There’s no hard and fast rule on what length an ebook should be, but from my 12 years as a book coach online, I know these ideas will help you decide.

Decide Which Number is Best for your eBook’s Purpose!

#1. A 10-20 page eBook is a good length if your purpose is to use it as a bonus to web visitors when they opt-in and subscribe to your site or ezine.

We call it an “ethical bribe.” This book can also be sold as a leader on Kindle for 99 cents or $2.99, depending on its specific help to the readers. General titles don’t usually sell as well as specific ones. Within these low cost or no cost ebooks, you need to add some powerful promo that leads the reader to check out your print books and other packages and services.

#2. A 30-120 page eBook (best under 100 pages usually) can sell well.

Especially if it offers specific information your audience has to have! Then, sell it at a higher price from $15.95 to $39.95. Higher for ebook courses and other training packages.

#3. A 20-30 page eBook with a specific title and specific audience can sell well through Kindle from $2.99 to $9.99 for best commissions.

#4. Aim for your sweet spot.

It could be 70 pages or 99 pages. If you book is offered at your site in PDF you have an advantage because it’s totally downloadable and printable, and can be ordered any time. Most buyers will print up to 70 pages of a book if they want it bad enough.

Since ebook opportunities are everywhere, you can get started today with any of these choices!

About Judy Cullins: My life’s mission and passion is to help unknown authors create the income they deserve, build their confidence, writing skills, and marketing tactics to get their unique, useful story out to their book’s audience who wants an outstanding life and work.

Learn how to write your ebook or other short book–Fast! with Judy’s ebook.

You want to gain new clients, you want to make money with books (either an eBook or Print Book), and make money self publishing. You want to make a difference. Well, you Can! No matter what stage you are in now. Whether you have an idea for a book or a book title, you can apply the chapter fast writing strategy, know the hot selling points and steps, and learn the proven tips to write a book fast to become a best selling author!

• Become the savvy expert in your niche.
• Transform your readers into clients.
• Brand your business and build worldwide visibility.
• Make a difference in the lives of millions of people.
• Save time and money mistakes.
• Create many Income sources from your book – BIGTIME.

“This is not a book on how to write. It is a book on how to get it written. Whether you are working on an eBook or a print book, you will find Judy Cullins’ wisdom invaluable.”
Dan Poynter
The Self Publishing Manual and Writing Non-Fiction

You can get instant access to this ebook, any time of the day or night for only $15.95. Click here to get your copy.

1. Why would someone want to turn their book into a booklet?

This gives readers a bite-sized palatable introduction to a new topic in their life rather than first delving into a 200-page book as their first experience with new information. The booklet can be an overview of the most important concepts in the book, taking something from each chapter. Once the reader digests those basic ideas, they will be eager and ready for more, which becomes the full-length book. It also gives the reader a choice of which publication is their starting point, rather than a yes/no about whether to buy the book or not. This all gives the author greater sales opportunities.

2. I already wrote a book or I’m thinking of writing a book. How can a booklet help me?

Instead of creating only one booklet from a book, an author may decide to divide the book into as many booklets as there are chapters. Having a series of booklets provides much more revenue than a single book is likely to do. It also lets the reader buy segments of the book that would be most appealing. For the author who has yet to write the book and intends to, doing a series of booklets can be a painless way to write an entire book, and have something to sell before the entire book is completed.

3. How would you use a booklet to market your book?

It’s typical for a booklet author to specifically invite the reader to seek out the book, by adding on the last page “For more in-depth information on this topic, you’ll want to add our book… to your library today.” This is only one of many ways the booklet markets the book. The booklet can also be an inexpensive value-added item that is physically bundled with the book to enhance and increase the value of the purchase.

4. Are there particular types of books that work better for this?

Non-fiction books are often the easiest starting point for tips booklets. However, it is completely possible to create a tips booklet for a fiction book, focusing on some theme in the story or travel to the location in which the story is set or any number of other elements within a fiction book.

5. Is there a formula for writing an effective tip?

Create a tip by writing one sentence starting with a positive verb, telling the reader what to do. Follow that with one or two sentences explaining “why” or “how.”

