Putting “eBooks the Smart Way” to the Test

I keep on eye on a lot of the popular bloggers like Darren Rowse, John Chow and Shoemoney - but no one has gotten my attention more than Pat Flynn with the Smart Passive Income blog.  Since I first stumbled on to his blog, I was amazed at his ability to create captivating blog posts that were filled with quality information.  If you think my earnings reports are inspirational – you should see Pat’s!  He has a few different streams of income – an ebook, ehow earnings, iphone apps and others.  His earnings figures are staggering and I have set my sights on getting to his level.

One of the primary ways Pat preaches to make money online is to create and sell your own ebook.  Pat recommends that you choose a topic that you are familiar and go for it.  To be honest, I had considered writing and ebook in the past but I never really summoned up the motivation to actually pursue and complete my ebook.  Until recently – Pat just released his free guide called “eBooks the Smart Way” and it walks you through every step of creating and selling your eBook online.  I downloaded this eBook as soon as it was released and I printed the entire book and read the whole thing in one sitting.  As soon as I was done, I had the motivation to start my eBook.

In fact, my ebook is now about 2/3rd’s complete and I am going to try and follow all of Pat’s instructions on how to be successful.  I also have my domain name reserved and I have begun to build my website.  For those of you that don’t know – Pat’s primary source of online income comes from an exam study guide that he created for the Leed Exam.  The Leed Exam has something to do with architecture – don’t ask me to explain it!  This was obviously one of Pat’s areas of expertise!  You can see Pat’s Leed Exam website here: Leed Exam Study Guide

Like Pat, I am pursuing an area of business that I am very familiar with – the limousine industry.  I have owned two limousine services in the past and I now operate a one car company that nets me between $5,000 and $7,000 a month in profit.  I even worked as the head chauffeur for a limousine service on the East Coast for almost ten years.   It came to my attention that there are many people who search the Internet looking for information on starting a limousine service.  I checked with the Google keyword tool and there are about 4,000 to 5,000 searches a month on this topic.

To put that search figure into perspective – Pat’s keywords “leed study guide” and “leed practice exam” look to have over 20,000 searches a month.  So, off the bat I don’t have expectations to create the level of income that Pat has done with Green Exam Academy.  I am not selling myself short, I am just realistic in my goal – since my topic does not generate nearly as many searches.  I do plan on making a profit and I do plan on creating an automated source of residual income. 

I will be using eBooks the Smart Way over the next month to complete my ebook and put together my website.  This posting will be continually updated with my progress and once my ebook website is active – I will add any earnings to my monthly earnings report.  I am going to take Pat’s advice and hire an elance freelancer to help me create a dynamic PDF that includes a variety of helpful links for those people who are looking to start a limousine business.  I will also be using e-junkie as my primary shopping cart.  My goal is to have everything complete by March 1, 2010.

If you too, have ever considered creating an ebook, you should download eBooks the Smart Way – it just might be the motivation that you were looking for!  If you already have a successful ebook that is generating revenue for you, please post a link to your ebook’s website in the comments below!

This is the URL that I have reserved for my ebook website: How to Start a Limousine Business

You can visit Pat’s website – Smart Passive Income here: Smart Passive Income

THESE ARE A FEW OF THE STEPS OUTLINED IN PAT’S EBOOK THAT I HAVE TAKEN SO FAR…

1.  Created a mind map of all of my ideas for the ebook.
2.  Written an outline for my ebook.
3.  Written rough draft of text for my entire book. (14 full pages on MS Word.)
4.  Posted an ad on elance to hire a grapic designer to create my ebook in PDF format. 
5.  Chosen target keywords and ranked them by how often they are searched.
6.  Reserved my URL for my ebook sales landing page.
7.  Begun to do a rough draft of my website landing page.
8.  Set my meta-tags for my website.
UPDATE 2/7/10 – I have just finished writing the 2nd draft of my eBook!
9. Finished my final draft.
10.  Chose an elance designer to create my ebook.  Winning bid $80.
11.  Funded my elance escrow account with $80
UPDATE 2/19/10 – The elancer that I hired is almost done with my ebook!  Once I have the PDF – I can move forward!

Here is my ebook cover!  The ebook should be complete by 2/22/10

UPDATE: 2/26/10 – My ebook is complete and it is now for sale online!  In fact, I already got my first sale!!!  Check out the screen shot below – not bad, considering the ebook just went for sale two days ago!

More to come!

Best regards,

MJ

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