Web writing - make an ebook free, and then cash in » Fab Web Writer: Join The Instant Publishing Revolution

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Web writing - make an ebook free, and then cash in

Saturday, March 31st, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

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Want to get known as a Web writer? The EASIEST form of self-promotion is to write an ebook - make it ten, 20 or 30 pages (only if you must, SHORTER is better on the Web) and then give it away.

“Free” as a form of self-promotion will never go out of style.

Here’s Seth Godin, marketer extraordinaire, on “You should write an ebook”:

Seven years ago, I wrote a book called Unleashing the Ideavirus. It’s about how ideas spread. In the book, I go on and on about how free ideas spread faster than expensive ones. That’s why radio is so important in making music sell.

Anyway, I brought it to my publisher and said, “I’d like you to publish this, but I want to give it away on the net.” They passed. They used to think I was crazy, but now they were sure of it. So I decided to just give it away. The first few days, the book was downloaded 3,000 times (note: forgive the layout. It’s not what I would do if I was doing it today). The next day, the number went up. And then up. Soon it was 100,000 and then a million.

What if a million people knew your name - and knew that you were a Web writer? Do you think you’d get lots of writing gigs?

Well, duh…