How Do I Create an Ebook From My Blog Posts?

Anthologize for WordPress

One of the methods often suggested for repurposing your content is to create an ebook from your best blog content. But how exactly do you do that?

An ebook from blog posts may be for selling or for giving away as an “ethical bribe” to your new subscribers. The ebook may be something that you just share with your readers or your other social media friends (and potential customers) to demonstrate your expertise in a certain area.

Whatever you decide to do with it, Anthologize makes it easier to create the outline of your ebook  and it’s created faster from your existing blog posts.

How do I use Anthologize?

Step one – install Anthologize in your plugin section. Make sure you do not have any similar plugins (unlikely, but check anyway) or your plugins will go nuts.

Step two – locate Anthologize in your sidebar, and then click the tab so the drop down menu appears

Step Three – create a new project. Click the link that says add new project and then complete the details

When you have done that, click save project. This will now show you the screen of where all your projects are stored-

If you hover just under the title of your project you will see additional options.

1 – Project details
2 – Manage parts
3 – Delete project

Click the manage parts option.

Step four – Add a part

The next screen will ask you to add a name for your part and then you can click save. When this is done you will return to the main screen but your “part” will be showing on your dashboard.

Step 6 – Drag and drop your blog posts into the part

Step 7 - When you have ordered your blog posts and selected the ones you wish to include in your ebook, the next step is to “proof” it by hitting the “preview project” link.

Your screen will now open a new window showing you what your ebook will look like – this is for proofing purposes.

To see what the ebook really looks like you will need to export your project.

Step 8 – Exporting your project

Then onto your dedications and acknowledgements:

When you hit export you download your ebook in your chosen format :) as you can see you can even export in the epub format.

You can see what the example looks like here demo_of_anthologize (please note the content is from one of my sandpit sites and used for demo purposes only).

From start to finish the whole process took 20 minutes but you are not finished yet. When you have the exported document you will need to expand on the content and see that it flows. You may need to remove references to things like “blog posts” or other phrases that won’t make sense to your reader. A light editing job, adjusting the formatting and adding a few more images will make your ebook from blog posts something pretty special, very quickly.

You can do a lot with Anthologize – it’s a terrific tool

You can import content, you can sort posts by author (fab for multi author blogs) you can even sort the posts by topics. More importantly you have no excuse not to get the majority of your content ready for creating an ebook or industry reports.

How do you create ebooks from blog posts?


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About Sarah Arrow

Sarah Arrow is the managing editor of internationally renowned Birds on the Blog, listed by Forbes (3 times) as one the top websites for women in the world. In her day job she blogs about very unsexy transportation issues in her role as communications director of a same day courier company and social media marketing. Her goal is to get on the AdAge blog list. Her first love was Twitter, it's now G+. Shhhh! Don't tell Twitter she's left...

  • SuzeStMaurWrites

    Great article Sarah!
     
    I have done a few eBooks of my blog posts by myself but – probably because I’m picky and pedantic – I like to smooth over the joins between the posts and make small adjustments here and there. So normally I work them up as Word documents and then convert to PDF or Kindle. I always write everything initially as a Word document anyway, and then upload it to whichever blog in question, so it’s easy to run my original Word posts together in a new Word docco.
     
    That wouldn’t be so easy for someone who writes directly into their WordPress or other blog, though, and I can see Anthologize being extremely useful for them. And I might just give it a try, too…

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @SuzeStMaurWrites I prefer directly to blog in WordPress. I know I’m a minority but to do it any other way makes it seem like work :)
      Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

      • SuzeStMaurWrites

         @SarahArrow LOL! I don’t think you’re in the minority, Sarah, although I don’t know and would be interested to know what others do. I admit that the way I upload Word doccos into the WordPress systems is a bit long-winded, but then so am I …!!

        • Janey

           @SuzeStMaurWrites  @SarahArrow
           I write blogs straight into WordPress too, so this particular gizmo would save me a lot of time – thanks Sarah!

        • http://www.sendaflowercard.com/ Anita Hunt

           @Janey  @SarahArrow Hi, some of my blogs I write directly into wordpress, a couple of others I don’t ….now figuring out why I do this, is my next challenge LOLBut this tool is great- very useful. Will add to my list for when I get around to making an Ebook :)

        • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

           @Anita Hunt  @Janey glad to see I am not the only one :)

        • http://jackiewalker.me/ Jackie Walker

           @SarahArrow far from it, I only write direct into wordpress, I keep meaning to change so I can access my work more easily, but this looks like the very thing!

    • http://pharmastrategyblog.com/ MaverickNY

       @SuzeStMaurWrites I know what you mean, Suze, I write all my posts in text editors like Byword or Elements and import some into Scrivener for reports.  Same concept, different execution.I do like the look of this tool though, am wondering if it will import posts that have been Storified easily?

      • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

         @MaverickNY  @SuzeStMaurWrites you do use the Word button to add your text into a post don’t you? It strips out all the icky code etc and isn’t that much hard work to do, it’s the click of a button

        • SuzeStMaurWrites

           @SarahArrow  @MaverickNY Yes, I certainly do use the Word button, unless it’s just a line or two of very simple text. You just have to correct the line spacing afterwards but that only takes a minute.

