Monday, November 26, 2012

How to Outline an eBook


If you can learn how to outline an eBook, then the writing will be easy. Why? Because you'll know before you even get started where your ideas will be going. You'll simply be able to string your sentences together, and before you know it, you'll be done. Ready?

What is an outline? It is nothing more than a sketch or a framework on which you can hang your ideas.

You've decided to write an eBook. You know what your primary message is. Now you need to break it up into digestible parts. Within each of those parts, what we call chapters, will be another main idea that is made up of a lot of smaller ideas. All you need to do is to put those smaller ideas into a logical order for each chapter.

Let me try to give you a mental picture of what this will look like. Imagine that you're looking at the final outcome of a tennis tournament. The winner's name is on the far right of the screen.

Just to the left of that is the name of the two finalists. To the left of them is two pairs of semifinalists; and to the left of them is four pairs of quarter-finalists. And so it goes on until all of the entrants have been accounted for.

When we apply this example to outlining an eBook, then what we get is several small ideas that contribute to a larger one, and several larger ideas that eventually contribute to the main one that you want your readers to grasp.

You could do the same thing by creating a kind of hierarchy on paper, much the way that a genealogical chart is constructed. Put the main topic at the top. Then list the chapter headings underneath, and then under each of those list the smaller sub-topics that you want to cover.

Some people can write an eBook with the barest of outlines. Others need to have more detail. You can continue to add as many sub-topics as you think you need so that you don't leave out anything that you think is important.

You'll get a feel for how much you need to put into your outline before you start to do any of the actual writing.

Remember, the goal is not to create an eBook with the least number of subtopics. Instead, it is to create an outline that will enable you to write your eBook as quickly as possible.

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