How to Create and Sell Ebooks in WordPress: A Comprehensive Guide

Repurposing your WordPress blog posts into an ebook is a smart way to monetize your website and grow your email list.

With a lot of content readily available, creating an ebook can build credibility, offer exclusive membership content, or generate revenue for your blog. In fact, your most popular blog posts may already contain enough quality content to repurpose as a successful ebook, or you can write a new book one post at a time. Although writing a book can be difficult, using your WordPress blog as a starting point can make the process much easier.

Selecting Blog Content for Your Ebook

To begin with, you must determine which blog posts to incorporate in your ebook. If your blog focuses on a particular topic or niche, then you may only need to select your most popular blog posts, each of which will become a chapter in your ebook. However, if you intend to create multiple ebooks, you should choose blog posts that cover more specific topics, such as popular posts in a specific category. You can even consider future ebook ideas when planning your blog content.

Identifying Engaging Content for Your Ebook

To create an ebook that people will want to read, start by selecting your most engaging and popular blog posts. Using MonsterInsights, the best analytics plugin for WordPress, you can easily track user engagement and identify your most popular content. Once you have a list of your most popular posts, choose those that contain evergreen content and can be logically grouped as chapters to create a complete ebook.

Writing a Series of Blog Posts for Your Ebook

Another way to generate blog content for an ebook is to write a series of articles on a specific topic, which can then be compiled into an ebook. When writing about a complex topic, it’s usually best to break it up into smaller parts and create a series of posts. This strategy can help you develop more content for your ebook.

Quickly Updating Selected Posts for Your Ebook

After choosing the blog posts you want to include in your ebook, quickly update them to ensure that they are error-free and contain all necessary information. Check for spelling and grammar errors, review comments for areas that may require clarification or additional information, and make any necessary changes. Later in the ebook creation process, you’ll make additional edits that apply only to the ebook, not the blog posts.

Creating Professional Ebook Cover Art

Creating a well-designed ebook cover is an effective way to enhance the professional look of your ebook. It is important to have a clear and concise ebook title that grabs readers’ attention and conveys the book’s subject matter. Graphic designers can be hired via websites such as 99designs or Fiverr, or graphic design software or web services can be used. Canva is a free online graphic design tool that offers a range of templates for creating ebook cover art, and it is easy to use. The interface is drag-and-drop, and it allows you to edit the template items, add text, icons, shapes, patterns, and backgrounds. Once you have finished creating the cover art, you can save it to your computer in various file types, such as PDF, JPG, or PNG.

Method 1: Turning Blog Posts into an Ebook Using Google Docs (Free)

This method explains how to create an ebook from blog posts using Google Docs, which is a free and easy-to-use platform for editing and customization. To start, create a new Google Doc and give it a title that matches your ebook. Make sure to check the ‘Show Print Layout’ option under the View menu to preview how each page of your ebook will look.

Next, insert the cover art by either dragging and dropping it onto the first page or using the Insert » Image option from the menu. Add a page break to start a new page and type the title of your ebook, format it as a title using the Styles drop-down menu, and center it by selecting Format » Align & Indent » Center. Add the subtitle, author’s name, or blog name and format them accordingly, but avoid using a heading style.

Create another new page and type ‘Table of Contents’ as a heading using the Heading 1 style. Select Insert » Table of Contents from the menu and choose from a version with page numbers or hyperlinks. The table of contents will be updated as you add blog posts to your ebook.

Copy the content from each blog post to the Google Doc, making sure to insert a new page break for each chapter. Format the title of each post as Heading 2 to include them as chapters in your Table of Contents and document outline. Once all blog posts have been copied, work through the ebook content and make any necessary changes, such as tweaking chapter headings, removing call-to-action sections, and replacing references to ‘posts’ with ‘chapters’. Also, work on the transitions between chapters and add a stronger introduction and conclusion to the book if needed. The final product is a free and customizable ebook created using Google Docs.

Method 2: Converting Blog Posts to an Ebook using a Plugin An alternative way to create an ebook from blog posts is to use a plugin. MPL-Publisher is a user-friendly and comprehensive plugin for ebook creation, including cover design and the storage of multiple book settings. While the free version exports in EPUB and Microsoft Word formats, the premium version, which costs $49 per WordPress site, allows PDF exports.

After installing and activating the MPL-Publisher plugin, enter the license key sent to your email under MPL-Publisher » Publish eBook on the admin sidebar, then click on the ‘Premium’ tab.

To promote your ebook and increase its readership, consider giving it away for free to raise awareness, using it as a lead magnet to gather email subscribers, or selling it online to generate revenue.