I am currently in the process of getting my first eBook – 15 Minute Power Plays With Your Kids: How To Be A Better Parent In 15 Minutes A Day – ready to launch on Amazon Kindle.
As I’ve been learning about the process of launching eBooks on Amazon, it’s re-kindled (haha) an idea I’ve had for some time about creating a series of eBooks for the CFS /ME / FM and Spoonie communities.
My idea is actually to find lots of great blog posts written by people with CFS / ME / FM and other Spoonies and compile them into eBooks on various topics.
I just think there is so much great content out there that is getting missed because it’s not easy to search for and doesn’t happen to be on the first page of ‘Google’.
This content is what I want to find and ‘bring to the masses’, so that it makes the difference to other spoonies (aka people with chronic illness and pain) that most of the bloggers who have written these posts would love to make.
I mean, we use our precious energy to write these deeply personal, extremely informative blog posts, but because we don’t have a great marketing machine behind us, only a small percentage of our target audience get to benefit from them.
That’s what I want to rectify!
My Idea
So my idea is this:
Find lots of great blog posts on specific topics (I have many topics in mind) and make them into eBooks under the banner of something like “The CFS / ME Warrior’s Guide To ….” or “The Spoonie Warrior’s Guide To …”.
The over-arching theme names are something I’d like feedback on actually.
But I don’t want to wait any longer to start these eBooks – or at least sourcing the great blog posts that will go in them – so here’s my plan.
I’ll start with about 5 initial topics I think are fairly commonly written about, and that Spoonies worldwide would benefit from reading (ie. they’re probably already looking for info on these topics as we speak).
I plan to do a series specifically for the CFS / ME / FM community – because that’s my specialty and I know the most about these illnesses (or illness, depending on your perspective) – and also a series for Spoonies in general.
Some of the blog posts could and may well end up in both series, depending on their quality and relevance.
I Need Your Help
I have my ideas of what topics would be good to start with, but I’d like your feedback on them. I’m thinking of starting with:
The CFS / ME / FM Warrior’s Guide To:
Acceptance
Dealing With Your Initial Diagnosis
Stigma/Not Being Believed
Managing Day To Day Existence
Managing Mental Health
Living With An Invisible Illness
Parenting
Relationships
Dealing With Family & Friends
Dealing With Big Occasions
(obviously I can also do The Spoonie Warrior’s Guide To all these topics too. They would just involve a wider spread of bloggers with many different illnesses).
Can you see any topics that are really common that I have missed? Once I got started, I went way over 5!! 🙂
I know that dealing with the medical community could be one, but I’m hesitant about tackling that one as it’s such an emotional topic, and my aim would be to find balanced, well-written blogs.
This may be a Utopian ideal in the case of some of these topics, but I want to create books that will be valuable to people newly diagnosed with chronic illness, rather than weigh them down with our sometimes angry, jaded, cynical views of certain topics. Do you know what I mean?
How You Can Help
Anyway, I’d like your help with 3 things.
1. The names of the series. Do you like The CFS /ME / FM Warrior’s Guide idea and The Spoonie Warrior’s Guide To … idea or have you got other suggestions?
2. For my first 5 or so topics, do you have any other suggestions?
3. Most importantly, I need your nominations for great blog posts on these topics – whether they be your own blog posts or other people’s (it’s fine to nominate yourself! I will be 🙂
The Overall Way It Will Work
Basically, I intend to:
1. Find the best articles/blog posts on these topics
2. Get permission from the blogger to use them in exchange for giving them full credits in the eBooks, links back to their blogs and links to any products they may have.
3. Compile the eBooks, get them designed professionally, converted into mobi and ePub format and sell them on Amazon and other eBook platforms for around $2.99-$4.99 depending on the size.
4. Give 20% of any profit to a pool of CFS / ME / FM and Spoonie charities (I’ll be calling for nominations for these further down the track).
Yes, I plan to make a profit out of these books myself as I will be putting a lot of time and energy (and money) into compiling them.
I considered whether I could split the proceeds between all the bloggers, but I really don’t think that would be viable.
I think it would make more sense to give bloggers the publicity (and drive traffic to their site), the ability to legitimately say their blogs are in a book, and also give a percentage of the profits to charity.
As I’m trying to create a living for myself out of my online endeavours, and I’ve taken an extension on my home loan to attempt to achieve my financial independence, I need to make it worth all my time, energy and finances to compile the books.
I really hope people understand this.
I no longer want to be at the mercy of the (albeit very generous) government for my income. So this is just one of my many ideas of how to earn an income, while also making the difference I want to make in the Spoonie community.
It’ll Take Time
Collecting and compiling the blog posts, and creating the eBooks will take time.
Plus then there’s the marketing aspect, which I’m hoping to learn a lot about in the coming weeks with my 15 Minute Power Plays With Your Kids eBook so that it doesn’t take so much time and effort next time around.
So this is just the first call-out to all you CFS / ME / FM / Spoonie Warriors to nominate great blog posts in the given categories – or in other categories (if we get enough we can compile a few surprise books!).
As I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while I’ve collected a number of blog posts on various topics, but I haven’t got around to doing anything with them yet.
Despite having a lot on my plate, I really wanted to get the ball rolling on this on-going project.
I’d love to one day have a huge number of CFS / ME / FM / Spoonie Warrior Guides out there – a bit like the “… For Dummies” books.
So let me know your ideas and suggestions for great blog posts – and pass this message on to other friends in the Spoonie community.
If I haven’t been clear enough, send me questions at Louise@GetUpAndGoGuru.com or on Twitter or Facebook.
Looking forward to hearing your feedback guys
Keep Smiling
Louise
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stahsha says
Wow, such a great idea Louise!! I’d say a topic I for one would love to both read and share about is what supplements or meds or therapies have been personally very helpful for folks, in managing their CFS.
One on sleep…
One on exercise…
One on work and CFS…
Such a great idea! Contact me if you’d like to talk further!
Best Wishes,
Stahsha
Louise Bibby says
Great to hear your positive feedback Stahsha. I’ve actually started collecting blog posts on a couple of those themes – exercise, work & CFS – but adding sleep as well sounds like a good idea. There are so many topics!
Re doing a compilation of what supplements, meds, therapies that have personally worked for people – I hadn’t planned to go down the treatment track with this eBook series, but thinking about it now, if they were just blog posts from people saying what helped them, it’s not getting into the realm of “prescribing” or saying “this is the cure”. It’s just a list of people’s experiences. I think we could do that.
I’ll be in touch. I’m starting to really focus on a few topics and get them into the eBook format and launched on Amazon. Just need to get some more submissions and find the time to do everything I want to do 🙂
Thanks so much for your contribution & I look forward to talking further with you
Keep Smiling
Louise