Just kidding!

The truth is that all content will be a little of evergreen and a little of a timely context–but the ultimate makeup of your authority ebook content depends on the goal for your small business’s authority ebook promotion campaign.

Three quick questions to help you decide between primarily evergreen or primarily timely authority ebook content:

1. Can you (should you?) piggy back some other passive publicity pig within your industry / trade ?
2. Do you have a fantastic standby as part of your elevator pitch / elevator speech that prospective customers need to hear?
3. What is the intended length for your campaign–or at least the hard launch period?

Still not sure what your business’s promotional ebook’s content should look like? See previous upsell. It may be the way (with or without me)!

I stress having a solid competitive edge and USP which you should leverage into an authority ebook. These ebooks I help you write and which I ghostwrite for hire are promotional content, but they are based on more than marcomm Kool-Aid – they’re about real truth. Part of identifying your target market identification is finding just whose needs you’ve got to meet. And if you really meet them, you can tell the truth about why.

Beyond an authority ebook, beyond your elevator pitch and definitely whenever faced with the question of why someone should hire you, tell them the truth. A solid business and a solid entrepreneur can handle what that does for their business.

To successful brainstorm, you need two things.

1. Parameters.
2. A timer.

By parameters, I simply mean writing a quick sentence (a thesis if you’re inclined to call it that) that defines your project and what you’re needing to add pizazz to.

A simple online timer and countdown tool that I use everyday can be found here.

Brainstorming can help you with every aspect of writing an authority ebook (or collaborating with an ebook writer), such as:

• Deciding on an ebook idea
• Choosing a title
• Naming chapters
• Figuring out content strategies / methodologies / rhetorical strategies
• Creating exciting anecdotes and examples
• Choosing the perfect conclusion
• Getting the most attention-grabbing introduction

And so on. How does brainstorming keep your content high quality?

Some immediate results.

Lots of long-term results.

Before you curse my name, let me explain.

A small business owner with a solid competitive edge that is dynamically presented in an authority ebook that markets and networks well will get regular readers and steady referrals from the ebook. At the beginning there will be a few excited people that climb on board. With evergreen content, your ebook can continue for an unlimited amount of time to bring in new clients / new leads.

• When success for your business was the end you had in mind. Dynamite copywriter Angela Booth calls this kind of focus power blogging and I couldn’t agree more with her targeted approach to blogging. If you’re blogging you need to create a plan and stick to it. It seems like common sense, but many will miss this fact: It is a lot simpler and easier to get what you want when you’ve defined just what is that you want and how to get there!
• When you’re creating a place for your target market to be. Colleagues of mine, freelance writers, like to start writing blogs. Generally speaking, people looking to hire writers aren’t reading writing blogs. Are you making the mistake of talking about what you do but not creating a place for clients? A real estate agent doesn’t need to blog about managing a real estate office, they need to blog about house marketing dilemmas and how to solve them during economic slumps! Obviously, the potential client will find the content of the second blog–but they don’t need to know the content of the first one.
• When you are actually offering value. Be honest–is your blog all linkbait and never delivers content? Sure, you need to let readers of your blog know that you’re available for hire but that you also need to show that you’re a credible professional. A credible professional’s blog makes a habit of consistently revealing insider info and valuable insights and tips. Not just saying the same old bullshit again and again.

Still with me? Good, because that means you’ve got the foundation laid and you just need to tweak for success.

• Do you have metrics you monitor? Just like you track where you get clients, are you tracking where your readers come from? What they read? What they don’t? Get Google Analytics and Feedburner and you’re getting the usage statistics. Then, don’t be afraid to ask your readers in a non-intrusive way.
• Do you stay current? Are you touching on relevant topics, or are you the Windows 2000 of blogs within your niche / industry? You have to be important. For anything in the world there are a lot of options of what to read, so you need to be worth reading.
• Are you consistent and reliable? Do you post at about the same frequency and / or time? Or do you run off for weeks at a time and have blog comments (or dwindling subscriber numbers) questioning your return? Everything moves so quickly on the Internet and in business that readers want to count on when you’ll be there for them. Cheesy or not, consider your reaction if the posting schedule of your favorite blog changed with no notice.
• Do you interact? If you never answer comments on your blog, your head has become too big for blogging. While it make take some time and you may not be able to respond to everyone, commenting back and carrying on a conversation encourages readers to return and to refer your blog. Also, if reader input never influences what you blog, you still look like a jerk.

Building a blog that matters for your business is about relevance and relationships. Where does your blog stand?

1. Offer a dynamic free preview that makes readers absolutely salivate for the rest of the package. This could be a page, a chapter or a few chapters, depending on the size of your ebook and its price.
2. Create a free version and sell the premium version. This is like the first option, only you approach this differently. For starters, the premium version of your authority ebook probably has worksheets or value add-ins the free one doesn’t–or the free one doesn’t go into specific detail.
3. Create a sequel or a series. If you offer initial authority ebooks for free and the offer subsequent titles for sale, you’ll have a much greater chance of someone buying the ebook.

So, there you have it. Authority ebooks can be successfully sold–but that is only if you utilize the same principles of offering valuable content at no cost and building a platform. That whets the appetite of your future ebook buyers.

I completely agree. Strategy is queen. Having a plan is the “secret” to finding real results in any marketing strategy. As authority ebook distribution involves using social media, I’d like to bring you to a blog on my blogroll that provides a social media hierarchy. That blog post is a great read, but I’ll simplify your plan even more by outlining what a plan could look like.

Here’s a plan for success in seven steps you can complete, even if you haven’t even started your business yet.

1. You need to know someone will care about what you’re offering, so research your target market.
2. You need to know you’ve got the best to offer your identified target market, so research your competitors and fine-tooth comb your resume and portfolio and figure out a rock-solid marketable USP.
3. Define your USP in terms benefit-oriented to your target market for determing your marketing message.
4. Create a Web base to which you’ll direct your prospective clientele.
5. Reach out to your target market by starting to create presences in social media channels.
6. Grab readers to build a list by getting blog subscribers or offering a free ebook as an incentive and gathering emails.
7. Follow up with your list and close the deal.

In this blog post, Mattern touches on the two main things I tell blog readers and clients: you get more referrals and you have more credibility. She also mentions that you can charge higher rates because you can command value-based rates.

All very important things. I think what it all comes down to is this: why wouldn’t you want to be an authority?

Ultimately, there is always someone that knows more than you. People are not infinitely good at everything, but they can be finitely good at some things. Those are things clients and customers will hire you for.

You know what you’re best at, and to garner respect (and revenue) you want your target market to view you as an authority.

You want to hire people who are the best at what they do, so it isn’t any different for your prospective clientele.

On what topic(s) do you want to be seen as an authority? For me, I want to be seen as an entrepreneur authority, as an authority on writing ebooks (go figure, about an entrepreneur’s authority) and these are the things I focus on conveying to potential clients.