How To Research Content For Your Ebook … 10 Easy Ideas

 

Researching Content For Your Ebook? Decide Your Ebook’s Scope, Check Competitive Information, Create A Mindmap, Update Gaps, And Re-sequence For Ebook Flow

I remember reading once that the best way to collect and organize all the information you want to put into your ebook was to make several sticky notes on each point, clear the floor, sit in the middle and stick the notes all around you – and then try to group the notes into an order that “pleases the eye”.

Wow! If someone can do that, I’ll pay them 10 times over on the book price, just for the labor they put into it all.

Fortunately it’s all much simpler than that, thanks to one free tool and some planning. I don’t mean planning the contents of the ebook. Before that, you have to plan what you need to research and how much you need to research for the contents of the book.

On this post, we, at Solohacks Academy, have given you ten organizing ideas to get started with ebook content research. We have a simple method we follow, that works every time. You’d be surprised how well your ebook will flow with content value, if you just follow this process.

 

 

 

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1. Plan the topic of your ebook and its title to get clear on its deliverables

Have you already chosen a topic for your ebook? Have you chosen your ebook’s title? If you haven’t already done these two steps you might want to retrace back to our specific articles on these two subjects by clicking on the links.

Before you begin to research the contents of your ebook, you have to know what your ebook aims to deliver in value and information to your target audiences. That depends on what you are writing the ebook for.

Sometimes, your ebook may be aimed at helping solve your target audiences’ pain-problems or perplexities. Sometimes, your ebook may be an explainer of some new concepts in technology or trends that have hit the market, that your target audiences want to know more about. At other times your ebook may be aimed at an explanation of how to do some key tasks in a sequence of steps.

If you are ultra-clear about the aim your ebook hopes to serve, the title must reflect this aim. When you plan your research contents, you have to keep your ebook’s aim and title front and center and ruthlessly decide what content will be to the point and what content will be extraneous.

These are not the days when people love ebooks that go down unexpected or unwanted paths. This is an age of information overload. Neither do people pay more blindly for an ebook “with more pages.” They look to see if the contents will deliver all that’s useful and not waste their time on unwanted pfaff.

So, first of all, get very clear in your own head about what your ebook’s deliverables will be. If the title says “we have your problem solved” then the solutions will be the hero of your ebook. If it says “an explanation of the trends” then that explanation will become the hero. If it says “10 steps to achieve something”, you will make the ten steps the hero of the ebook.

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2. Decide the scope of your ebook – know what to include and where not to meander

There are some formulae that work very well to keep your ebook within its scope, and yet create an impression that you are delivering more than expected to help your reader. Let’s see what these are:

If you’re planning an ebook that promises to solve a customer pain-point or problem, here’s a formula that works every time:

1. Why do you have this problem?
2. What solution options do you have?
3. What can go wrong with the solution and how can you fix it?
4. What can you do to 10X your solution?

If you’re planning an ebook that promises an explanation of some new trends or technology, here’s a fail-safe formula:

1. What is the new trend or technology and what does it mean for your business?
2. In how many ways can you use the new trends or technology to your advantage?
3. What are the pros and cons and challenges of adopting the new technology?
4. How do your budget for its inclusion in your business? How do you monitor if it’s working for you?

If you’re planning an ebook that promises a sequence of steps to achieve some key tasks, here’s a surefire formula:

1. Say why the task is important to gain revenue or save money, and explain in what way
2. List the tasks one by one and explain the process to be followed in each step (with diagrams if needed)
3. Explain where shortcutting is possible, and where it is not advisable
4. Explain how the reader can create a habit or system out of the steps so they can be incorporated smoothly into his workflows.

Notice how we have very simply outlined just a four-step formula for each kind of ebook. The simpler this structure is, the easier to keep it in mind while researching for your ebook. Set some red lines for your ebook, and don’t meander out of those specific areas.

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3. Look up competitive ebooks, course curricula, and blog posts experts have covered

This is the step where most ebook content researchers get led astray. So do pay attention to the tenets of this section. When you see a lot of information on a topic (as you will when you research), you will tend to find every tidbit shiny and worth putting into your ebook. But the way to limit your temptations is to limit your sources of information to just a few of the top-grade ones.