6. What is a good way to choose a topic for a booklet?

The best topic is the one you are most enthused about and, ideally, is also the focal point of your business or cause.

7. Won’t a booklet keep people from buying my book(s) and services?

The booklet actually encourages more sales of your products and/or services by establishing your credibility and introducing you as a valued resource for more relevant information and/or service.

8. Can I write one booklet or do I have to write a whole series for this to work well?

Your personality and your business requirements will best dictate whether one booklet is all you need and want to do, or if it makes better sense to develop an entire series. Either way can and has been effective.

9. How does a booklet actually market and promote a business I have?

A booklet defines you as a trusted adviser, expert, and resource. Each time a copy of your booklet lands in anyone’s hands, you are educating them on your expertise and informing them of where they can get more from you that will benefit their life.

10. Can this booklet be leveraged in some ways, maybe even into other products?

Entire information product lines, both hard copy and digital online, can be developed from a single 3,000-5,000 word tips booklet document. It is highly effective as a business owner to create your booklet in other formats that appeal to different learning styles, life circumstances, convenience, price considerations, and “wow” factor. It is fairly common for people to want multiple formats of the same information so, at any point, they can choose to read or listen, store on their computer or read at the beach, or share with others in some way.

Some formats have no development cost at all. Others can be nominal. The return on your investment can be huge. This is especially true when you become aware of the many opportunities to sell your products in very, very large quantities to corporations for them to use to promote their own product, service, or cause.

Paulette Ensign is Founder and Chief Visionary of San Diego-based Tips Products International. She has personally sold well over a million copies of her tips booklet in several languages and formats without spending a penny on advertising. She will teach you how to surpass her results. You’re next, no matter where you are on your publishing journey. www.tipsbooklets.com (c) 2009, Paulette Ensign

Imagine walking up to a director of marketing of some major corporation and simply saying something like ‘this book or booklet will help you sell more of your widgets.’ And the director of marketing agreed with you. And the person wanted to know the price and delivery time. Would you need a new oxygen supply to keep breathing or would you know what to do?

You have been used to operating in a particular-sized universe, selling a single copy of a single information product to a single user, or multiples through a traditional distributor, though not in those quantities. Imagine a major calendar company, for instance, that produces millions of calendars each and every year. And they want to include a copy of your tips booklet or your book with each calendar that they offer for sale, as a “value added” item to help them sell more of their calendars. Yes, that’s a real scenario.

How about a smaller amount? What about a catalog company who wants to license the specific rights to print a mere 250,000 copies of your book or booklet so they can offer it as a gift with any purchase in a particular issue of their catalog? That 250,000 copies can sound like a lot until you realize that the company distributed 17 million copies of their catalog that year. Your 250,000 copies was merely a test to see how the catalog’s customers and prospects would respond to the offer of your tips booklet, whether it would prompt more sales of the catalog’s products.

Connecting the dots between imagining, and making it so consists of educating yourself on who it is that’s a likely candidate, realizing what the production steps are, researching your costs so you can effectively price the product, and putting yourself into the position of having conversations with people who want what you’ve got. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

What are you imagining? What are you going to do about it? When? Or would you rather continue selling single copies, one at a time? Those choices are yours to imagine and take action.

Paulette Ensign teaches people worldwide how to surpass her results of selling well over a million copies of her own tips booklet, in 4 languages and various formats, without spending a penny on advertising. Start your million-copy book and booklet journey with her free gifts at www.tipsbooklets.com © 2009, Paulette Ensign

A booklet is a way for the reader to test out the information of the author, to see if it’s something that leads to wanting more of what the author’s got. It’s a way to gently approach a topic that may be otherwise overwhelming or brand new. It’s one format of the material, which can then be embellished, expanded, or otherwise modified by the author.

A booklet is NOT the consummate reference on a given topic. A tips booklet, in particular, is NOT a narrative philosophical statement or observation of something. It’s a tips booklet, with how-to’s in it.

Let’s say you wrote a novel, set on a rural farm in Midwest America, and you want to sell lots of copies of that novel, which common wisdom says is a challenge to do. One way to do it could be by writing a tips booklet about ways (tips!) to live a happy, fulfilling, and interesting life in rural America, or on a farm. That would certainly give the reader of your book more of a connection to what your book is about, wouldn’t it, especially when you include some specific invitation that looks something like “for more about living on a farm in Midwest America, you’ll enjoy reading our book, Life in a Corn Field.”

