7 Ways To Annoy Ebook Buyers

I buy ebooks. Lots of them. Mostly Internet Marketing-related material. From $17 to $97 - I’ve bought so many of them I don’t (and don’t want to) know how much I’ve spent on them.

While many ebooks in the Internet Marketing field are of good quality, there are lots that are not more than sorry excuses of an ebook. What otherwise would have been quality material suffers from the author’s apparent inability to adhere to even the most basic rules of writing.

I’ve identified 7 “sins” you can commit as an ebook author. Any single one of these will get me, and probably many others, pissed off and when you manage to commit more than one in a single ebook or report, you’re begging for a refund request.

The 7 Sins of Ebook Creation

1. Crappy layout

You don’t need to have a Mac or create your ebook with QuarkXpress. But producing a document that is easy to read on-screen, that doesn’t waste too much real estate and is easy to navigate shouldn’t be too difficult.

But what do I get, time and time again?

- Chapter headings starting in the middle of a page instead of on a page of their own
- Use of too many different fonts and font sizes
- Use of HUGE fonts and line height
- Awkward colors
- Textured backgrounds

It’s simple: black text on white background, 12 point font size (or maybe 14 for better readability on-screen), 1.5 line height, two different fonts for headings and body text max. That’s all there is too it.

Think “real book”.

Do real books look like DTP diarrhea?

2. No apparent structure whatsoever

Every now and then I read an ebook that sounds like the author just typed his thoughts into the computer the moment they came to him. The writing shows no logic or structure, the flow of words seems random at best.

If you’re going to publish anything in the written word, take the time to create some sort of structure before you start writing. Ask yourself what the whole point of your ebook or report is, why you are writing it and what it should convey to the reader.

Create a written structure before starting to write. It will help you sort your thoughts and identify any gaps you need to fill.

3. No table of contents

If your report is only 10 or 15 pages long you can do without a table of contents. In any other case please do yourself and your readers a favor and create a table of contents, preferrably with page numbers linked to the appropriate pages. Every half-decent word processor, like MS Word or OpenOffice.org Writer, will generate such a TOC automatically.

It’s really a matter of minutes. Write your ebook and, when you’re done, add a table of contents.

4. Hyperlinks don’t work

OK, I use a Mac. Sue me. By default my Mac opens a PDF with Preview, which is fine because loading Adobe Reader takes much longer and has no additional value. Apart from hyperlinks that work, that is.

For some reason some ebooks have hyperlinks that don’t work in Preview. They’re underlined and blue, but when you click them nothing happens. If the URL is spelled out, you can just copy and paste it into your browser. Not very comfortable, but it works. But if the URL is not in the link text you have no chance of identifying where the link should lead.

For me as a reader, that sucks. But it sucks for the author of the ebook, too. If the link is an affiliate link it will not be making him money because it’s not clickable.

So take care of your links, for your own good.

5. Pour gramar and speling

Nobody’s perfect and we all have our occasional typo (there are probably many of them in this article). But the difference between “their”, “they’re” and “there” should’nt quiz you too much, same goes for “its” and “it’s”, “here” and “hear” or “then” and “than”. There are many more of these that frequently get mixed up, and the fact that many authors repeat the same errors throughout their publications suggests that these are not the occasional bloopers everyone could be accused of.

If you’re unsure of your writing abilities, get a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. It explains all the intricacies of grammar, punctuation and spelling and it’s also fun to read. Your readers will thank you for doing so.

6. No page numbers

I’m sorry, but I’m one of those people who actually don’t like reading long texts sitting at a desk staring at a computer monitor. It doesn’t matter how big and bright the monitor is, if I want to read more than a couple of pages I print the stuff and read it from the comfort of my couch.

It seems many ebook authors think their readers will read a 50-page ebook sitting at their computers, where they would of course use a PDF viewer that displays the page numbers. So there’s no need for including them in the document itself, right?

Wrong. I bet many people print lengthy reports and ebooks and sit in their recliner or on their couch to read them. And for orientation, page numbers have proven to be a pretty neat feature.

As with a table of contents, this is very easy to do. Add a footer to your document and let your word processor automatically insert page numbers. Is that too much to ask?

7. Colorful header graphics on each page

While I like an ebook to be well layouted, putting a big fat color header image on every page is a waste of virtual real estate and a waste of toner or ink for those of us who print ebooks. If you absolutely cannot do without a header image, put ONE on the title page. But don’t repeat it on every page. That’s not branding, or whatever euphemism you might want to use, it’s just plain annoying.

Conclusion

If you value your audience (aka your customers), you should take the time to edit and layout your ebook or report properly. No matter what you’re selling your ebook for, your readers will welcome an ebook that is well layouted, carefully edited and doesn’t read like a teenager on weed is writing about how he discovered the latest and greatest secrets to making money online. Publish something that you can be proud of to put your name on, your readers will appreciate it and most likely buy the next ebook you publish without thinking twice.