How to Create and Sell Your First E-book (part 2)

In this guest post, counselor and consultant Clinton Power share how to put the finishing touches on your E-book and how to get the word out and sell your book. (Read part 1 how to create your first E-Book)

Use a graphic designer to make your E-book stunning

If you're planning on creating a PDF version of your E-book to sell through your website, you definitely want to get it professionally designed. Your designer can then employ visuals, highlight quotes, and use attractive fonts and graphic design elements to draw the reader in and make reading your E-book a pleasure. Your designer will also create a compelling cover page, which is essential as it will make a big difference whether people are attracted to your E-book or not.

If you're going down the Amazon route, you won't need a designer to design the inside, but you will need an awesome cover design so you stand out from the thousands of books in Amazon.

One other consideration is to make sure you have your e-book proof read once it’s complete. I employed a professional copy editor to make sure my book was grammatically sound with no spelling errors. This was a good investment.

Create a dedicated landing page for your E-book

It's worth creating a dedicated landing page on your website for, or creating a stand-alone website just for your E-book.

Even if you're selling it through Amazon, it's helpful to direct people to this page to read more about your book.

Include attractive images of the cover (3D preferably), testimonials and a bio of you, the author.

Options for selling your E-book

I chose the Amazon route and more specifically, a product called KDP Select. If you use KDP Select you have a 90-day agreement with Amazon that you won't sell your E-book anywhere else on the internet.

KDP Select also allows you to have up to 5 promotional days within the 90 days where you can give your book away for free on Amazon. This was a great strategy for getting more exposure, and helped me get over 2000 downloads. In fact, over 1,800 downloads happened in one weekend during one of my free promotions when my book went to the top of the free list for its category.

If you want more flexibility, you can just join KDP and then still sell your E-book in other places.

If you're selling your E-book through your website, I recommend using E-Junkie or Gum Road. E-Junkie will allow you to have affiliates so other people can sell your book and earn a commission, and Gum Road is very simple software where a beautiful pop-up appears on your website and guides the purchaser through a checkout.

Begin promoting your E-book

Now your E-book has been created, it's time to start promoting it. That's probably a whole other post on it's own, but one tip I'll share is I sent advanced copies to readers on my newsletter list for free, in exchange for Amazon reviews.

This was very helpful in getting reviews on Amazon just as I started to make sales. And the more positive reviews you get, the more Amazon will promote your book in its marketplace.

Don't forget to talk about your E-book on a regular basis on social media and get creative about sharing your message.

Another strategy I used was I created attractive images in PicMonkey with tips from each chapter and shared them on social media and on my blog.

Track your results

Finally, you want to track your results to see how you're doing with your sales.

Amazon makes this easy through Author Central, so make sure you create an account there. You can track the ranking of your book in the Amazon Marketplace and read all your reviews, as well as edit your author profile.

If you're selling your E-book on your website, use Google Analytics to see where traffic is coming to your landing page, and then increase your marketing efforts in those areas.

Creating an E-book has never been easier, so what's stopping you? Get writing!

Clinton Power is a Gestalt therapist and the owner of Clinton Power + Associates - a private practice dedicated to helping singles and couples move out of relationship pain in Sydney, Australia. Clinton is the author of the E-book 31 Days to Build a Better Relationship, which is available in the Amazon store. He is also the founder of Australia Counselling Directory, a free directory for finding counselors and psychologists in Australia. Follow him on Twitter @sydneytherapist

How to Create and Sell Your First E-book (part 1)

In this guest post counselor and consultant Clinton Power shares how to create your first E-Book

There's no doubt that creating and selling your own digital product is a great way to increase your online exposure, credibility, expertise, and earn some money while doing so.

And the creation of an e-book to sell through your own website or an online bookstore like Amazon or iBooks is the quickest and easiest product to create to get started.

I wrote my own e-book called 31 Days to Build a Better Relationship and published using the Kindle platform on Amazon. It's been a great way to increase my online presence and credibility as a specialist in relationships and has now been downloaded over 2000 times and received 19 five star reviews in Amazon.

With a $2.99 price tag, I didn't write it to make money (though the checks from Amazon are very nice), but more to reach thousands of people that I never could have on my own, through the power of the Amazon Marketplace.

Selling an e-book through your own website is also a very good idea, and the good news is you can charge much more than Amazon e-book prices.