When you need to size up the content for your ebook, here is what you should pile up on your platter (no matter what else there is on the buffet table):

1. Search Amazon for your topic, and pick up six to ten of the latest ebooks or printed books that are bang on your topic (or very close to it). Why should these be the latest books? Because the authors would have updated information – the information in these books will not be close to the expiry date. Pick the ebooks that are bestsellers. See the star ratings on Amazon to know if the reading public has rated these books highly. Read the reviews to see what people liked or disliked about each book. If it seems to be a great resource, pick it up and note down its Table Of Contents. If budget allows buy one or two of the really promising ebooks, or else stick with just the contents of each book.
2. Search Udemy for your topic keyword, and pick the highest rated six-to-ten courses that are bang on your topic (or very close to it). Again, see if the courses are highly rated by students, and note the reviews. If the courses sound like they have the info that could go into your ebook, note down the full curricula of each course. Udemy courses are inexpensive, so if you wish you can enroll for the best course you find, if only to see the flow of the topic that the instructor has used. Buying a course is not mandatory, though. You just need the curricula of all the courses.

Do a Google search of your topic keyword and look at the top ten ranked articles and blog posts that best match your content expectation for your new ebook. When searching Google you may find many dud articles mixed in with good articles. If, say, you’re looking for “steps for asthma relief with home remedies”, you can include articles with diet ideas or even fitness ideas, but avoid those “miracle cures” or radical solutions. Your intuition will tell you what your audience may like to see in your ebook, and what is too far-out. Note the subheadings (or key topic points) of each blog post or article.

Use a tool like Buzzsumo to type in your topic keyword. It will throw up a whole lot of articles on the topic that have scored on virality in the social media – the articles that have more retweets, likes, social shares, and so on. This will be very different from the results you got on a Google Search, because Google gives you what it thinks are the best articles, whereas Buzzsumo gives you the “people’s choice winners.” Again pick ten articles that seem to best match your topic and ebook’s proposed content, and note all the subheadings and topic highlights from these articles.

Finally visit Quora (the Q&A site), or use a tool like AnswerThePublic. Type in your topic keyword, and do a search for the most asked questions on your topic. Look for the most popularly asked questions based on the number of people searching for specific answers. Pick the top ten questions people ask on your topic from both sources (Quora and AnswerThePublic) so you’ll have about twenty questions with you.

Note: Don’t exceed the numbers I have given you: contents of top 6-10 Amazon books; curricula of top 6-10 Udemy courses; subheadings of top ten Google ranked best-match articles; subheadings of top ten best-match Buzzsumo articles; and top twenty public on-topic questions picked form Quora plus AnswerThe Public.

Don’t swamp yourself with more than this. This is not a request. It’s an order.

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4. Mindmap your topics – it’s the easiest way to store nuggets of researched content

You will be gathering a whole truckload of information nuggets as you research all of the sources I have suggested above. You will, no doubt, need a place to keep all the topic ideas you collect, to later sort them. A great tool to use at this stage would be a mindmap.

What are mindmaps and how are they to be used? According to SimpleMind, the tool I like to use, “A mind map is a tool for the brain that captures the thinking that goes on inside your head. Mind mapping helps you think, collect knowledge, remember, and create ideas. Most likely it will make you a better thinker.”

A mindmap looks somewhat like the diagram shown below.

Image courtesy: Iris

As you gather topic ideas, you branch out from the center of the topic into branches that seem logical. You put the ideas you keep collecting under any branch where they seems to fit. You also keep adding branches if new ideas you gather don’t fit under existing branches.

Don’t stop to sort it all out perfectly as you gather ideas together. Your goal should be to make your mindmap a kind of repository for all the topic ideas you collect, putting it all into some kind of quick-and-easy logic that feels temporarily right.

After you are through with gathering all the information you’d like to use in your ebook, we can then worry about sorting the mindmap. For now see that all the points you collect are give a home on the mindmap wherever you instinctively feel they best fit.

Tools like SimpleMind allow easy drag-and-drop manipulation of the mindmap, after you’re through with initial collection of information, so don’t get over-concerned about how you will do all the sorting.

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5. Do a rough outline for your ebook to see the gaps you need to fill

Once you’ve packed the mindmap with all the information you have collected, look at it critically, in the context of the formulae we had suggested in Point 2 of this article. See if the topic branches of the mindmap can be arranged to fit the formula you’re going to follow for your ebook. Let’s take an example:

Remember we had said if you’re planning an ebook that promises to solve a customer pain-point or problem, you can use this formula:

1. Why do you have this problem?
2. What solution options do you have?
3. What can go wrong with the solution and how can you fix it?
4. What can you do to 10X your solution?

