more than a dozen B2B e-books. You learn. Industry best practices for writing eBook titles, writing introductions, writing individual pages, using design elements to make your copy more inviting to read, writing executive summaries and lots more. In other words, this course is practical. I explained the theory and then I showed the theory in action. And I give you real-world examples from IBM, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and lots of other companies. I show you how to write B2B e-books that engage readers, nurture leads, educate buyers, and position you as an authority. I happened to be a B-to-B copywriter, content writer, and published author with more than 30 years of experience in the business. I have written and published plenty of books, and I have written my fair share of B2B e-books. If you need to write eBooks that are clear, engaging, compelling, and effective, take this course. Check out the detailed course description below. Watch the free preview lessons. Read the reviews from my many satisfied students that enroll today. 2. Introduction to B2B eBooks: Congratulations on taking your first step toward writing a B2B e-book. In this course, I'll walk you through the various parts of the B2B e-book creation process. So you can be sure to succeed in your goals and create the best e-books possible. The goal of this opening lesson is to introduce you to some of the key information you'll need. As we go on, we'll explore further techniques for figuring out what to include in your e-book and the best way to frame it. In this lesson, I'm going to cover four things. You'll need to think about. The length of your e-book, the authority of your e-book, the formatting of your e-book, and the tone of your e-book. The first topic we're going to tackle is the length of your e-book. While outlining, you should plan to explore an issue in-depth, provide new information, and propose a solution that's a lot to handle at once, which is why long-form content in book form is better than using articles or blog posts to get your message across. Now, for your work to be considered long enough for an e-book, I suggest it has to be more than 20 pages. That means you're going to have to generate enough content to fill those pages while keeping it interesting. Here's an e-book from Accenture and Oracle on the future of HR. It has 29 pages. Here's one from Optimizely. It has 54 pages, and here's one from LinkedIn. It has 34 pages. You get the idea. If your book has fewer than 20 pages, it's not really a book. It's a white paper or a special report. Books have pages, lots of them. So make sure your eBook has more than 20 pages before you call it an e-book. Between deep diving into the intricacies of your subjects, establishing yourself as a figure of authority, and presenting your own opinions, you should be able to achieve that goal. If you think you're going to have trouble coming up with enough content. The other tips offered in this course should help you. Now, let's move on to how to boost the authority of your e-book. First, you should think about the e-book that you're going to be producing, somewhat like a white paper with lots of added visual media. So it will read a lot like a report that explores the subject of your choice. But in eBook format, you have the advantage of being able to include more images than you do in a traditional white paper. You can use plenty of graphs and diagrams to explain a key concept or problem that needs to be addressed. Referencing data also shows that you've put time and research into your subject, which further establishes your credibility. For example, the beverage trends report includes numerous line graphs showing the rise and fall of various trends. These are included throughout the text, highlighting just how powerful they can be used to build a bigger picture for the reader. Since you're writing in an eBook format, you'll also be able to include lots of pictures. This is important for a few reasons. Making the most of imagery give your work some style and make it easy on the reader's eyes. Pictures also have the benefit of evoking strong emotional responses in your audience and keeping people engaged. The third benefit is added professionalism, especially if the images are well-chosen and congruent with your topic. Now, let's talk about formatting. Another important thing to keep in mind as you write and format your e-book is that it should be easy for readers to navigate and follow along online by scrolling. Since your e-book will likely be read across a variety of devices, you should take flexibility into consideration when you're choosing your fonts and layouts. This will also come into play when you link the table of contents or other sources of information outside your text, make sure to preview the layout from a range of devices where possible. Planning ahead will ensure your message is accessible to a wider range of readers. With that in mind, remember that you can design ebooks in vertical or horizontal orientation. Unless you think your audience is likely to print your e-book to read it, I'd recommend a horizontal orientation. If you take another look at the beverage trends report, we see that it is horizontally oriented. This allows for the writing to be put alongside the associated images and graphs. Trying to fit this in a narrow vertical orientation would be tough because you'd also have to make the graphs and images smaller to accommodate that format. A portrait layout would also require breaking up the text and disrupting the flow of the overall work. Finally, before we end this lesson, let's discuss how you frame your text. When writing, I recommend that you convey your information in the way that sounds impartial or almost as though it's being written by a third party. You don't want your e-book to come across as a product brochure or an advertisement. Gimmicky phrasing or routing heavily for one side of an issue makes you sound biased and unprofessional. That said, there is of course space for your personality and your brand values to come across. I would just recommend that you make sure that it's well balanced with providing a lot of value in an impartial way. Throughout this course, I'll walk you through how to show both sides of an issue without taking an obvious stance. Stick around for the next lesson, where we'll be doing a deep dive into content. And the three key things you need to get right? 