This week, I’m very pleased to have Ali Luke as an invited guest here on Big Brand System.

Ali is a prolific writer, penning 4000+-word posts on her blog Aliventures.com.

Lately, a lot of her writing has been about Ebooks. She’s the author of Publishing E-Books for Dummies by Wiley.

Read on to see how ebooks have worked for Ali’s business. And sign up for next week’s Brown Bag Webinar, Reach the Masses: How to Grow Your Business with Ebooks at the end of this post.

Ali, what makes ebooks work for your business? Why are they a good choice?

ALI: Ebooks work brilliantly for me because they allow me to reach a global market. I live in the UK and many of my readers are in the US or Australia — if I sold physical books, I’d have the expense and hassle of shipping them. It’s not just the shipping costs, of course: ebooks avoid all the overheads that print books incur, meaning that I can include as many screenshots and graphics as I like, and that I can produce ebooks of any length without worrying about the economics of printing.

Ebooks also suit the way I like to work. I’m not the world’s most patient person (just ask my husband!) and I love being able to see a project through from idea to publication in just a few months. I’ve been published in print (Publishing E-Books for Dummies) and while that was a great experience with a publisher who had very fast turnarounds, it still took almost a year from the initial discussions to the book hitting the shelves.

Do you use Ebooks for marketing purposes, or are you focused on fiction Ebooks?

ALI: I’ve published a novel, Lycopolis, in Ebook form, but my main focus has been on non-fiction. I’ve written in-depth Ebooks (the Blogger’s Guides) that bring in a good percentage of my income, and I also use short Ebooks for marketing purposes — primarily to encourage writers to subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

One of the great things about Ebooks is that they’re incredibly flexible. You can start out by creating an Ebook of just 15 or 20 pages, and use that as a marketing tool. Once you get to grips with free Ebooks, it’s not too big a step to start writing longer Ebooks that you can charge for.

Ali wrote The Blogger’s Guide to Irresistible Ebooks (affiliate link), and has generously offered Big Brand System readers a code you can use to get it for a discount. Just click the link above, and use the code bigbrandsystem and you’ll get $10 off The Blogger’s Guide to Irresistible Ebooks or $10 off the four-pack of all the Blogger’s Guides.

Do you have any tips on busting out of the “I’ll just write a random Ebook” attitude and approaching Ebooks with a deliberate plan in mind?

ALI: The biggest mistake I made early on — and I think a lot of Ebook authors have had a similar experience — was to write Ebooks that I thought my readers needed. Since then, I’ve found it’s much more effective to ask my readers what they actually want! Whenever I’m thinking about writing a new Ebook, I run a survey to ask readers to choose between several possible titles. I also find out what their key problems, needs or concerns are, so that I can address those.

It’s tempting to choose a popular topic — like weight loss or increasing your income — for an Ebook, but I think that a much more effective approach is to first build a platform (a blog or email newsletter is ideal) where you write about a topic that you’re really enthusiastic and knowledgeable about. I know some writers see this as giving their work away for free — but a better way to look at it is as a form of marketing. Once you’ve got a few dozen or few hundred blog subscribers or newsletter readers, you’ll not only have a ready-made audience for your Ebook, you’ll also have a chance to survey them or to ask for feedback on what they want to read.

Thanks to Ali Luke for sharing her insights this week!

Ready to learn more about Ebooks? Join me for the free Brown Bag Webinar, Reach the Masses: How to Grow Your Business with Ebooks.

To watch this — and all the other Brown Bag Webinars — click the button below.