As a writer or content marketer, you will likely be concerned with creating content that is evergreen. Naturally, the majority of what makes content evergreen is the content itself, but don’t discount the importance of the content’s format. If you have a really solid blog post, use that post as an anchor for other offshoot pieces of content in different formats.
There are a number of different ways that you can repurpose your content. This post will go over how to repurpose your content into an ebook. Ebooks are an intuitive next step for repurposing your content. They offer readers something they can save to their devices and refer to again and again. They also present a great opportunity for you to offer users something in exchange for email subscriptions.
You don’t have to be a designer to make a beautiful and easy to read ebook. All it takes is some careful planning and the right tools.
1. Decide what your ebook will be.
What I mean by this is decide: do you want your ebook to simply be a reformatting of the same content in your original blog post? Or do you want it to be an expansion of the information?
Both are valid, but the first approach will certainly take less time. You can simply copy the content into an ebook template.
The second approach is effective if you want your content to be double-pronged. You will have to write more content for the ebook, but it can entice readers to download your ebook (and give you their email). You can put only the key takeaways in the blog post and offer the ebook for download with the full information. This approach is good for publishing studies and reports.
There is no one correct ebook length–it could be as short as ten pages or as long as fifty pages. Because there is no hard guideline for how long it needs to be, your focus should instead be on saying everything that needs to be said as concisely and cogently as possible.
2. Choose an ebook program.
There are a number of sites where you can download and easily create ebook templates, such as HubSpot or Venngage. You could also make it in Word, though word is a bit more awkward to use for design.
3. Pick or create an ebook template.
There are a couple of things to consider when picking a template.
Whether or not you should make your ebook portrait or landscape depends on the kind of content. Generally, portrait is an intuitive layout for an adaptation of a blog post and it’s easy to read on mobile.
On the other hand, if your ebook is a collection of quotes or a list of tips, both cases where you are likely to have an image or chart to accompany each point, landscape is an effective way to organize both on the page.
You will want to customize the template to include your own branding, including your logo and color scheme. Standard design principles apply when choosing or creating an ebook template. As a general rule, a simple design with a neutral and light background with a maximum of three accent colors is best. Don’t overburden your pages with text–break them up so that they’re easier to read. Be sure to include a table of contents if your ebook is over roughly 20 pages long. Take your audience into consideration when picking a color scheme, font styles and types of images you use.
4. Make your ebook interactive.
The great thing about ebooks are that they’re electronic! Meaning you should definitely include links to further content. You can link back to the original blog post as well as other pages on your site, and any other helpful resources readers would benefit from. This will encourage people to return to your site.
If your ebook is particularly long (say 30+ pages), a nice extra touch is to make your table of contents interactive. You can do this in both Word and PDF.
5. Read your ebook over.
This seems obvious, but from personal experience, it’s amazing how information and images can become scrambled in the transition from post to ebook. When my team was performing final edits on our ebook 46 Expert Tips For Creating Addictive Content, we were amazed at the number of photos and quotes that were mysteriously shuffled around in the process. Always take human error into account.
6. Save your ebook as a PDF.
PDFs are universally recognized by Macs, PCs and ebook readers.
There are a couple of ways you can convert your files to PDF. If you are using Word to design your ebook, simply save the file as a PDF. But if you’re using a different tool where each page is saved as a separate image, you will have to save them all together as one file. You can do this easily in Adobe Acrobat.
As a rule, try to keep your file below 1MB. If the file is too big, it will slow down people’s devices and annoy them, which is the opposite of what you want your ebook to do!
7. Release your ebook simultaneously with your post.
As I mentioned the first point, you’re missing an opportunity for a solid CTA if you don’t include the download link to your ebook when you publish your blog post. Place it high enough in the post so that readers see it and will be enticed to download it even if they don’t read through the entire post–right under the introduction is ideal.