I created my first ebook two years ago. 

It was called Dream Morning, and it was about how to create the perfect morning routine so you can finally have time to successfully chase all of your *dreamy* dreams. 

This ebook changed my blogging business and it gave me the opportunity to earn a decent amount of income from my blog.

And I would wake up to emails like below (real screenshot from my inbox, no joke).

 

 

 

Why Create An Ebook?

Creating your first digital product is such an amazing way to uplevel and scale your blog and I highly recommend you do it. 

Creating an ebook using Canva is fairly easy and in this article, I’m going to show you exactly how to create your own ebook in Canva. 

From uncovering the idea for your ebook to writing it, to creating a stunning ebook cover in Canva and finally merging everything together into one beautiful and value-packed PDF that you can offer to your audience.

This is the exact process that I stuck to when creating my first ebook, Dream Morning. 

Let’s get this show on the road! 

 

 

Related Reads:

• How To Start A Blog: A Step By Step Tutorial
• How To Start An Anonymous Blog In Secret
• Why Blogging Is The Perfect Job For Introverts

 

 

How To Create Your First Ebook

Before you begin creating your first ebook, you need to make some decisions.

 

Step 1: Name + Focus

First things first, you need to determine what your ebook will be about and who it’s going to be for. 

Consider your blog’s niche.

Who are you blogging for and what problems are you solving for your audience already?

Perhaps you can spruce up a freebie (that is already converting) or turn a blog post you know is getting a good amount of traffic into the main idea of your ebook?

You just want to make sure that you’re writing an ebook based on a topic that your audience will be interested in – as in you already have some content proof in the books. 

You want to be really clear about the ONE problem you’ll be solving for your audience in your ebook.

What is your audience’s number one struggle?

And how will your ebook resolve this struggle for them?

 

For example:

• Do they struggle with healthy eating?
• Do they struggle with time management?
• Do they struggle with planning or organizing?
• Do they struggle with the fact that they can’t do something (f.ex knitting, gardening, cook, DIY crafts, etc.)

When you’ve nailed down the focus for your ebook, decide on a name and a headline.

The name doesn’t matter nearly as much as the headline.

The name can be literally anything, although, it would be nice if it is somewhat related to the overall theme of your ebook.

The headline of your ebook is key – it is where you’ll clearly explain how you will solve the problem.

 

My example: 

Name of ebook: Dream Morning

Headline: How to wake up feeling motivated, finally achieve your goals and live out your wildest dreams, one morning at a time.

The headline is the promise you will deliver on in the content of your ebook.

 

 

Step 2: Research + Brainstorm

Do a LOT of research on the topic of your ebook.

Google, Pinterest, and YouTube your way to amazing content that you can spruce up and take inspiration from (obvs, don’t copy).

The key is to get an idea of what is already out there and what is working.

Check to see if there are other products or ebooks on the topic (or close to) you’ll be writing about.

Buy these products and study them to spark ideas for your own book. 

The idea is obviously not to copy but to do some healthy market research and competitor analysis. 

You can also go to Amazon to get some ideas for high-ranking books and ebooks in your niche.

See what people are saying and asking in the comments section. 

Parallel to doing this extensive research, start brainstorming the chapters/sections of your ebook.

Write down any brilliant idea that you get whilst researching and gather everything in one document (I use Google Docs). 

 

 

Step 3: Outline Your Ebook

The next step is for you to outline your entire ebook.

I like to do this in Google Doc (or you can go with Word or your go-to writing software).

Get clear on the main takeaways and modules of your ebook and turn them into chapters. 

Create your table of contents and start adding to this outline from your brainstorming notes. 

 

An example:

Introduction

Chapter 1: XYZ

• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include

 

Chapter 2: XYZ

• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include

 

Chapter 3: XYZ

• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include
• Key bullet point that I must remember to include

… and so on. 

You can even flush out sentences at this point so you don’t forget when you’re ready to write your first draft. 

 

 

Step 4: Write The First Draft Of Your Ebook

The time has come to write the first draft of your new ebook.

This is the most time-consuming step of the ebook creation process. 

Fill out your outline and turn it into a first draft.

Don’t worry about it being perfect at this stage, just write.

You can always go back and edit your draft later. 

To take the pressure off, aim to write your first sh*tty draft (pardon my french).

The first draft isn’t supposed to be stunning and well written – this is why we have the next step, which is editing and proofreading.

Don’t edit and write at the same time.

Let there be spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, and red lines all over the page.

Put the perfectionist in you on the back burner during this step. 

 

 

Step 5: Edit + Proofread

I suggest leaving the first draft for a few days before you begin editing and proofreading.

Give yourself some time and space and take a breather from your work.

Then, dive right back in and read through your first draft.

Edit anything that needs editing.

Perfect anything that needs perfecting. 

If you have the money for it, you could even hire an editor to go through your first draft.

I didn’t do this, I certainly didn’t have the money when I first started, but it could be an idea to get someone else’s eyes on your work – someone with a fresh new perspective.

Otherwise, if you’re doing the editing yourself, I suggest reading it out loud, because sometimes we scan over mistakes in our minds when we’re just reading it on mute. 

