Books are potentially a very powerful promotional and marketing tool, an enhancer of reputation, and an important online and offline revenue source for bloggers.
Becoming an author strengthens a blogger's reputation as an industry authority by establishing credentials. Publishing provides a marketing and promotional vehicle opening doors to media interviews and articles, public lectures and speeches, and opportunities to network with some very high powered people.
Books will provide that vehicle. Today, we'll discuss one aspect of book publishing, namely the electronic or online downloadable book, more commonly called the e-book.
E-books are internet based books that are usually only available electronically, although some are available with traditional covers and pages as well. It's not uncommon for authors to offer a downloadable e-book version, followed later by the tradional hard copy version.
Bloggers make natural book authors, and e-books are especially appropriate for bloggers, accustomed as they are to online publishing. After all, a blog could be considered an online book all by itself. Many bloggers have certainly written enough material to fill at least one book; and maybe three or more.
Many bloggers have produced some tremendous ideas and information over the course of one, two, three, and even more years. The written work of some leading bloggers has already hit the mainstream. There are many great bloggers in the blogoshere, whose potential and writing quality has not been fully appreciated.
Innumerable bloggers have written some powerful essays as blog posts. Those collected posts could be readily turned into a an e-book product with the many e-book creating products available. Several good ones can be found online, and some of them are free, or are reasonably priced within the new author's budget.
A blogger would simply collect, and perhaps edit, their best and most interesting posts. Those collected columns could then be turned into an e-book. The traditional publishing industry has been selling collected essay books for generations.
It's time bloggers considered joining that charmed circle of authors. An e-book could contain some brand new columns and articles written specifically for the downloadable copy. They would provide some freshness to the collected greatest hits posts forming the bulk of the book's content.
An introduction, either by the blogger or perhaps someone else of note, could add an additional chapter to the book. An introduction could be provided by another blogger, a highly regarded industry authority, or even a regular reader of the author's blog. The purpose would be to tie the entire work together, into an overall edition, of interest to those familiar with the blogger, and for new readers as well.
After creating the e-book, the entire work could be offered for sale as a revenue source for the blogger. Other bloggers could offer the e-book for sale from their blogs as well. Those bloggers would be paid through an affiliate agreement. Such contracts are widespread on the internet. Many bloggers are already affiliates of a number of companies, and books are one of the most popular affiliate products. Many of those books are e-books too.
Setting up an e-commerce for the e-book is relatively easy these days. Conducting business online has joined the mainstream, and online commerce is readily accepted by most internet product purchasers. Many easy to use ordering, fulfilment, drop shipping, and shopping cart systems are now available.
The time is becoming ripe for more blog inspired e-book publications. The world of published authors can certainly include bloggers in their ranks.
In fact, they already have.
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