Writing an Ebook - DIY or Outsource?

You should always experience what you can of the work you're going to ask someone else to do. If you don't try to make the hamburger yourself, how are you going to tell the freelancer or employee what you expect? You don't have to be perfect, but having the experience of trying makes understanding what you are asking clearer, and it helps you to better determine if you're asking an unreasonable amount of work for the compensation you're offering.

Practice makes many things easier, but you can practice forever and never become as good as you need to be. Sometimes something just won't 'click' and as a result, you never really become as good as you need to be. In such cases, it's better to have tried repeatedly and then outsource than to outsource from the start.

Knowing what you're asking someone to do, makes it a lot easier to judge what having someone else do the work for you is worth. If you want someone to do an ebook for you that you've already poured over for 80 hours without success, you probably aren't looking to ask someone to do it for $15.

But also, the work you did, could be useful for the person you hire, because you've done this work, and tried to achieve that result, and so you can use this in showing the ideas you were working toward, and probably have research done that will reduce the work of the freelancer, thus reducing the level of demand you place on them (and possibly affecting their charges)

While outsourcing can be the final answer, making the attempt yourself (at least the first few times on a particular type of work) makes for far better comprehension of the problems you encountered, and thus some of the things you want the freelancer to deal with.

It makes for better communications, and better communication at the outset makes for clearer understanding and fewer disputes later.