Ebook non-fiction: 3 rules to hook readers (and keep them coming back).

Ever felt like you couldn’t compete?

Want to know how your books can rise to the top?

Head over to Amazon and you’ll find a virtual deluge of nonfiction kids’ ebooks, and they’re not going away anytime soon.  Most are awful, a relic of the Kindle “gold rush.”  They repurpose free information, slap on free pictures, and charge anywhere between $.99 and $3.99 to call it a “book.”

I’ve recently converted a couple of the projects I created as a homeschooler into nonfiction ebooks, and discovered along the way that I really love writing kids’ nonfiction.  It’s even a little addictive once you get started.  I love creating books that teach kids about the world – in a fun way, so that ideally, they won’t realize they’re learning a thing.

So how do you do that in a way that doesn’t turn them off?  Or even do it in a way that keeps them coming back for more?  Don’t worry, it’s not as tough as it sounds (unlike getting them to line up for a second helping of green beans).

Staying afloat

Sure, it’s tough to stay above the tide.  It’s easy to despair when you see the numbers:  There is just so much out there, and more every day.

But I do believe that quality will rise to the top… or at least, some elusive mix of quality plus quantity.  If you publish a single Kindle ebook, it may not succeed, no matter how great it is.  But if you publish a whole series of them, and you acquire a loyal audience who enjoys reading them… then, I believe you will.

So how do you pick up that loyal following?

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Idea theft: how safe is your story?

“That’s MINE!”

You can hear the cry in probably every kindergarten in the world… and perhaps every gathering of writers, as well.

Oh, we don’t shout it out loud.  But we THINK it, huddling protectively over our story ideas as though someone was going to steal them if we let them out of our sight for a second.

Well, I hate to break it to you:  you can’t copyright an idea.  You also can’t copyright your book’s title.  The only thing that’s protected by copyright is the story you write – the whole exact story.  (Here’s more on copyright and book titles, if you’re interested.)

But the happy flipside of that is that theft is really rare in the world of children’s writers.  So you can comfortably chat about your story ideas, your titles, or anything else.  Your ideas won’t be stolen, for instance, if you …

• workshop them in a class or course
• submit them to a mainstream publishing company
• talk about them at a party
• work on them on a laptop over a public network, like a coffee shop

Most writers actually have one of two main concerns when it comes to story theft: 

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Five facts about copyright that won’t bore you to tears.

My father used to teach real estate and his students once gave him a sweatshirt that said, “Not a lawyer,” because he used the phrase so often in class.

I’m not a lawyer either, so I won’t bore you, darling reader, by pretending I have deep expert knowledge.  But I believe all writers MUST know how copyright affects them – whether they care or not.

Here’s the classic newbie question:  “I just finished writing my first children’s book, and I’m wondering about the Copyrighting process.  Is it really necessary to do it at all?”

DO you need to copyright your book? 

Good news!  If you’ve written a book in one of 162 Berne Convention countries worldwide, you’ve already “copyrighted” it – it’s automatic.  (If you’re not living in one of them, maybe you should move...)

Once you've written something, you own it. Nobody else can use it or take it away.  This copyright protection is almost universal.  Trouble is, if there's ever a problem, you've got to prove that you're the person who originated the content. There are various ways of doing this.

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