So let's dive in and look at the steps you need to get started.

Select a topic that will sell

It's important to do some research at the beginning to check there’s a market for your e-book and people looking for the information you want to write about.

As a therapist you are well positioned to create an information product because you have years of training, knowledge and experience about good mental health, the change process, and self-improvement. These information products are often in high demand because they are providing a solution to a pain or problem.

So to get your research underway I suggest you start with Google and Amazon. Search for keywords that are related to the e-book you're considering writing.

For example, if you're a specialist in child ADD/ADHD, search for combinations of keywords in Amazon and Google such as "How to overcome child ADD", or "I think my child has ADHD", or "best ideas for dealing with ADD". The idea is you want to see how many people already have products for sale that are similar to your idea.

If you find similar products, but your idea has a particulate angle that is not covered by other e-books, then this is a good thing.

There are hundreds of books on relationships in the Amazon store, but I didn't find one that used my approach of a tip a day for 31 days, so I knew I was bringing in a different angle that might help with sales.

Create an outline

The next step in the creation process is to create an outline for your e-book.

Start by writing down the headline or theme for each chapter. This helps you organise your thinking and then you can flesh out the content later.

Here's a tip: 50% of my e-book used blog posts I had previously written, so if you have been already been writing on a regular basis, don't discount that you may have some of your e-book written already.

This was a huge time-saver that added 15,000 words to my e-book, and I then wrote the remaining 10,000 words in 10 days.

Choose a writing platform

One of the simplest ways to write your e-book is to write it directly into Microsoft Word. This is a good option if you're going to turn it into a PDF for your own website.

I used the free platform Press Books, which is like writing in WordPress, but it converts it into the .mobi file, which you need to upload to Amazon.

I found this software easy to use and enjoyable to write in. You can then make as many changes as you want and quickly upload the latest version to Amazon within minutes.

Write clearly and simply for your audience

It's important that you write in an informal and conversational way, so you can connect with you reader.

Try to avoid writing in an academic voice as it will turn off your readers. The challenge here is to let go of your college training and write as if you're speaking to a close friend.

Use calls to action and hyperlinks

The great thing about writing an e-book, either for Kindle or a PDF for your website, is you can use hyperlinks to link to websites and other online resources.

So take advantage of this and include hyperlinks to link to other websites, or your own. This makes your e-book and more valuable resource.

Also use clear calls to action, so you tell the reader what actions you want them to take.

My e-book had a tip at the end of each chapter, so I told the reader exactly what to do for the next 24 hours. This then helps the reader feel they are getting something from the e-book because they are taking action.

Watch for part 2 on how to sell your e-book!

Clinton Power is a Sydney-based Gestalt therapist and the owner of Clinton Power + Associates- a private practice dedicated to helping singles and couples move out of relationship pain. He is also the founder of Australia Counselling Directory, a free directory for find counsellors and psychologists in Australia. Clinton is also a passionate coach and consultant for healthcare professionals. Find him on Twitter or Google+.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Using Twitter To Grow Your Therapy Practice

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a popular social media platform where users can send short updates that are up to 140 characters long.  Twitter is basically the equivalent of a Facebook status update newsfeed. If you have no idea what a "newsfeed" or "status update" is, then you may want to stop reading here and start by setting up a Facebook account.

Facebook is THE social network site and is the most effective way to build your practice through social media because of it's high number of daily users. Here's an article on how to set up a Facebook Page for your practice.  If you want to know how to use Twitter, here are a few suggestions on how to effectively tweet to build your practice.

How can Twitter help you build your practice?

Twitter, like all social media platforms, is a forum for conversation and connecting with other people online. It is also a great way to spread the word about your practice, to educate the public about issues you care about, and to share your areas of expertise. The point of social networking sites like Twitter is...uh...the social networking. If your Twitter followers find value in your tweets they will share them by retweeting your information their Twitter followers. Over time you can grow a network of people who are sharing your tweets which helps you get the word out about your private therapy practice.

Ways to Build Your Therapy Practice Through Twitter

1) Follow local businesses and professionals

Following potential referral sources on Twitter can help you build referral sources.  If you specialize in helping clients with chronic pain, then you may want to search for pain clinics, chiropractors, and other health professionals in your geographic area and start a conversation with them about your services.