Or you are interested in featuring the accomplishments of some notable people of current or historical times. Instead of a treatise about them, it could be very useful to create a tips booklet that includes guidance based on what those people did to accomplish what they accomplished, for others to mirror in their own lives.

Once in a rare while there is a topic that simply does not lend itself to a tips booklet. It’s usually something in science or math and focused on theory. It’s at that moment you’ll see a glaze come onto my face. Otherwise, let’s talk about what your tips booklet is and can be.

Paulette Ensign has sold well over a million copies of her own tips booklet, “110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life,” in four languages and various formats without spending a penny on advertising. From her San Diego, CA-based http://www.tipsbooklets.com, she assists individuals and groups transform their knowledge into tips booklets and other information products for marketing, motivating, and making money. © 2008, Paulette Ensign

So, you already have a magic bullet. You will find it by noticing what gets your juices going, what captures your attention, what prompts you to want to know more than you already know about the topic and how it relates to your everyday life. It’s what drew you to the business you’re in or the cause you support.

When writing a booklet about a topic near and dear to your heart, you will see ways to market the booklet popping up everywhere you look. There will be manufacturers, retailers, publications, and associations who will want thousands and hundreds of thousands of your booklet. Their universe could require literally millions of copies.

It will be easy to expand your product line because your clients and prospective clients will guide you with requests for different formats of your content and you will be excited about it. You will have so many choices on your plate that the challenge will then become what to do first from among all the possibilities. Will you create audio products or card decks or foreign language versions of the tips booklet you just wrote? What about an entire electronically-published product line on your topic?

So, what ARE the hot topics to write about? Food, kids, pets, money, health, and sex? Only if it’s already a passionate part of your everyday business activities. Otherwise, you may have found you’ve got the magic bullet for the best topics for YOU to write about.

Take your topic to the next level with a step-by-step system so you can add to those hot topics out in the world.

Copyright 2006, Paulette Ensign For a free sample of how to write tips, go to http://www.tipsbooklets.com Paulette Ensign has sold over a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. You can, too!

Somewhere along the way, you remember hearing something about developing derivatives. A derivative is a product that has been distilled directly from you book. And it can be in as many formats as your imagination or other people’s suggestions and interests can take you.

A tips booklet is one of those derivatives that can be created from your full-length book manuscript. It means writing your book once and making money from it over and over again in numerous ways. Tips booklets do several things. They market your book, as an appetizer to whet the appetite of the reader, guiding their hunger toward the complete entree, your entire book.

As for a booklet being a marketing tool for your book, think of it as your marketing brochure on steroids. The tips booklet presents 3,000-5,000 words that are samples of your book content, written as action-oriented suggestions to the reader, in a format that people will pay for. Think of that, people paying you for your marketing materials! It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

The reader reads some or all of your booklet, feels great, wants more, and sees on the last page of the booklet a notice saying “For more in-depth information on this topic, you’ll want to have our book -Everything You REALLY Wanted to Know When You Started Reading Our Tips Booklet. You can purchase the book at our website www.therestofthestory.com or our 24-hour order line 1-800-GET-BOOK.”

Tips booklets also become an income stream unto themselves. Imagine yourself in a situation where a company, professional association, or some other organization wants to buy thousands of copies of your book. They want to use it as a promotional item for their own products, services, or cause. They then see the per-unit cost of your book. Even though they love the book, it’s priced well, and they view it as an ideal match for their needs, their budget stops them in their tracks. By also having a tips booklet available on the same topic as your book, you are immediately able to suggest their first purchase be a similar quantity of your tips booklet instead. This allows for some sale rather than no sale. It leaves your buyer feeling good about you because you gave them a workable solution. You have greatly increased the odds of this buyer (and people they know) making other purchases from you in the future. Think about all of that as you ponder the idea of creating one or more booklets from your book.