3. Get Three Things Right: Hello and welcome to this lesson where we're going to dive into how to create the best content for your eBook following three key principles. The aim of this lesson is to help you iron out the actual content in your eBook. You'll need to consider each of these three things before you start writing. Trust me, if you do, the whole process becomes much simpler. Having these three things figured out ensures that your book has an audience, a purpose, and a reason for people to pick it up and read it. Okay? So first, you'll need to pick a pain point. The first thing you need to figure out is if the eBook your writing helps readers solve a problem. For best results, you want to focus on a subject that is currently causing conflict or confusion for the particular industry you're writing for. If your book can explore that and provide solutions or clarity, you've given your audience a strong reason to read your eBook. If you're having trouble choosing an issue, there are different ways you can go about finding one. You can do some research in your field to see what's being published at the moment. Or look at forums, social media, or chat boards used by people in your industry. Finding out what people are complaining about is one of the most effective ways to find good topics. If you need an idea of where to start, consider finding a question in the field that needs to be answered. For example, you could be researching the field of online marketing and wonder which platforms are the most effective for converting subscribers to clients. That could then be the focus of your eBook, along with information on how to successfully market on various platforms to take advantage of their reach, their algorithms, and the mechanics of the platform. Another way to find a good subject is to find a roadblock that needs overcoming. Every industry has its own unique problems. You find out what these problems are through research and by talking to experts in the field. Another way to tackle the subject of your eBook is to look at trends. You find a recent trend in your industry and explain why it's currently a trend. You give readers an insight into the ins and outs of the trend and you make predictions for the future. Perhaps there's been a recent discovery or a new process is gaining popularity. People in the field are keen to read more about it and how they can get involved. You fill that niche and provide the playbook for the new process or product. Branching off of this method, you could also craft a cautionary book that teaches people how to avoid making mistakes. As new trends emerge. Take a moment to think about where you could do some research for your eBook topic or if some topics are already springing to mind due to your industry knowledge. Next, let's move on to knowing your two goals. You need to figure out the goals for your eBook. There are really two categories of goals you need to focus on. The first is your readers goal. More specifically, you have to figure out what their reasons should be for reading your eBook. What are they going to get out of it? This reason is connected to the issue you've chosen to focus on in your book. If you decide to talk about an unanswered question, you know, your audience will want you to supply that answer. If your eBook discusses obstacles that people need to overcome, your target audience is looking for guidance and solutions. The same concept applies if you're exploring a new trend or process, your readers are seeking understanding and hoping to update their skills to match modern methods. In short, no matter why people are reading your eBook, their goal is to better understand the subject, to improve their lives and work. Your angle will often determine their specific goals. Beyond that, this brings us to your second goal, and that is the goal for your business. What do you aim to achieve or gain by writing this eBook? Knowing your own goals and intentions helps you decide how to create your eBook. This may also be tied to the central issue you want to focus on. Maybe you're working to establish yourself as an authority in a field, or maybe you want to build a sense of community or customer loyalty. Keep your goal and your readers goals in mind as you research, write, and put together your eBook. The third key to success is to make sure you come up with something original to add to the conversation. Think of the discourse around your subject, including the opinions of other experts in the field. Think of your work and there's, as part of an ongoing conversation, you want to introduce new ideas and lead the conversation to the next level or even in a different direction. This will make your work stand out and give people a reason to read. If you wanted to contribute something significant to a regular conversation you were having with people among friends. For example, you wouldn't just repeat something that's already been said. So don't regurgitate what's already known in the marketplace or industry. If people already know what you're trying to present in your eBook, then there's no point reading it. People will find out that your text doesn't offer anything new. And they will feel like they've wasted their time and energy. If you're trying to come up with something new to offer. There are multiple ways of coming up with fresh material. As I mentioned earlier, trends are a great source of inspiration since they usually raise a lot of questions. You can also offer up a original insights that you've gained from your own firsthand experience in the field. Personal anecdotes can be great foundations for eBooks, but you have to remember to back them up with data. With that combination, you highlight personal lessons that you've learned the hard way while also showing readers all the relevant research that's out there. Alright? You've come to the end of less than two. And I hope you have a ton of ideas you can think about to get started on your B2B eBook. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about what might just be your secret weapon. And that is subject matter. Experts 4. Interview an SME: Hello and welcome back. We're going to talk about subject matter experts and how using them for your eBook helps you get more content, built business relationships, and establish credibility. If they have existing audiences, your subject matter experts might also promote your eBook to those audiences since they feature themselves or since you've feature them in your eBook. This boosts your readership. This lesson explores how you interview subject-matter experts for your eBook. Subject-matter experts are an important resource. Provide a wealth of knowledge about your topic. Turning to experts builds credibility on your part because it shows that you know enough to consult others for your eBook instead of just assuming, you know at all. As the name suggests, subject-matter experts are authorities in their field. Every industry has them. So pay close attention to who's leading important conversations and shaking things up. Talking to them gives you a deeper understanding of the subject and areas you should be focusing on. And it's a great way to network as well. Honestly. One of the main benefits of consulting with and interviewing subject-matter experts is that they aren't you. Outside voices give you original insights that you wouldn't come up with on your own. Whether it's through their different experiences or levels of expertise. Subject matter experts have their own perspectives on your topic. Your subject matter expert could be from any area of the industry or even an industry that is not directly related, but as experiencing similar issues. Some B2B eBooks call upon a number of subject matter experts. If we go back and look through the beverage trends report, we see that there was input from various sources including data analysts, influencers, and everyday people. This variety of experts makes for a well-rounded approach to breaking down why certain beverage trends emerged. Consider this approach for your eBook as well. Consider who might have some unique perspectives on your subject matter to contribute. Create a list of people that is more than you'd actually need, as it's unlikely, everyone you ask will agree to be interviewed. Now