Let me tell you a story…

At the end of 2007 I gave away a free ebook to my customers over at IgniteLiving.com, another site of mine. At the time, the site was only a couple months old and had exactly 17 RSS subscribers.

My plan was to offer a great ebook that would attract some visitors and possibly some business. So, I wrote the book and designed the hell out of it. I gave it a slick cover, nice fonts and typography, a cool color scheme and made it available for free download.

When the post went live, a whole lot of nothing happened. Which is sort of what you’d expect of a site with 17 subscribers. But within a few days the ebook had been download dozens and dozens of times and my RSS subscriber count was going out the roof.

Even better, and far more important, were the comments and emails that started coming in. Relationships were blossoming all over the place, and before I knew it I’d made fast friends with quite a lot of people. And as will happen anywhere real relationships are born, a few of those connections were very valuable and are providing income to this very day.

All of that from one 30-page ebook that I published almost two years ago to a handful of people.

Of course, I designed it myself so it didn’t cost me a dime, but even if I’d paid $500 for it, it would have been well worth the price. (Oh, and don’t worry…$500 is NOT what I charge to design a 30-page book

Now, let’s ask the obvious question. Would all that profit have happened, would all those relationships have been made if my ebook had been some hideous beast? No way in the furthest reaches of the icy plains of Hell.

So, read this and remember it well:

Every single thing you produce right now, whether it’s an ebook or something else, free or not, IS a pre-launch to any future project you have.

The quality of what you do and produce right now is a barometer and compelling factor (good or bad) for anything you sell down the road.

So, yes, be productive and be proactive. Get your stuff out there, but make it good, because people DO judge books by their covers.

And if you need help making it good, contact me and I’ll certainly help you out. You will probably get famous and end up on TV.

Rich
6 July 2009 @ 10pm

I just got an ebook from someone for $47, and it looks ten times worse than your free one. That either says something great about your designs and care, or very little about the other guy.

Thanks for doing great work!

Rich

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david
9 July 2009 @ 5am

That is really an ineteresting way to compliment someone Rich.

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david
9 July 2009 @ 5am

I meant interesting. Sorry for the typo

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Anna
13 July 2009 @ 12pm

Your eBook is gorgeous. You are at the top of my list if I ever get around to creating my eBook(s) …

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Charlie
21 July 2009 @ 10am

Rich -

Um, thank you. I think.

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Charlie
21 July 2009 @ 10am

Anna -

Thank you! I really appreciate that.

Get your ebooks going, for sure. I’ve known for a long time that you have scads of talent, so get it all rolling. Your audience will be there.

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Anna
21 July 2009 @ 11am

Thank YOU! I needed to hear that this morning.

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Anna
21 July 2009 @ 11am

Well, “needed” is probably the wrong word. But it never hurts.

I wanted to write an eBook to teach people how to promote humanitarian causes online – a lot of people who are interested in this type of thing are beyond novices in the area. As in, “What’s Twitter? What’s a blog?”

But I was spinning too many plates … and realized I needed to finish some other things before I would be able to devote proper attention to it.

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