Don't limit who you follow to only mental health or other psychotherapists. Referrals can come from any kind of social networking relationship. Let your definition of an ideal client help guide who you follow on Twitter so you can attract the kind of client you want to work with. Twitter can also be used a search engine to find other businesses or people in your area and see what they talking about.

2) Don't just tweet, have conversations

Don't just send out information or tweets into the social network universe. Take a few minutes each day to respond to others who mention you or who retweet your tweets. "Mention" other users by using the "@" sign followed by their twitter handle and it will show up on their Twitter page. This builds rapport and relationships. For example, my user name is @julie_hanks. If someone posts a tweet and mentions me, I will be notified of it and it gives me a chance to respond to them.  I've found Twitter to be a source of professional support too, meeting therapists all over the world and sharing ideas. I've found some therapists in private practice featured in recent articles on Twitter.

3) Tweet links to your practice website

Increase traffic to your therapy website by tweeting links to your website. If you have a website blog, you can automate your site to tweet every new blog post. Here's a screenshot of my Twitter page. The yellow text are links that mostly go to on of my websites or blogs to increase visitors and provide helpful information.

4) Use hashtags to attract followers interested in your expertise

A hashtag is a "#" followed by a topic. For example, if you're specialty area is parenting, you can use #parenting on tweets about anything related to parenting to make it easier for others interesting in parenting to find you. When you click on a hashtag it will bring up other tweets mentioning the same topic. Hashtags make it easy to find, follow, and converse with others who have similar interest or expertise.

Do you use Twitter as a mental health professional? What are your suggestions for using Twitter to build your practice?

Why I 'Broke Up' With Managed Care

At times, working with managed care insurance panels in private practice felt like dating a bad boyfriend. I was constantly investing more time and attention than "he" was in the "relationship" and it started to wear me down. I got up the nerve to break it off for good. I've never looked back. I understand that building a practice free of managed care isn't for every therapist. I am grateful for excellent colleagues who participate on insurance panel because and there is a great need for their services and I frequently refer clients to them. However, if you're a private practitioner considering building a practice outside of managed care, I share my experience of resigning from managed care to give you the courage to take the leap, and the faith to know that it can work. So here's my story...

After I received my clinical license I started applying to any health insurance panel. I just assumed that's how you're "supposed" to get clients in a private practice because every therapist I'd known had followed this path to get referrals. I was accepted to many panels and my practice started to grow. I was ecstatic.

However, as time went on I started to resent many aspects of working with managed care panels and it began to effect how I felt about my work in general. I felt overworked and drained and knew that something needed to shift if I was to be in private practice for the long haul. Here's what I started noticing about my relationship with managed care.

• Excessive paperwork: I was spending almost as much time performing unpaid work (paperwork, phone calls, tracking authorizations, and billing) as I was spending seeing clients. I went into this field to do therapy, not paperwork.
• Reduced income: I resented writing off 40-60% of my fee upfront just to be placed on a list with dozens and dozens of other therapists. The managed care companies weren't doing anything to market my practice and yet I was being asked to take a huge pay cut to work with their clients.
• Mandatory diagnosing: I grew tired of having to diagnose every client who walked into my office in order to get paid. When I met with a client who didn't have clearly diagnosable symptoms I was faced with a dilemma. Do I stretch a diagnosis just so I can get paid, or do I do free therapy because insurance won't reimburse without a diagnosis?
• Denied or delayed payments: Being denied reimbursement for a variety of reasons and receiving payment weeks or months after I had performed the service grew frustrating.

My uneasiness led me to critically look at the financial numbers and I was astounded by the amount of money I was writing off just to participate on managed care panels. I decided that there had to be a better way to for me to run my practice. I realized that if I resigned from managed care panels and transitioned to a fee for service practice, I could see half the number of clients weekly and make the same income. Or, I could see the same number of clients and double my income. To top it off, I could eliminate most of my unpaid paperwork hours. Work less and make more? It was a dream come true for a private practitioner and mother of young children.

I resigned from all managed care panels in 2007 and raised my fee by 10%. Since then, my private practice, Wasatch Family Therapy, has grown from a solo practice of one to a thriving clinic employing several therapists. We are adding a second office location later this month. It has taken some relentless marketing, consistent networking, and social media skills to keep a practice growing without managed care or any outside contracts, but it has worked. If I can do it, you can too.