that you've established the importance of subject-matter experts and who you want to approach. Approach them and gauge their interests. Make them aware that you're writing an eBook and would love to interview them to get their perspective on the issues covered. Be clear that you're going to use their answers for your eBook and explain what that eBook aims to accomplish. A complement wouldn't go a miss right about now. If you saw an article that they wrote, an enjoyed it, tell them so and why. The more personalized your approach is, the more likely you'll get a favorable response. It's best to give subject matter experts the option of being interviewed or answering a survey. In writing. When you schedule your interview, make sure you give yourself enough time to get all the information you'll need from your subject matter expert. In addition, prepare your questions in advance so that you can send them to your subject matter expert to think about before the interview. Allowing them to have that time to prepare improves the likelihood that they provide thoughtful responses. Instead of just thinking off the cuff. You should also plan ahead and have questions ready for the interview so that you can lead it and set the pace. Being unprepared will cause you to miss certain areas of the subject that are crucial to your success. One, coming up with your interview agenda, make sure you ask open ended questions. Simple questions that the person can answer with a yes or no, aren't going to give you enough information to write an eBook. You want your subject matter expert to provide you with a lot of points that you reference and use to support your own ideas. To get them talking, your questions need to be interesting and give them room to explain complex details. If you have difficulty coming up with questions, consult the five W's and the one H. For example, you could go with something like, what does this product help customers achieve or what benefits does this platform have for those looking to market on social media? You can also focus on more personal questions like, why did you choose to develop your product this way? Or what emerging trends are most important to you. Getting experts thoughts and opinions greatly benefits your eBook. They are helpful to your writing process. And they give you something new to say. If part of your interview doesn't go as planned, you don't have to include everything you talked about. Just be careful not to cherry-pick or to take any of their statements out of context to prove a point. Now, during your interview it helps if you have questions that lead into other questions. This makes it easy for your subject matter expert to continue talking about a particular area of the subject. If there are abrupt changes in topic that will confuse them or cut off the flow of the conversation. You want to get as much information and knowledge from them as you can. You should also be ready to follow up on answers when needed. Subject matter experts will give you cryptic answers or use terms that you don't understand. It's up to you to clarify things right then and there in the interview, not while you're writing your eBook later on. If you have even a hint of a doubt or uncertainty about something that your subject matter experts says, Follow up right away to get more information. You don't want to misinterpret their answers and accidentally misinterpret them in your book, that could damage your reputation. Finally, make sure you record and transcribe the interview. Having a transcript makes it easier to go back and find the key points from your expert. Keeping your written notes from the interview organized is the best way to convert the experience into content for your B2B eBook without having to rely on your memory. So we're at the end of lesson three, which is shown you all about how to leverage subject-matter expert expertise to improve your eBook 5. Write Based On Three Things: In this lesson, let's discuss how you plan and organize your eBook. These early steps are vital for turning your interview notes into text that conveys your arguments. It's key that you pay special attention to using your Title, Table of Contents, and interview transcripts. Effectively, these parts of your eBook should be the most influential for your writing. They guide the direction of your entire manuscript. Let's go over how you get the most out of these components in your outlining and writing process. Let's begin focusing on your working title. Some people think you're title isn't important to the writing process. They think that you should write Your eBook first and then come up with a fitting title at the end. But it's much more helpful to pick a working title from the start, even if you change it later on to fit the text and grab people's attention, I strongly recommend that you start planning your eBook with a working title. Even if you only have a placeholder. This helps you focus your writing around one central idea. It's much better to go this route because you'll have a consistent reminder of where you're going and what your topic is supposed to be. This keeps you from wandering. Off course. As you write. Remember that this isn't necessarily at the title you'll use when you publish your eBook. You're working title is simply for this early draft for your work. You're working title lays the groundwork for your eBook and declares your intentions and goals for your text. As you write, you refer back to this working title to make sure you're supporting your core message. Now that we've established the importance of your working title, let's talk about coming up with one. And effective working title. Names, your audience, the issues they're facing, and presents a solution. Let's cover each of these aspects. So you formulate the best working title for your eBook. The first thing you want to acknowledge and address in your working title is your audience. Keep your target audience in mind throughout the writing process to make sure you're always talking about things that are relevant to that specific group. It makes sense to acknowledge them in your working title. This serves as a necessary reminder about who you're tailoring your message to. The second thing to do is to figure out your audience's problem or pain. What challenge or obstacle or process or trend are you helping them understand? Narrow down your scope to fit that topic and explain how you help your audience focus on issues that are specific to certain industries such as specialized technology or software for programmers. You also have the option of focusing on more general issues, but addressing them to narrow audiences. For example, you could target new business owners with the promise of helping them overcome Marketing pitfalls. This struggle isn't unique to small business owners, but you can write it in a way that speaks to this audience exclusively. Finally, you have the solutions to their pain. This is another key theme that you should address in your title. It's basically your thesis, your reason for writing the eBook in the first place. And you must support the assertions that you have. The solutions. Acknowledging it in the beginning makes it easier to repeat and come back to it. As you write your eBook. An effective title. Incorporating these three parts, is how programmers can increase productivity