Look for obvious divisions in your book. The chapters are a good starting place. Each chapter may be grist for an individual booklet. Or, rather than going that route, you might decide to do something now called a “sampler” booklet. That means taking the 10 chapter headings from your book, and writing 10 or 12 tips under each of the chapter titles, giving the reader an opportunity to sample the entire book within a 16-24-page tips booklet measuring approximately 3½ by 8½ inches. As your reader experiences success from what they read in your booklet, your credibility increases. They want more of you and more of what you are about. The booklet gives them an opportunity to test-drive you. Remember, the booklet is not the consummate reference on everything you know about your topic. That’s what the book is. The booklet will, however, often lead to the book.

Every person who reads your booklet is a ready-made marketing representative for you and your company. As a single-copy booklet buyer, they could be a decision-maker for their own company or group, and also be influential in the purchasing decisions of their colleagues, associates, suppliers, distributors, family, friends, and neighbors.

Imagine this for a moment: A company, association, or other organization that purchases a large quantity of your booklets and then your books as a promotional tool for their own purposes also promotes you and your company with each and every publication of yours that they distribute. They do this because your name and your contact information are in each booklet. Remember, they have paid you to promote you. Life doesn’t get a whole lot better than that!

Your buyer may also be or know of a reporter or producer to schedule you for a print, radio, or television, or Internet interview. The reader might have contacts in another country or a community in your own country who have interest in licensing your booklet or book into another language or different physical format. You may be just the person to provide consulting or training on an issue. Or, if you are also a speaker, the group may need a series of speeches in different locations or departments within their organization. Any of that and more can and does happen from a tips booklet.

Keep in mind that the booklet is a less expensive way of accomplishing all of this, for you as the publisher, and for your buyers. Booklets will open many of these doors for you more conveniently, less expensively, and with fewer time lags than attempting to do some of the very same things using your full-length book. At the very least, you now have choices to offer people, based on their interest, budget, learning style, storage space, and desired ‘wow’ factor.

Once your tips booklet manuscript has been developed, you will find that document can also be converted into many other products that will market your book and become their own revenue streams much in the same way booklets serve you, further expanding your product line.

When your business has a full menu of related products and services, you are able to successfully tap into what your buyers need and want, and keep your own cash flowing. The possibilities are endless when it comes to how a booklet can serve your book business. What will your first booklet be?

© 2006, Paulette Ensign / Paulette Ensign has personally sold over a million copies in four languages of a tips booklet called “110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life,” all without spending a penny on advertising. She has had clients match and surpass her results, worldwide, including numerous full-length book authors. She has learned her business by doing it, never having taken a formal business course in her life. Her San Diego, California -based company, Tips Products International, offers a range of products and services to support your success regardless of your budget of time or money. Phone 858-481-0890 or visit http://www.tipsbooklets.com/

Anyone can write and publish an 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ booklet of 24 to 48 pages. One format which works well and is easy to write is to answer frequently asked questions. Write down a list of the questions your customers ask (or should ask). While it might be intimidating to sit down at the computer to write a book, you could write the answer to one question, couldn’t you? Then answer another and another–before you know it, you’ve got a booklet!

Use one of the questions as your title, with a subtitle such as “The 47 things you must know about (subject).”

Booklets can be produced in small quantities at your local copy or print shop, usually for less than $1. Have covers printed on glossy paper or card stock. The copy shop can “bookletize” (fold, staple and trim) for you.

Your booklets can be sold at the back of the room when you speak, you can promote them on your web site, they can be an add-on item to your catalog, etc. You may even be able to place them in retail outlets and bookstores. Consultants can use them as a “leave behind” with potential clients–while you won’t profit directly from the booklet, they can help you attract clients. Booklets make good premium items. Sell them in quantity to companies or other professionals in your field to give or sell to their
clients. Use booklets as a premium when your customers place an order of $50 or more.

And don’t forget to include in your bio sheet and press materials that you are “the author of (booklet title).” That gives you credibility and enhances your reputation and visibility.

Take the first step: Choose your topic. Then, write the booklet and take it to your local copy shop. You can be published in just days. Try it!

Copyright Cathy Stucker. For more information, see Big Profits from Small Booklets. Learn how I made thousands of dollars from one 16-page booklet–and how you can, too.