    • anthologize

       @SuzeStMaurWrites Anthologize actually anticipated the need to smooth over joins between posts. When you add a post to an Anthologize project, the entire post is duplicated into the project. That way you can edit the item in the project to tailor to the output, without affecting the text of the original post at all.

  • lindaw

    Hi Sarah!
    Excellent guide and impeccable timing! I’ve just talked myself into turning some of my posts into an e-book and was wondering how to go about it. Thanks for the helping hand :)

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @lindaw You’re welcome, and I hope the process goes smoothly for you :)

  • http://www.ipnostudio.com/ Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly

    Excellent article Sarah, something that in the (near?) future will be very helpful for me. ;)
     
    Have a great evening!

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly let us know how you get on with it Andrea :)

  • http://primefit.org/ Mary C. Weaver, CSCS

    I love this! Sarah, you’re always introducing me to cool tools, and this one is a dandy.
      :-)

    • http://primefit.org/ Mary C. Weaver, CSCS

      And here’s a quick question: once the ebook has been created with the plugin, can a person edit it? Thanks!

      • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

         @Mary C. Weaver, CSCS yes, it can be exported out and it has to be edited to make it all flow nicely :) Go and have a play with it :)

  • http://www.bobwp.com/ bobWP

    Thanks @SarahArrow I have been aware of this plugin for sometime, but just haven’t dove into it. There have been clients in the past who have asked about it and now I have the perfect resource for them. But have to admit I did copy it into Evernote for my own future reference ; ) thanks for the walk thru!

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @bobWP I have friends who have this really convoluted work flow systems that involve exporting things into various tools and apps and then an ebook appears. This plugin appears to cut a lot of them out, and when I am finished with it I delete it until I need it again. 

  • http://www.thejackb.com/ TheJackB

    I tried using it before and found it to be a bit wonky. Never did figure out if it was user error or conflict with another plugin. Might have to try it again using your directions.

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @TheJackB it could be a plugin conflict, do you have a similar plugin installed? Often the conflict is caused when they are both trying to do the same thing.

  • http://www.roshsillars.com/ roshian68

    I can’t wait to try this out.  I just published a book on Amazon.  I’m going to give this a try to see if it improves the process.
     
    Rosh

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @roshian68 Good luck Rosh, and let us know if it speeds things up for you :)

  • connectyou

    Thanks for the great information!
     
    Curious, what are examples of “similar plugins?”

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @connectyou I can’t think of any, hence my unlikely comment. But if you have too many similar plugins (ie lots of SEO plugins or lots of caching plugins) then they go crazy, take over your blog and make your brain melt in the process ;)

  • http://www.RyanHanley.com/ Ryan Hanley

    Sarah,
     
    I used Anthologize for the framework of my eBook… Love it.  I wish that you could export into Word though.
     
    That would make it easier to expand on certain sections.
     
    Thanks!!
     
    Ryan H.

    • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

       @Ryan Hanley you can, I exported into Word without any problems

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  • http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/ Linda Mattacks

    I find the idea of using it to create an ebook from a site of multiple authors intriguing! How would it cope if you decided to produce an “annual” of Birds on the Blog posts to sell as, maybe Christmas presents, with percentage (or all) of the proceeds going to our girls in Uganda?

  • hopewriter2

    Once I create an e-book with the blog posts, is it best to take those posts off my blog?

    • http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown

       @hopewriter2 For me, personally, I removed the posts I had included, purely because they were part of a bigger premium ebook, and it seemed unfair to charge for something that was available for free elsewhere. :)

      • http://ariherzog.com/ Ari Herzog

         @DannyBrown @hopewriter2 The other option is to expand your original posts in that ebook. That way, you’re not cheating anyone and providing mere updates to the older content.
         

  • http://everydaygyaan.com/ CorinneRodrigues

    This is fantastic @SarahArrow . I find it so much easier to write when I’m in ‘blog-mode’! This will definitely work for me. Thank you ♥

  • anthologize

    Thanks for the kind write-up! It’s great to hear from so many people using or interested in Anthologize in the comments. We’re slowly adding new features and fixing bugs. More info, and links to our users email list and developers email list, can be found at anthologize.org

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  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @Ari Herzog  @DannyBrown  @hopewriter2 that’s exactly what I do. I expand the content, ad more images where appropriate and worksheets and checklists that support the content and enable the reader to get a better result when compared to just reading “the blog post”.

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @CorinneRodrigues Ditto :) I can write a whole stream of posts, and that just makes it faster to write a book. If I had to writ a book, well… I’d still be writing it :)

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @anthologize Glad to hear you have more planned for the plugin :) Will go and subscribe :)

  • http://everydaygyaan.com/ CorinneRodrigues

     @SarahArrow Working on my book – thanks again!

  • VictorYepello

    You just made My day! I had an idea to google this subject and there was this post. I’ve wanted an ebook forever and never know how to begin. Now I take My 200+ posts and have severeal. Thank you!

  • darianwiccan

    I like the look of Anthologize, but am dismayed by the fact that I can only save posts, and not comments.

  • Joseph Adediji

    Thanks for this tutorial, am just hearing about this plugin