with meditation. It addresses an audience, programmers, a problem, lack of productivity, and a solution, which is meditation. Putting all of these components together into a working title helps when you're unsure of where to go with your writing. That working title axis your North star for navigation. The next influencing factor for your eBook is your table of contents. This serves as the outline for your eBook. Put thought and care into this because your outline is critical. It lays out a map for the journey you're taking your reader on, the value you're adding for them. And it shows how you plan to support the argument for your solutions. Your table of contents also shows how you've organized your thoughts and previews the flow of information in your book. Without a good outline, you run the risk of producing a disorganized manuscript that doesn't align because it's all over the place or worse, you undermine your own arguments. Master. Your next website. Redesign. An eBook that has a simple but effective table of contents. You can check out for inspiration. It highlights and explains the area of concern, which is website redesign. It then introduces the reader to the solution, some experimentation and the process involved. And the third section offers more advice to readers as well as a step-by-step guide to incorporating experimentation into the redesign process. Lastly, there's a case study to show the effectiveness of the solution. Learn from this and other tables of contents to see what is effective for your eBook. The third factor that affects your eBook is your subject matter expert interview. In the last lesson, I discussed how you prepare for your subject matter expert interview. I also covered recording and transcribing the interview to have notes for when you begin writing. Whether you have detailed notes from the interview, you should transcribe any recordings. There are resources to transcribe recordings of interviews for you. I recommend rev.com. Being able to refer to written transcripts allows you to keep your facts straight. Use proper language in your eBook. This also helps you plan out your book structure and decide how you want to support your main thesis throughout your document. Once you have these three elements in place, you can be sure your eBook will remain focused on the topic at hand and provide a tremendous amount of value to your readers. In the next lesson, we'll discover how writing for a stage in the buyer journey is an effective way to get the most benefit out of the eBook for your business or your brand? 6. Write for Persona & Journey: In the last lesson, I mentioned how you should acknowledge your audience in your working title. Taking note about your core readers is important as it guides how you write your eBook. You can have the most helpful tips in your texts, but if they don't reach or appeal to the right audience, that won't matter. Your audience won't consider your eBook of any value. In this lesson, I'll discuss writing for a buyer persona and why it's important for you to focus on your audience. So this lesson helps you delve into speaking to your audience on a deeper level by using a buyer persona. But first, we have to understand an important question and that is what is a buyer persona? Simply put, a buyer persona is an imaginary person who represents the target audience. For your eBook. When we discussed figuring out your audience, I mentioned identifying what you're readers do. Maybe your writing too small business owners looking to make them most of their websites. You can't write to all small business owners. Some of them may already have a head-start on web development, while others may still struggle with computers, your advice may not be applicable to certain fields. You have to imagine a specific type of small business owner and write to that imagined person. I'm just using small business owners as an example. It helps to interview potential customers to determine what they're looking for, what struggles they face an other factors. You should also go back and analyze your previous customers and what they struggled with. If you've served the same segment audience before. This helps you create your buyer persona. If you create an effective buyer persona, enough people within your target audience should relate to it and seek out your book. Now, one of the first things you should determine about your buyer persona is the type of buyer they are. Your reader will either be a business buyer or a technical buyer. Each one has their own individual needs. As the name suggests, business buyers are focused on the business end of things. These buyers are concerned with running their organizations. They're looking for any information they can get about how to maximize revenue. Acquire customers, generate return on investment, and so on. Technical buyers, on the other hand, are concerned with the details of their field and the products or service issue cell. They're interested in weight than lengths and specifications. They want to increase production, make various processes easier or more efficient, and improve quality. You have to determine which type of your buyer persona falls into this group. When you determine that, you tailor your content to that buyer for the best results by highlighting the return on investment and the bottom line or highlighting the features and benefits that in some way improve their service or product delivery. Another thing to be aware of is that readers are on a buyer journey. That means your audiences on a path to a purchase of a product or service. They will be looking to understand and solve a specific problem. Writing, remember that your reader has an end goal in mind and that is to resolve their problem or take away their pain. Because this is a B2B eBook that you're writing, that product or service will have to benefit the readers business. If written properly, your eBook, we'll have a significant effect on this journey. Your eBook might contain information that the client needs, making it the end of their buyer journey. Or your content and information would be the final product. Alternatively, your eBook could push them onto the next step in their bar Journey, which would be buying your product or service. This it makes it crucial to consider what you are trying to sell and who benefits from it so that you craft your content accordingly. In addition to being aware of the buyers journey, you should also note that it has stages. As with other factors that we've mentioned. Understanding these stages helps you plan the various elements in your eBook. The first stage of any buyer journey is awareness. The buyer becomes aware of a problem or a pain in their business There next step is to research that pain. They want to understand the problem, uncover its causes, and find a feasible solution. That leads them to the second stage of the buyer journey, which is consideration. By now the buyer has found some information through online resources. They likely have a name for their problem and some solutions they could try. However, they still have more research to do. They may be able to take on the issue by themselves. If not, they'll consider turning to a product or solution to address the problem. This brings us to the final stage of the buyer journey, which is decision. The buyer has gone through more