If you are wondering why your ebook isn’t selling, or how you could justify raising the price point, it might be that you need to increase the value of what you are offering. More value can lead to more sales, a higher price point, or both. And that means selling more ebooks.
And while turning an ebook into a full-fledged online course, by expanding what you teach and adding audio and video content, is one way to increase the value substantially, doing so is not exactly quick. Today we’ll look at 3 ways you can add more value with very little work, and it’s by turning your ebook into a digital toolkit.
(If you are already creating online courses, these value adding tips will work for you too.)
#1 – Split Out Templates From Your eBooks
It’s very common for authors to include templates for emails, contracts, phone scripts, etc, inside of ebooks. A template stuffed inside an ebook doesn’t get noticed by a potential buyer and so doesn’t add to the perceived value of the ebook.
But a template split out as it’s own thing? Preferably in a usable or copy and paste format? That’s immensely valuable! If you give me an email template, you just saved me the time it would take to key in the text, and the worry of any typographical errors. That’s value.
(By the way, this is one reason why my free download – 10 Ways to Build Your Business the Momstyle Way – also contains 2 templates. Another reason is that the templates make it a lot easier to do the work in the workbook.)
#2 – Add Templates for Complex Tasks to Your eBooks
The second thing we tend to do in ebooks is explain how to do something. We might write several pages describing how to plan out your monthly goals, manage coaching leads, or organize your meal plan, for example. If the task is complex, it might be difficult for your reader to visualize how it’s done.
A simpler way to explain things is to provide a template. Most likely, you have a version of your template already sitting somewhere on your computer. It’s the tool you use to manage your work against this task.
To create a template, remove any content specific to your task work, add annotations explaining key sections, and add your branding. You have a template!
In your ebook you can now explain how to use the template, which tends to be easier to write, and also makes the learning much more concrete for your reader.
#3 – Add Swipe Files or Native Format Files to Your eBooks
One thing I’ve learned in developing dozens of ebooks and online courses is that people really like to have a starting point. The blank screen can be a momentum killer. A starting point – any starting point – helps people get going.
As you consider what you are teaching someone about a topic, consider whether you can give them a starting point in the form of a swipe file. For example, in my work for business analysts, I have a product where I offer samples of all different kinds of visual models I’ve created as a business analyst, like workflow diagrams, data models, and even slide decks.
Your swipe file could be a filled in version of your template, for example a draft of a meal plan. Or it could be a file unique to a tool used by your customers, such as presets for Lightroom, visual models for Visio, or an ebook template in Word or Scrivener for authors.
Think about any tool you use, any digital file you create, and consider whether you could offer someone a native format file to use as a starting point. Again, these can be easy to create. Find a decent example, clean it up, remove any proprietary information, and save it in a usable format for your buyers.
When in Doubt, Break it Out
To sum up this post in one guideline, when in doubt, break it out. It’s relatively easy to expand the box of an ebook into a digital toolkit and create an immensely more valuable digital product.
At the same time, you open yourself up to increasing the price by a factor of anywhere from 3 to 10. Add enough, and a $20 ebook can become a $97 toolkit, and sell better too.
>>How to Learn More
In our Digital Product Workshop, I help you expand, extend, and refine your ideas and decide which one is the best possible starting point to build out your digital product catalog. The workshop is self-paced and available for immediate download.
Click here to learn more about the Digital Product Workshop