Why YOU Should Write and Launch an eBook

Last week I attended the incredible SNAP blogging conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it was a total blast. Not only did I learn a ton of information and meet some really fun sponsors, but I also got to spend time with some of the most awesome bloggers on earth! It was so great to finally be able to chat in person with so many of the sweet ladies that I "hang out" with online for the rest of the year.

I also had the opportunity to speak at SNAP for the first time. Along with my amazing cohorts, Melissa from Silhouette School and Dawn from Dawn Nicole Designs, we put on our very bravest faces and talked to a room full of bloggers about one of our most favorite topics: how to write and launch an eBook. You guys, I was literally giddy. There's something about chatting about eBook writing that gets me super excited; I don't think I stopped smiling at all during our presentation!

Part of the reason I love the topic of eBooks so much is that I've seen what a difference they've made for this little blog of mine and for our family as well. So why have eBooks been such a game changer?

1. You can help your readers in a more in-depth way.

When you think about it, most readers come to your blog because they are looking for helpful information. They want to learn strategies that will help them solve a problem, make their lives easier, or leave them feeling inspired. Sometimes, though, there is a topic that can't be covered in just 10 bullet points or 1000 words, and for those topics, eBooks are the perfect solution.

With eBooks, you can help to meet a need for people in a more thorough way, giving readers a shortcut to an outcome within the chapters of your book, all wrapped up in one neat and tidy package. It's a great way to deliver valuable information to your readers in a convenient format, and ultimately your eBook will end up helping them more than a singular blog post ever could.

2. You can establish authority in your niche.

When Donnie first told me that he thought I should write an eBook about blogging, I shot down the idea immediately. My biggest argument against his proposal was that I didn't know enough about blogging-- there were SO many more people who knew more about it than I did. After a little while, though, he said to me, "Abby, you don't have to be the world's foremost expert on blogging to write about it. You just need to know more than some people."

And he was right.

Because I had just been through my first year of blogging and could still clearly remember the lessons I had learned and the struggles I had, I was in the perfect position to write to others who were looking to start or grow their blogs because I could relate to them so closely. I didn't have to be the world's foremost expert to write the eBook that would become Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook, but writing and launching it certainly helped me to establish expertise in the blogging niche and grow my blog and business at the same time.

3. You can create a passive income stream that keeps giving month after month.

As far as income goes, eBooks have been a total game changer for our family. When Donnie was laid off over a year ago and we both started blogging full time, eBooks were the thing that ensured our future and made sure we could continue to support our family through the blog.

This chart shows our blog income over the course of the past two years, with months that we've launched an eBook highlighted in pink. As you can see, each time we had an eBook launch, our income spiked, and when it went back down, it still stayed higher than it had been before the launch of the eBook. And when we piled up the income streams from eBook after eBook, it has created a healthy bottom line that just keeps growing and growing.

The best thing about this form of income is that it is incredibly passive. Once we have some key systems in place, we don't have to spend a lot of time doing hard sells-- the eBooks sell themselves! So when we're sleeping or on vacation or playing with our kids, we can be making sales without even having to be sitting at our laptops working, and that is a pretty amazing thing.

If you've ever thought about writing or launching an eBook, this is your time. There has never been a better time to put all of the excuses aside and go for it. Yes, the process may be a little intimidating, but the rewards are great. Take that next step-- your future self will thank you!