Try rearranging the branches and topic of your mindmap into this formula. Put together all the branches of sub-topics that match “Why the problem occurs”. Then put together all the branches of sub-topics that match “solution options”. Then put together all the branches of sub-topics that match “potential problems with solutions suggested”. Finally, put together all the branches of sub-topics that match “how to 10x solution options”. You will have thus arranged the mindmap and its information to match your ebook’s formula.

Now check: have you got enough sub-topics on the mindmap to fill up your formula? Are there certain sub-topics where your collection of information is too choc-full? This may need pruning down. Are there certain sub-topics where your collection of information is too thin? This is where you need to fill the gaps with some more specific research.

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6. Plan your research process for the gaps – see what info-formats are lacking

When you identify areas of your mindmap where information is very minimal, you need to do a bit more of online research in those areas specifically. For example, let’s say, you are in the part of your formula where you are suggesting what can go wrong with the solutions you have given for people’s pain-points.

Maybe you have not spotted enough areas of challenge that people may face. You may, therefore, need to do a specific Google search on “challenges of ________(your solution idea)” … or “why your ________ (your solution area) may not work as it should”. You may have to do try out variations of Google search keywords to see which ones elicit the best responses to the information you are looking for.

When you look for such information to fill gaps in your mindmap, don’t restrict yourself to just text lookups. The information you need may be available in some research data, or charts or diagrams online. So be format agnostic.

If all else fails, send out a small survey to about 10-15 potential readers through a tool like SurveyMonkey asking them to state what they may find going wrong with your idea. State openly on the survey that you are looking to include their ideas in your book, and you are open to giving them credits for their answers.

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7. Resequence the mindmap topics – juggle around to see if information flows

Now that’s you’ve collected enough information to fill gaps in your mindmap, it’s time to resequence the mindmap topics – in other words, we have to see that the final ebook topics will flow meaningfully, from simple chapters suitable for beginners to more elaborate ideas suitable for advanced readers.

This doesn’t mean we abandon the formulae we have gone by so far, nor does it mean we drop any points or topics we’ve gathered with care so far. What we do is look within each section of the formula to see if the topics are correctly graded in order of easiest to more difficult. Let’s take an example of our format again:

Let’s say our problem-solution format ebook has these four broad parts we discussed before.

1. Why do you have this problem?
2. What solution options do you have?
3. What can go wrong with the solution and how can you fix it?
4. What can you do to 10X your solution?

Now take the first part of this formula and look at all the branches of your mindmap that deal with it. We’re aiming to discuss in the ebook why someone may have a pain-point-point or problem, and we’re aiming to list possible reasons. Look at their ordering of this list of reasons for the problem. Resequence the ordering of this list from the simplest reasons to the more elaborate or complex reasons.

Similarly look at the next broad section of the formula: here we are aiming to provide possible solutions for the problem. Obviously we may be planning to write about many different solutions and their implementations. Here again, order the sequence of your solutions from the ones suitable for beginners and slowly advance to the more complicated solutions that may suit more advanced readers.

Do this again for the remaining two sections of the formula – the part where you will be writing about what can go wrong with the solution, and the part where you will be offering some 10X solutions.

This whole resequencing exercise is important because, as you will eventually find, beginners tend to read the beginning parts of sections where they feel readier to ingest the information provided … but when the going gets a bit tougher than their experience will allow they tend to tune off.

On the contrary, experienced or advanced readers tend to do the opposite, They skim over the beginning parts of chapters till they get to the more complicated parts that they feel are the meat of the ebook.

Your ebook will thus cater to both segments of audiences if it always arrays any sections of information from the simplest and easiest ideas to the more difficult or complicated ones.

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8. Plan the format of your book as a contents page, to see sub-topics’ weightages

Is your mindmap now sequenced beautifully with a place for everything and everything in its place? Good. Because we are now going to output the mindmap as a hierarchical text list.

If you are using SimpleMind for your mindmapping, you can select Outline View to output your mindmap. It can output your list as a hierarchically arranged “Contents Page”.

We need that hierarchical list from our mindmap so we can adjust the relative weights we are going to give our chapter headings, sub-headings, cross-headings, and image captions. We need to standardize a format that readers will find immensely useful.

Most writers don’t know the differences between sub-headings and cross-headings because these are all jargon typically used by advertising copywriters and authors and editors. Whatever the names you give them, you should know how these stack up against each other in your ebook, so you can give them the right weightage.

