eBooks
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Free eBooks remain a solid incentive for people to subscribe to email lists, click on ads and generally act on any number of offers made by marketers. eBooks are inexpensive to produce and distribute (which make them highly cost-effective for any business), and they represent a smart opportunity to re-purpose blog content.
Most blogs are simply chapters to an eBook that hasn’t yet been created.
When offered for sale through online stores like Amazon, eBooks also help build credibility and passive income—money received on a regular basis, requiring little to no effort to maintain it.
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Aside from design considerations, an eBook really relies on just one thing—the right message delivered through well-written content.
“Design is a part of the message; the message is not part of the design.”
—Flint McGlaughlin
I've written many eBooks in the health and nutrition space. Here are a few of them:
The Medium Is Not the Message
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Given the resurgent global sales of printed books and decline in sales of eBooks and eBook readers, traditional publishers and industry analysts point to physical books as the sales medium of choice going forward. Statistics also show a meteoric rise in digital audiobook sales, while some publishers contend that eBook sales have only cooled in North America but not in other countries.
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Whichever medium you choose, the medium will always have lesser importance and stand apart from the content value offered to readers and the quality of the writing by which that value is delivered.
The Complete Blood Pressure Solution
(23,373 words written in 10 days)
Ghostwritten as a sales incentive for the blood-pressure supplement StrictionBP, this 71-page eBook explores the causes and risks of hypertension, and the dangers connected to blood-pressure pharmaceuticals like ACE inhibitors and beta blockers. In-depth and filled with citations, The Complete Blood Pressure Solution includes a wealth of all-natural blood-pressure control alternatives to pharmaceuticals, including simple dietary and lifestyle changes, Apart from the dedication, I authored the entire eBook, and as a testimony to the thoroughness I put into research and writing, both Dr. Ben Yeboah and nutritionist Matt Burchell (who put their names on the book) signed off on the manuscript without requesting any editorial changes or noting one error in scientific or nutritional research.
Click to read the collateral LFSL == >
Reading a Food Label Made Easy
Designed to demystify shopping for good food at the grocery store, this companion eBook to The Complete Blood Pressure Solution examines the basics of reading a food label to confidently shop for foods that help maintain a healthy blood pressure and overall health. From how to interpret serving sizes to how those suggested servings translate in the real world, the eBook exposes code words for sugar and salt, and trick words and phrases (e.g. “made with real fruit,” “creamer”). Similar to The Complete Blood Pressure Solution, Dr. Ben Yeboah and nutritionist Matt Burchell thoroughly reviewed the manuscript before assigning their names to it, and indicated no errors in my scientific and nutritional research.
3 New Ways to Naturally Lower Blood Pressure
This standard-length incentive eBook for the blood-pressure supplement StrictionBP follows the enjoy-avoid-discover style that’s common to sales letters, inbound marketing blogs, videos and more. Opening with causes and risks of hypertension, the eBook moves to the enjoy tip (vitamin C and garlic) and the avoid tip (sugars and grains) before concluding with the simpler, unified solution (StrictionBP). Urgent in its tone, the eBook backs up claims and statements with third-party research and provides readers with citations so they can verify the research for themselves.
Hollywood's Top 5 Secrets to Reversing the Signs of Aging
Ghostwritten for a woman who only appears under the name Jennifer, this 32-page sales-incentive eBook for the BioDermRx line of skincare products is a traditional long-form sales letter. Walking readers through helpful but ultimately time-consuming steps to help naturally keep skin looking younger, the eBook then presents BioDermRx as the easier solution. While I have my reservations about the eBook’s tone and use of fear, I was grateful for the opportunity to learn a bit more about collagen and fibroblast cells.
55 Do-It-Yourself Beauty Secrets & Recipes
This eBbook came to me more as a copyediting request. Written by another writer as a sales incentive for a biotin supplement, the content for the 55 secrets and recipes was a fairly dry shopping list on information, and rather cumbersome to read in places. I was asked to make the eBook more engaging, so I re-worked it from the ground up. Starting with corrections to punctuation and grammar, I then smoothed out the overall copy flow and periodically injected a conversational tone to add accessibility and improve engagement.
Top 5 Fast-Blasting Fruits for FAST Weight Loss!
For a variety of reasons, companies often request manuscripts for eBooks that never get released, like this weight-loss eBook. Foregoing any product pitch in favor of straight-ahead information, this eBook serves people who don’t like vegetables by examining the proven ability of five fruits (apples, blueberries, bananas, grapefruit and avocados) to naturally aid in weight loss. Citing 58 scientific sources to back up all claims and statements, this eBook was intended as a true value-added sales incentive, and while I don’t know whether it was eventually re-titled and released, I kind of hope it was.
3 Easy Tricks to Control Blood Sugar Naturally Today
This sales-incentive eBook for the blood sugar control supplement StrictionD contains many elements used and taught by copywriter/marketing strategist Jon Benson (inventor of the video sales letter), including the avoid-enjoy-how-to formula, "the mechanism," and "the nightmare story." Ghostwritten for nutritionist Rob Walker, the eBook chronicles Walker’s battle with high blood sugar, his nightmare moment at realizing what lies ahead for him if he doesn't do something about it, and his discovery of “the blood-sugar switch” (the mechanism) that helps lower high blood sugar by up to 70 points and even helps type 2 diabetics get off insulin injections and risky, expensive drugs like Invokana, Actos and Metformin. The eBook then moves to the avoid tip (three common cooking oils), the enjoy tip (foods that readers may think are off limits) and the how-to tip (the call to action to buy StrictionD).
7 Secrets for Hot LifeLong Sex
Sometimes when a company launches a new product, a copywriter finds himself in the awkward position of having to write the last thing in the world that he ever expected to write, like this 45-page sales-incentive eBook for the male sexual health supplement EDGE: HPX. Despite its clickbait title and cover, the eBook examines true underlying causes of erectile dysfunction and leads readers through research-backed nutritional and lifestyle choices shown to help turn it around. As much as writers disavow themselves from works like these for fear of being stigmatized, I’m fine with owning this one. In addressing a problem about which men still feel embarrassed talking, this eBook speaks to solutions from a health perspective and does so with language that’s relatable and accessible.
How to Monitor Your Blood Pressure at Home
As the second companion eBook to The Complete Blood Pressure Solution, this short eight-page eBook is more like a handout. Opening by informing people why they should take their blood-pressure readings at home, the eBook instructs people about choosing the right monitor and cuff size, how and when to take blood-pressure readings, and how home blood-pressure readings are not a replacement for visiting a doctor or any healthcare practitioner. Ghostwritten for Dr. Ben Yeboah, the eBook took about a day to write.