On the road to a Content eBook
The journey to a fully fledged eBook has certainly been an interesting one.
I started off with the usual staring at a blank cursor for way too long before I went “old school” and sat on the couch with a favourite felt tip and an art diary to write down the tangle of thoughts in my head.
Post my little jotting session, the writing started pouring like vomit out of a toddler fresh off a rollercoaster. A much better sign, I can tell you.
I have also downloaded pretty much every single content eBook I could find. In truth, I also have a massive collection on all kinds of subjects. So much so I even categorise them now in folders based on whether they will be used again with clients, watched for updates or trashed.
In eBook land, everyone always talks about the same damn thing. There is more depth on some points and a few extra things you can glean but for the most part, the ones I have read all play in the same shallows.
The irony isn’t lost on me that one of those same damn things is finding “clean water”- the art of finding a space within a topic no one (or barely anyone) has discovered.
The importance of content has been covered…a lot.
Who should write content has been covered… a lot.
Have your own voice and be authentic in content has been reiterated…a lot.
Repurposing content and stretching it further has been stretched itself to the point of breaking.
And harvesting content ideas from customer emails and customer service anecdotal information, well, let’s just say if I read that chestnut one more time I think I will scream (yep, that much).
Which has lead me to a couple of decisions:
Instead of covering the ground everyone else has covered, I will be including links to other eBooks that are useful for this kind of advice. It’s important information, but seeing it’s covered by a lot of other eBooks, I don’t see much point in rewriting other people’s stuff when a link will do.
Most of the eBooks are designed for larger companies that are looking to turn their existing marketing departments into content producing machines. They talk about hiring journalists and uncovering the secret writer in the IT department. But startups, freelancers and small businesses simply don’t have that luxury.
The eBooks also don’t face the reality that ALL people (seasoned writer, marketer or not) have days where the very thought of gluing together a blog piece out of customer’s complaints is about as interesting as having a 4 hour teleconference about what soap to use in the bathroom. Or face that problem that even if you push yourself to write it, it won’t sound authentic.
So that’s what I will be focussing in on. Trying not to cover everyone else’s stuff yet still giving you access to it, writing from the perspective of not having dedicated headcount for content (or time and resources to burn,) and how to keep writing content even when you’d much rather be doing ANYTHING else.
Does that sound like what you need? It’s your eBook- you tell me.