Separating the text in your ebook with the right weightage given between any important separate topic-points in the book has two benefits:

1. It tells the reader the relative importance of the section he is going to read in the content of the whole ebook.
2. Separating out the sections with the right weightage of headings allows breathing space to the readers when we authors jump from one point to another.

Here is an image to show you how I delineate my different types of headings from each other and give them different weightages. It doesn’t matter what font you ultimately use. The idea here is to just decide how the hierarchy or relative importance of the headings of various types stack up against each other. The aim is to follow a standardized pattern throughout the book.

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9. Decide your supports and know when and how to use certain types of inclusions

There are many types of supports and inclusions you can use in your ebook to bring the content to life and to explain ideas better. Chief among the types of inclusions are: images, charts, diagrams, data or research points, quotes, case studies, or even CTAs (Call-To-Action).

Calls-To-Action are little areas of text and visuals that encourage people to take some interactive action after reading that part of the ebook. Maybe you could include a set of questions for them to try and answer, or you could include links to greater sources of knowledge like books or articles (some that you have written) which help elaborate your points. You could even lead people to buy related info-products you sell. The idea is to encourage “action-energy” in place of “just slouch and read” passivity.

At the stage of doing your research you don’t have to plan each of these inclusions in detail, but it would help to know if the points in your ebooks need some sort of supportive extras, and if so what could these ideal supports be. Once you know what kinds of supportive extras could help, you could research these separately, if you don’t already have them.

Here is my worksheet template where I plan my extras to include along with my written texts for my ebooks:

Two things to remember when you fill this worksheet:

1. You don’t need to have a supportive extra for everything you write, but use data, charts or quotes or diagrams where they are appropriate and add extra value to the text – or add some reinforcement. Put yourself in the shoes of a reader to see which type of inclusion may help better grasp of your text. If you are talking of how much a trend has changed, it may help to show a relative graph of “then and now”. If you are naming an object most people are not familiar with, it helps to show a picture. If you are aiming to show how easy it is to make money using an idea, it helps to use a case study. If you want to have an authoritarian voice strongly supporting your point consider using a powerful quote. Don’t include anything irrelevant, but do use what helps the reader appreciate your point better.
2. Always note down the chart, diagram, quotes, case studies, data, or whatever you are going to use, along with the credit information to give the sources. When you use the work of others to emphasize your own information, you must give due credit to them, preferably with links back to the sources or data. If in doubt about how to give credits, write to the authors of your inclusions and ask them how they would like to be credited.

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10. Review your content for “evergreen” value to ensure your ebook doesn’t get dated

You’d agree, a blog post is far easier to update with time-current content than an ebook will be. After all, if you’re selling the ebook on your own site or on Amazon, how often can you have a “new updated edition”? That’s why it’s always a good idea to stick with points that are “evergreen” – eternally valuable – than to fill your ebook with points that are likely to have an expiry date.

But what do you do when you absolutely need to state something of current value, and need people to know that these numbers or data are subject to change over the short term? Where possible, link to the source and say: “Please look up this source for the latest data, which may have changed since this ebook was written.” People will love this idea.

IF you are keen that your ebook, once written, should not require frequent updation, you have to consciously choose topics or points to make that will always stay true, no matter how trends and technologies may change.

For example, let’s say you want to make a point about “how to nurture customers”. You could relate the idea to the latest technique of nurturing that includes on-site live chats. If you think this is not just a fad, and it’s an idea that’s here to stay, you might like to include it among your points in the ebook. (You can add a caveat in the ebook saying “Let’s see if this idea lasts.”)

If, however, some things look like untested fads, steer clear of mentioning them. Some trends and technologies last, while others just appear and disappear like shooting stars in the sky. If in doubt, leave out. That’s a great principle for many things in life.

Only time can tell if certain fads or fashions have what it takes to become permanent in our lives – while others remain just flash-in-the-pan ideas. If you stick with time-tested ideas you won’t go far wrong. You’ll be on the right side of “evergreen content”.

But here’s another caveat: since everybody depends on evergreen ideas for their ebooks, you may sink into the morass of the commonplace, if you just sound like your stating known and hackneyed facts. So, to keep your ideas evergreen and yet unique, you must stick with time-tested ideas, but give them your own unique spin or insights.

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So What Are Your Thoughts? Do Share!

This post is incomplete without your input. The community of Knowledge Commerce solopreneurs would feel galvanized to hear from you … so do share your thoughts on this topic with us, in the comments field below this post.

 

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