information on potential solutions. They have considered their options and decided to make a purchase. In the hope of eliminating their problem. Your eBook is going to catch buyers at any stage of their Journey. Keep in mind that people at each stage have different needs. You need to tailor your content to whichever stage your buyer journey is in. What's the best way to do that? Simple. Just consider which stage you're buyers in and what they're facing during that part of the process. For example, if you're targeting buyers in the awareness stage, you have to educate them about their problem. This also means proposing solutions that your business offers to those problems. But there should also be a lot of emphasis around the problem and how it could be affecting them negatively or could do so. In the future. If they're in the awareness stage, you need to get them to acknowledge that the problem they're dealing with is serious and needs to be addressed. If your target buyers are in the consideration stage, you don't have to focus on the problem as much. Instead, you focus more on pitching your businesses solution to their problems. The challenge here is that buyers are already informed enough to know about other solutions and tools that you might not offer. At this stage, there's doubts about which options are our best, including yours. If your goal is to write to decision stage buyers that the information in your eBook is the product that addresses their problem. While writing, it won't require as much extra work as teaching readers about the problem in the first place. You still need to ensure that you market your eBook and the product or service you're looking to sell as a clear solution. Keep these recommendations in mind as you plan and write Your eBook. Focus on the buyer you can write to most effectively. In the next lesson, we'll move on to writing the Introduction 7. Write the Introduction: In this lesson, Let's dive into the first portion of your eBook that you should actually write and that is your introduction. In previous lessons, we talked about the importance of your working title and having a buyer persona. These components guide your writing so that you effectively appeal to your target audience. Your introduction is next on that list of important factors, but for different reasons. Your introduction of your eBook has several things. It has to accomplish. It hooks your audience into reading the rest of the book. It sets the tone for your eBook and establishes your readers problem. It helps your reader understand their problem, even going so far as to lay out the consequences of doing nothing to fix it. Finally, your introduction hints at the solution. Your solution. Pay attention as we explore each of these things that your introduction has to achieve. The first thing your introduction must do is hook. Your reader, needs to grab their attention and get them to keep turning. The pages are scrolling through your document so that they eventually come to your solution. This should result in them taking action by purchasing your product or service. All of this hinges on your ability to grab their attention. In the first place. There are multiple ways to do this. You can achieve this effect in your introduction through your writing or how you format the Introduction. For example, the eBook. Ebook has an introduction that does a little bit of both. Notice that the headline and subhead are big and in your face, your reader can't ignore that. Additionally, the text addresses the reader. It acknowledges the reader in a positive and empowering light, acknowledging that they have expertise they can share, even if they don't know the best way to do so. Take note of that. Anyone who relates to the Introduction and feels like the Introduction is speaking directly to them, will be drawn into your document and wanna keep on reading. Write to your buyer persona and make your introduction feel like a conversation with a supportive colleague. Then you'll lead the audience into the next parts of your introduction. In addition to catching your reader's attention, your introduction should inform the reader about their problem. You do this by naming and acknowledging their pain. This is powerful. Some readers won't know the proper way to name or describe their difficulty. Your eBook will be one of the first resources they turn to. For information. Giving readers a term to describe their problem and the information to start understanding it makes them more inclined to continue reading. They want to see what else you provide for them. The rest of your eBook. Once again, the eBook, eBook provides an example of this. It's short and may seem insignificant. But look carefully. The Introduction refers to turning your invisible expertise into a tangible object, which describes the issue of having unrecognized or undervalued knowledge. That's tough to present to others. The author names the problem. The reader now thinks of their problem as invisible expertise and tries to understand it within this definition. This information also hooks reader upon learning a little bit about the problem. They will be curious for more information because of that, naming your readers problem is another important part of your introduction. Your introduction hooks your reader and names their pain. What next? You must give your reader a reason to keep turning the pages. They must realize the importance of addressing their problem. You achieve this by bringing up consequences and telling them what will happen if they don't address them. Your reader will be encouraged to read more. If you tell them that there are real consequences to ignoring their issue, you have to understand the consequences and paint a picture of urgency. For your readers. This is what IBM does in their eBook strategies for managing cybersecurity risk. In their introduction, they give an overview of the cybersecurity landscape. Check out the first sentence of the Introduction. Data breaches, ransomware attacks, privacy failures, failures, and other cybersecurity challenges are on everyone's radar screen, yet most businesses still struggle with effectively preparing for them. Now notice the sidebar on the right. It explains through numbers and text the consequences company suffer from data breaches. The final task for your eBooks introduction also involves getting your audience to continue reading. More specifically, your final objective is to allude to the solution. Now that your reader is aware of their problem and knows what's at stake. They want a solution. You can't just give it to them right away though in your introduction. Otherwise they would why would they bother continuing to read? That's why you only just hint at your solution in your introduction, mentioning it here and there, or even giving a little bit of information as a teaser. You want your reader to know that you have the answers and that you'll share them. They just have to give you their time and attention. In reading the rest of the eBook. They should know that after this exchange happens, there'll be equipped with the information they need to tackle their pain. Just like the other objectives we've talked about so far, there are many ways of accomplishing this. You can give a brief explanation of the solution with the promise to elaborate in the rest of the eBook. You can