 

 

Busy bee? Pin this article for later. 

 

 

Step 6:*Digital High Five*

I just want to take a moment and pop the virtual bubbly, do the happy dance, and give you a big digital high five.

You just completed the meat of your ebook.

You just wrote a book for crying out loud!

That is quite amazing! 

Take a minute to celebrate and be proud of yourself.

Now is when the fun begins, now is the time to create your ebook cover in Canva and make it beautiful-looking.

 

 

Step 7: Sign Up For Canva

Canva is completely free but you will need to sign up in order to start using it. 

Sign up using Facebook, Google, or create a new account.

Follow the prompts given to you by Canva and when you’re done creating your account, I’ll see you right back here. 

▶ Sign up for Canva for FREE here.

**Oh and by the way, this post is totally not sponsored by Canva. I just really love Canva. 

 

 

Step 8: Create The Ebook Cover

Once your ebook is ready to be loved on by your audience and published, it’s time to create a beautiful ebook cover in Canva.

 

Create your brand kit in Canva

Before you start creating your ebook cover, I highly recommend that you set up your brand kit in Canva – that way you’ll have your brand colors, fonts, and logos at hand when creating your ebook cover. 

This will save you so much time, dreamer! ✨

You want to make sure that your branding is cohesive with your website and everything else related to your blogging business.

In your Canva dashboard, click on Brandkit from the menu on the left. 

Then start adding your brand colors, logo, and fonts. 

An example of my work-in-progress brand kit below.

 

Create a new design

Go to your Canva dashboard and click on “Create a design” and then click on “US Letter Document” – this will be the perfect size for your ebook cover. And then begin designing your ebook cover. Canva also has stock photos that you can use – completely FREE which is super cool. 

 

Using a Canva template

You can either base your cover design off of Canva’s own templates or you can design your cover from scratch. 

If you’re using a template, you just want to make sure that you replace it with your own fonts, colors, and images that are relevant to your brand and make sense for your ebook. 

 

 

How Long Should An Ebook Be

There is no magic number, although I will say that length does imply strength.

But you don’t want to fill your ebook with fluff either.

As long as you focus on providing value to your audience and always keep the problem you’re solving in the back of your mind at all times – it really doesn’t matter how long the ebook is, how many pages, or how many words.

If the value is there and you’ve delivered on the promise in your headline, you’re golden. 

 

 

Merging The Ebook Cover + Content

When you’ve finalized both the ebook cover and content it’s time to merge it all together.

Save the final version of your ebook as a pdf and download the ebook cover in a pdf format from Canva. 

For this process, I use ILovePdf.

Click on “Merge PDFs” and upload your cover and final ebook draft.

Then hit “Download” and voila – you are done! ✨

 

 

Creating Freebies In Canva

You can also repeat this process to create your freebies (lead magnets, opt-ins – whatever you want to call them).

Let’s say you wanted to create a separate freebie for your ebook, you could create a light version using this exact step by step process for creating an ebook. 

Just a thought! 🙂 

 

 

Pricing Your Ebook

There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to pricing your ebook. 

Ultimately, you should go with what feels right in your gut. 

It all depends on the amount of value you provide in your ebook. 

And length does imply value. 

Do a little market research and see what other people are offering their ebooks for (preferably in the same niche as you), and take inspiration from them. 

For reference, the price point for my ebook, Dream Morning is $47.  

 

 

How To Sell & Promote Your Ebook

Announce it to your email list, your social media followers, and write blog posts that directly relate to the topic of your ebook.

For example: 

Let’s say your writing an ebook about morning routines (like I did), you might want to center your content around productivity and morning routines that will naturally lead your audience to want to learn more about the topic. 

Enter, your ebook. 

This is called writing sales-centered content. 

 

But where do I sell my ebook and how?

Leadpages is amazing for creating high converting sales pages and they even offer a check-out option so you can connect your Paypal or Stripe account to sell your ebook. I use Leadpages to sell my ebook, Dream Morning. 

Host your ebook on Amazon S3 (completely free) and deliver the ebook through an automated email via your email marketing provider (I use ConvertKit).

It’s super easy to set this up. 

▶ Here’s a tutorial on how you can connect Leadpages and ConvertKit for instance. 

 

 

Other Tips For When Creating An Ebook

• Set a deadline: Set a deadline for when you will have your outline finished, your first draft, and when you will launch your ebook to your audience. You don’t want to drag out the product creation process more than you need to. Schedule time to work on your ebook daily and set clear deadlines for each step. 
• Expect resistance: You’re not going to feel like working on your ebook every day. Writing a book is challenging. Sometimes the words will flow, and sometimes they won’t come at all. Expect resistance but commit to showing up anyway and do the work. 
• It’ll be so worth it: In the end, it’ll all be worth it, I promise. When you put your ebook out there and watch those first sales come in. Writing and selling your first ebook is such an exciting time! It’s definitely worth the hard work.

 

 

Before You Go

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial on how to create an ebook in Canva.

Let me know in the comments below what you’re ebook will be about.

I’m so excited for you to get started.

Selling digital products is such a great way to scale your blogging business. 

Creating your first ebook is such an accomplishment and you should be so proud!