Do people still read marketing ebooks? Does anyone care?
Curata graciously assembled a list of content marketing statistics, including these two on ebooks:
- 68 percent of B2B buyers rely on ebooks to guide purchase decisions
- 35 percent share ebooks with colleagues (the top result being blog posts, at 40 percent)
So I guess the answer is YES.
Yes, people still read marketing ebooks. Yes, they do care.
And despite the fact that my eyes glaze over when I open most ebooks, people still find them useful.
Or, shall I say, people still HOPE to find them useful.
*Warning: Read this before you hire me to write or rewrite your ebook!
That single word — HOPE — sums up my philosophy on ebooks (and on all content, really).
My philosophy is that, despite the crappy shape of many ebooks, people download them by the dozens because they HOPE.
They hope to get useful nuggets.
They hope to understand, in a deeper way, whatever topic the ebook covers.
They hope to be inspired, to be motivated, to see themselves reaching new heights.
And they hope to do so without having to trudge through walls of text, without having to struggle through bloated paragraphs thick with jargon, without having to feel the frustration of yet another ebook written without empathy for them in mind.
At least that’s how I hopefully approach each ebook I download–and I download a lot of them.
But, in most cases, my hope turns out to be empty. In most cases, I get ebooks that make me feel like this:
Can you relate?
If so, then allow me to restore your hope by introducing you to the most amazing ebook I’ve ever seen.
One day, while wallowing in this ebook sickness … this plague of poor content … I happened across an ebook so amazing, so astounding, that I determined right then and there never to create an ebook in “the old way” again.
Review it for yourself. At 48 pages, it “sounds” long, but I read through it in less than 10 minutes. And, more important, I understood and retained what I read.
Here it is; the ebook that changed my outlook on ebooks: The New B2B Marketing Manifesto by Velocity Partners.
What’s so amazing about it?
Here are just a few ways that this ebook pleases me.
And I haven’t even mentioned the writing itself. Don’t get me started!
Bottom line? The key to creating a good ebook is to take the time to do the work for your readers so that they don’t have to do it themselves.
- Break things up.
- Use smaller chunks of content.
- Make the pages look light and airy.
- Use appropriate imagery.
- Annotate graphics so readers quickly get the message.
- Use bullet points.
- Say YES to large headings.
- Say NO to $5 words and jargon.
Yes, your readers are smart. They can figure out what you’re saying–if they try. And therein lies the kicker–if they try. Your readers are not only smart. They’re busy. Super busy. And if given a choice between reading an ebook that looks like this:
Or like this:
Which would you choose?
Now, if you hire me to edit or rewrite your ebook for you, you know what I’ll choose!
If you're thinking about doing that, you may also want to:
- Read more about my research and writing process.
- Check out a few of my ebook writing samples.
- Explore my ebook packages, which offer flat fees for common types of ebook projects.
- Send a message to schedule a call or ask questions.
- Or, click the button below to tell me more about your project and request a quote.
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