also give them the first part of the solution and build up to the rest of it. You have options. So explore what will work best for your audience. This is what IBM does. In the page following their introduction. They supply a link to a customer success story. Notice that they don't give the case study right there in the eBook that's too self-promotional. Instead, they title this page, meet risks with action. And then they give an example of doing that with an IBM solution. Of course 8. Write One Page. Repeat.: In this lesson, let's discuss writing the actual content of your B2B eBook. We've gone over your working title, your table of contents and your introduction. Now it's time to focus on what you're writing to your buyer persona. If you have never written a book or eBook before, this can be daunting. It may look like you have a lot of pages to fill a not enough words to fill them. But don't worry, just concentrate on writing one page at a time. When you think about writing one-page at a time, writing even a long eBook becomes easy. This approach breaks the work down to one of your books, smallest units, which is far less intimidating and much more manageable. Using your table of contents and working title as your guide, you already have a roadmap of what you want to say. You just have to figure out how to say it. Start from the beginning and take it slow. You don't have to organize and plan down to each individual page. But this approach is helpful if you prefer. If you prefer, if you prefer to be extra organized. Make sure that each page and your eBook has one well-developed thought in its entirety. If you write your eBook this way, your readers will be encouraged to continue reading. This format also gives readers a natural stopping point anywhere in the book. Having just one thought to focus on for each page makes it easier to write Your eBook because you're only writing about one thing at a time. Having that central idea, Let's you outline and frame a page of writing within the larger context of your overall eBook. When you take your writing one-page at a time, you approach each page as a small individual nugget. Start by taking the thought that is central to your page and create a clear beginning, middle. And this turns a one or two sentence thought into a whole page. As you expand. Writing your eBook as individual, self-contained pages shows more organization on your part as the writer. If you treat your thoughts like a thesis, your beginning simply introduces your argument. You provide background information, you establish the problem, and you give a preview of your solution. The middle, you detail your solution and provide supporting information. Then finally, you conclude with how your reader can apply your idea and then lead into the topics, the following pages. This is how you do is you craft a one thought on each page into a clear message that the reader can digest. Strategies for managing cybersecurity. These demonstrates this principle well. The first page talks about the state of cybersecurity in many organizations. In essence, it says that organizations are often at risk of cybersecurity breaches. The entire page lays out information to support that point, but the page can be summed up by that one sentence. That is the core thing being said to the reader. As you write. Use transitions to improve the flow of your writing and ideas. Transitions make it easier for your readers to follow along as you go from topic to topic. Starting off with something like, as we discussed on the previous page, connects your ideas for the reader. This prevents any sudden shifts or jumps in topic that confuse your audience. As for ending transitions, you can write something along the lines of next. We'll go over some of the reasons that this happens. This example, take something from the previous page or the current page and alludes to what's coming next. It gets the reader invested in finding out more. Check out this example from the top ten biggest mistakes retailers make. Notice that one paragraph ends with this thought. Any or all of these varied products and or customer experiences can negatively affect your brand. Now notice the transition sentence that starts the next paragraph. Inconsistent procedures can also wreak havoc behind the scenes. Now look at the final thought in this paragraph. Responses to safety and security incidents can also vary between stores. Now, notice the transition in the next paragraph to avoid these inconsistencies, adopt standard operating procedures and so on. That's how you keep your reader reading by leading them from one thought one paragraph to the next with compelling transition sentences. My final tip is to approach the writing process as a Journey. Remember that if you can write one-page, well, you can write 100 pages. Well, you aren't tackling the whole project at once. Writing an eBook starts with one-page. So think of each page as its own milestone. One-page might not seem like much in a 40 page book. But if you look only at your goal to write one amazing page, then you're focusing on the positives. To some, it may seem counterproductive to put so much emphasis on individual pages, but it's better to write one well-crafted page every hour or every day, to be overwhelmed trying to write an entire eBook. Ultimately, it's up to whatever works for you. Don't need to be an expert or have a degree in a writing focused field to develop a successful consistent writing method. These tips get you started. So you've learned all about writing a one page at a time. I hope you see how much easier it makes the writing process. Next, let's look at how writing for the Layout helps 9. Write for the Layout: Writing an eBook is more than just writing content for your audience to read. An eBook requires more in terms of visuals, which gives you the opportunity to have your work make even more of an impact. Visuals are not just crucial to making your eBook visually engaging. They also enhance your writing. Diagrams, pictures, and other additions to the text highlight key points and visually demonstrate your arguments. In this lesson. Let's review best practices for creating an appealing Layout that complements your writing in the best possible way. Different pages, different sections and chapters of your eBook can be labeled with their own titles. These usually give the reader an idea of what the overarching topic will be. Subtitles can branch off of that and give more information about what the reader can expect. You can use both of them effectively to preview the texts in a way that hooks the reader and makes them want to learn more about that particular subject. The LinkedIn Content Marketing tactical plan. Ebook provides good examples of subtitles. You find these on pages 45 and 6. There are other strong examples throughout the document. Download the resource for this lesson and make note of how the subtitles lead the reader through the text. You can also use excerpts from other sources. If you plan on referencing another work, it's helpful to include a snippet to show your reader exactly what you are talking about. Doing. So Let's you properly credit the creator and gives your reader the context they need to understand. Format excerpts as visual components to accompany your text and reinforce your key points. In the beverage trends report. The writer