Steps to create and market an E-book?

You've got some good questions, all of which require longer answers. Personally, I like listening to James J. Jones to learn about ebooks and ebook publishing. I purchased a course from him a while back (can't remember its name) that taught many of the things you are asking about - such as how to do your research, how to increase your rankings on Kindle, etc.

First off, it sounds like you need to research the niche. My suggestion is to have a look on Google for info that is currently available. Before you even think about accessing keywords, just type in what YOU would type in if you had the problem and you were looking for a solution.

Have a look through the first 2 pages of results, what sort of info is there?

If there is a ton for free it might not be a good niche.

If there are not a lot of Adwords it might mean that no-one is paying to be there, so there might not be a niche where people will spend.

If you see a lot of ads and activity - take the keywords you had a look at and load it into Google Adwords.

In my opinion - make sure you have exact or phrases match on - and anything over 8,000-10,000 searches a month is good - the more targeted the better.

Then you need to work out how you can help the niche and the angle you are going to approach from.

You will need to actually research, how to pick a good niche, how to access competition, how to write an ebook and how to write a good sales page.

Good Luck!

Congratulations, you have just realized the mistake that 99% of ebook writers/marketers make and you did it just in time :-)

Let's try and knock these off one by one...

1. You don't just want your ebook to solve a common problem, you want your ebook or information product to provide a SOLUTION to the #1 desire in a given marketplace. That is THE difference between an ebook that sells a few copies each month and one that sells dozens (or more) copies each day. How do you find these red hot desires? I explain it to people using the concept of "opportunity triggers" - here are some steps to take...

- Go where your market is...online forums (pick the busiest forums and busiest threads), leading blogs in your industry (look for the ones that have lots of comments and participation), best selling books on Amazon (look at the problem they are tackling and also look at the comments people have left), social networks (use Twitter search, search Facebook, interest groups, Linkedin interest groups, etc...). Once you hang out in these areas (don't ignore offline seminars, classes, meetings, etc...too) - listen for the frustrations, desires, questions and opinions - if you pick the busy spots you will quickly figure out what the big desires are

- Don't edit your thinking...so many people we have helped over the last year actually knew exactly what the BIG idea was, but they had already figured they couldn't tackle it so they ignored it...don't edit while you are finding that big idea, how you tackle fulfilling that desire is another step entirely

- Look at what is already selling (books, ebooks, DVD's, membership sites, seminars, home study courses, workshops, etc...) and THEN dig in to find what is the desire these top products are addressing and why are their customers buying (get this and you have pure gold! )

2. Once you have discovered your big idea (or even if you have narrowed it to 2-3 and aren't sure which one is the BIG idea) and you see products selling in these areas, then you want to figure out your offering in that marketplace. Basically you want to create your own value proposition (your advantage which could be simplification, a different system, more detail, different format, etc...) after which you are ready to test your idea

3. Testing is what leads you to choose between multiple ideas, gives you the confidence in an idea you are not sure about, saves you a TON of time shooting blanks and can refine your ideas to make them even better. Testing can be done through various methods including using similar affiliate products, testing your own reports, putting up multiple landing pages, running "mini" ad campaigns and testing response, putting it in front of authorities in your market, running test campaigns, etc...Done correctly, this can happen within 1-2 weeks and can tell you a TON about your market potential.

4. When you have done all of this, the good part is that you have created as close to a "self selling" product as can be done...it's now all about execution. Another couple of pages could be written on this....for now I think you have enough homework :-)

Jeff

My head was ringing SEO, SEO, SEO! while reading.

I believe that the first thing you must do even before following the bright suggestions you had is to study internet marketing.

You don’t know many things. You don’t even know how to interpret Google’s keyword tool.

How can an ignorant person like you give lessons about internet marketing to the public?

Before trying to write whatever, you must have basic knowledge.

Writers who are paid to write articles or ebooks for others about topics they completely ignore, make a research. They read a lot, and they collect a lot of information about their topic before writing down whatever.

Without knowledge you cannot be an author.