includes excerpts from the interviews alongside the text, along with a selection of images. Taking a creative approach to how you present your information, draws attention to key points and emphasizes the importance. Consider doing this with information you get from your subject matter, expert interviews as well. Captions are an important factor for your eBook. If you plan on using images, if you're working with a designer, they will add images and other visual media to accompany your texts. That's up to you whether to write captions for the images, but I recommend that you do to add a sense of professionalism and polish and also clarity. Your eBook may have images that readers aren't able to interpret at face value. Writing captions for them gives you a place to describe the images exactly as you want them to be seen. You can also explain the significance of those images to establish connections to your written material. Here's what I mean. In the Ultimate Guide to energy management. The page features a screenshot of the software solution that they discuss in the eBook. But that image isn't self-explanatory, isn't readers won't know what they are looking at. The writer gives the image a caption. Circles sites page is useful for identifying building inefficiencies. That is the meaning behind this image, a meaning that the image on its own doesn't communicate. This is what good captions do. They communicate what readers can't discern by looking just at the image. Bullet points or another tool you use to take your eBooks Layout to the next level. They help you create an organized lists within your text. Bullet points visually break up your text, which makes it easier to scan and read. Listing information with bullets is often more effective than simply listing out points within a paragraph. It creates a different visual. The reader to take in. A bulleted list creatively displays complex information and makes it more digestible. For readers. The eBook called your Complete CRM Handbook, has sets of lists throughout the texts that make use of bullets and numbers. This shows you that bullets, or a strong organizational and stylistic tool for your eBook writing everything is paragraph after paragraph of text will overwhelm your reader. So use bullets, numbered lists. Whenever you need to. I mentioned how effective excerpts can be for your eBook. Pull quotes are similar and are effective at highlighting points for your reader. Pull quotes are quotes that are taken directly from your own text and displayed as design elements. When formatting your eBook, you can make your pull quotes larger than the body texts or apply a different font or color to make them stand out from the rest of your texts. Pull quotes, emphasize something important, which encourages readers to take note of the quote. Master your next website redesign. The eBook uses pull quotes in its Introduction to emphasize a misconception about the redesign process. Do the same with key concepts in your eBook. Finally, there are blocks. In eBooks. Blocks typically include an image, a title, a paragraph, or two of texts, and he called action. You can view them as a unit or a specific layout for a Page. Consider how you compose everything in your eBook to keep your reader's attention. Remember this when you're writing the content of your eBook, think visually. Imagine how you want to arrange everything on the page. Should you continue that paragraph or start a new one, for example, maybe you can emphasize a certain point with an image and refer back to it later. So here's what I mean. In the rise of a holistic learning experience. The eBook, the writer takes facts and figures and presents them as design blocks. On page ten, for example, the writer takes a thought and renders it as a sidebar. On page 27, the writer takes three statistics and renders them horizontally at the bottom of the page as oversized design elements. And finally, in an eBook about the Journey to autonomous mining, the writer presents three tips for setting the basis of modern plant operations, but does so with blocks, each one featuring an icon, a headline, a paragraph of copy, and a call-to-action. In this lesson, I've shown you a few methods to make your eBook more visually appealing and an easier read from a formatting perspective. In the next lesson, we'll go on to how to create a magnetic Title 10. Give Your eBook a Title: Now it's time to discuss your eBooks title. This is likely to be different from the working title that you came up with at the start of your project. Over the course of your writing process, you will have adjusted the scope of your product or shifted to address a different angle or approach. So you're original title, you're working title may not fit your piece anymore. Also, you might have discovered something in your writing process that makes for a better title. So let's go over some of the tips and tricks to give Your eBook a magnetic Title. A great piece of advice when it comes to your title is to focus on the tidal last. Come up with your eBooks title after you've already written the book. As I mentioned, so much could change in the writing process, such as the direction of your outline or even something as significant as the overall topic or the overall conclusion or recommendations. Changes in these things will make your original title sound out of place. After you've finished writing and drafting. Take your final product as inspiration. Maybe you have a phrase or a piece of advice that you've repeat throughout your eBook that works as your title. Write down a few ideas. If you have them at this stage in your final title, identify and name your reader. This mirrors the same process you followed while coming up with your working title. Naming your reader. And your title helps perspective readers find your work through search. Maybe you focus on a specific subset of professionals in a field or Your advice is intended for a niche industry. Go through your work again and see who you ended up writing to in your eBook. Consider what appeals to that reader than name them. And you're title. Here's an example from vend in their eBook called the top ten biggest mistakes retailers make. And here's another example from Microsoft, the developer's guide to Azure. The next thing you name in your eBook title is your readers problem. This will have been a guiding factor while you were writing, but it's important to revisit it now to make sure the problem you named in your working title still applies. Now that you have completed the eBook, think about the problem you're addressing in your book, then go back through your document to ensure that you really did explore that issue and find solutions the way you said you would in your introduction. Here's an example of an eBook title that names the problem strategies for managing cybersecurity risk. What is the problem that readers of this eBook face? Cybersecurity risk? The final step is to identify the solutions from your eBook. Just as you did with the other steps so far, you understand this aspect of your eBook only after you've written it. Makes sure that your solutions are practical and that they match the overall theme of your eBook. If you made significant changes to earlier portions, you may discover that your problem and solutions no longer match. This is a great time to look at your work from the finish line. Identify the solution or benefit you want to focus on. In your Title. Ibm does a good job of this in navigating your hybrid multi-cloud vision with IBM power, presenting their preview of their solution entices the audience to read the book. Now let's shift focus on two things you haven't already done for your working title. The first of these is Search Engine Optimization. Consider using keywords that your audience will use when researching your topic. If you work, search engine optimisation into your title and incorporate a keyword or to your target audience is more likely to find your eBook through Google. Having these keywords in your title increases the chance that eBook pops up. In search engines and internal search engines on eBook platforms. Potential readers seeing your eBook as one of the top results will be more inclined to check it out. The next factor you'll want to think about when titling your book is social sharing. You're probably planning to advertise your eBook a cross, a wide range of channels. But you should also make the most others sharing your eBook with colleagues. Remember, that word of mouth requires someone else to summarize your book and describe it to the other person. If you're title is too complicated or sounds boring, the other person might decline an offer to read it. That doesn't help you build a following because you're cutting off that referral chain before it even starts. One of the ways that you do this properly is by framing the elements of your title in a way that encourages people to look into your book. Framing your title like a headline, gets others interested in how they can deal with similar problems. Finally, take advantage of subheads or subtitles. Whenever you can. If you think your book can benefit from a subtitle, use it to expand on something that you're title says. You can hint even more about the subjects you tackle in your eBook. If you weren't able to include everything that you wanted to say in your title. Mastering your next website redesign is an excellent title on its own, but it also has a subtitle that lays out some of these steps to its solution. Giving extra information or other types of previews to your audience encourages them to continue reading. Incorporate all of these recommendations into your final title to draw in the right readers who will appreciate your work. Next, we're going to look at how to write an effective executive summary 11. Write Your Executive Summary: In previous lessons, I've covered everything you need to plan and write your B2B eBook. One final thing to cover is your executive summary. An executive summary is a recap or preview of your eBook. Think of it like the back cover of a paperback. It gives a synopsis of the eBook so that your readers have an idea of where it'll go and what it's going to show them. Your executive summary should cover your audience, the main problem, and your proposed solutions in enough detail to show potential readers what to expect if they read the entire book. There's a fine line to walk here. Of course, you want potential readers to know what they'll gain by reading your eBook and get a taste for how they can solve their problem. But at the same time, you don't want to give away too much. Otherwise it's not a summary. Everything about your eBook should be designed to grab your reader's attention quickly and arouse their curiosity. Many working professionals are juggling priorities and are short on time. They're often in a rush and looking to find whatever they need as quickly as possible. If you're writing about a popular subject, there's definitely going to be some competition. So your executive summary may be your one big chance to stand out with your audience. Keep that in mind as you write your executive summary and remember to consider your target reader. Consider their familiarity with your topic, the language they might use to address a problem, and how to show that you're going to solve their problem. Now with that said, let's go into some tips for crafting a powerful executive summary. First of all, you should only start working on your executive summary after you have finished writing your eBook. In fact, it should be the last thing you do even after you rework your eBooks Title. Doing this beforehand doesn't help you with writing the content of your eBook. You're working title and table of contents have a function in your writing process. The executive summary does not. Trying to write a summary before you finished drafting your text won't allow you to paint the most accurate picture of your work. Your executive summary has to summarize the final draft of your texts, which is tough to do if you haven't written it yet. Write a summary should read like an abridged version of your text, giving your reader a snapshot of your main points. Keep the summary as concise and simple as possible while remaining true to the contents of your eBook, an inaccurate Executive Summary may end up causing your work to miss It's intended audience. For your executive summary, capture your best highlights. Take note of the most significant findings or recommendations in your eBook, and then figure out how to include them. In your summary. As I mentioned awhile ago, it can help to mention your audience, their problem, and your solution. These three things are the heart of your work, so they should get the spotlight. Another way to craft the best summary possible is to outline it. The outline doesn't need to be detailed because it's just a summary. One way to create an effective outline is to draw inspiration from the outline you use for the eBook itself. Look at your table of contents. And this will let you structure your executive summary in a similar manner so that it truly echoes the spirit of your eBook, the table of contents, the outline that you use as a guide for your executive summary can be your outline or your table of contents. Both Layout the flow of ideas for you to emulate in your summary. If you need any other references or material to craft the outline, look at your individual chapters. Making an outline and summarizing your book is accurately as possible, gives you a strong sense of what's most important in your work. The final thing you do in your executive summary is focused on your top level findings and recommendations. Now I know it's gonna be tempting to hone in on certain details. Doing that may cause you to misrepresent the most central topics. And your eBook, maybe you have a strong section on reaching international markets. For example, in a general Marketing Handbook. If you focus too heavily on international marketing in your executive summary, you will cause readers to think that your entire eBook deals almost exclusively with international marketing. When it doesn't. This will only lead the reader to be disappointed when they eventually discover that the international marketing concepts that you were so excited about in your executive summary are only a small portion of your eBook is not good. Cover the most significant points to give your reader. And enticing. Preview. Hinting at the highlights has a good chance of drumming up their excitement. It can show that your solution yields results, which is what the reader wants. At the end of the day. With that, you have everything you need to write your eBooks, executive summary