How do you an ebook for blog subscribers?

[mercuryrising]

I'm sure you've seen blogs where they offer a free ebook or report if you subscribe to their blog. Usually there is a link in the reader or email. Anyone know how you do this?

Thanks

[sbdiane]

I don't know for sure because I don't read a lot of blogs or use a feed reader, but from my experience you can set up your RSS feed (or a thank you email or anything you want) to include a link to anything you want. You just have to know how to make the software your blog uses add that to the feed. It may be a plug-in to the blog sofware or it may be a customization to the code. And being able to edit the RSS will probably be a function of what kind of blog software you use. Blogger probably doesn't let you change the RSS. Wordpress probably does.

[David365]

Do you mean how do they create the ebook or how do they upload the book to the site?

I want to do the former myself and the "free" way to create an ebook is to use Open Office - which is huge application to upload to your computer. I have yet to try but it but recently found out about Google/Docs. Like Open Office you can save a document in PDF format, so it can be opened by Adobe Reader. I recently saw a video on using Google/Docs and it seems quite simple, and its not a huge application like Open Office.

Whatever you use, you still have to write something - which I keep putting off by posting here, using Twitter, etc!

I have uploaded other PDFs to my site. You upload through an FTP or from within your cpanel to a folder on your site. Then link within the text as if you would to anything external, or a photo, just linking to where you have put the file.

Hope this helps, but say if I've missed what you were asking or want me to expand.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by David365

Do you mean how do they create the ebook or how do they upload the book to the site?

I want to do the former myself and the "free" way to create an ebook is to use Open Office - which is huge application to upload to your computer. I have yet to try but it but recently found out about Google/Docs. Like Open Office you can save a document in PDF format, so it can be opened by Adobe Reader. I recently saw a video on using Google/Docs and it seems quite simple, and its not a huge application like Open Office.

Whatever you use, you still have to write something - which I keep putting off by posting here, using Twitter, etc!

I have uploaded other PDFs to my site. You upload through an FTP or from within your cpanel to a folder on your site. Then link within the text as if you would to anything external, or a photo, just linking to where you have put the file.

Hope this helps, but say if I've missed what you were asking or want me to expand.

Well, that's very helpful, but not quite what I was looking for. I'll give an example.

This is a friend of mine's site, Spiritual River. If you scroll down on the right hand side, you'll see an offer for a free ebook. If you click the link that says, "Download your free ebook here", you go to this page. It says that the ebook is free, but you have to subscribe to his blog via email or rss reader.

In my case, I subscribe through RSS on My Yahoo. In my reader, when I click on one of his articles, there is a link at the bottom of the article that allows me to download the ebook.

Perhaps it has something to do with feedburner. Perhaps I'll just ask my friend.

[Vanessa]

Now I'm understanding what you're asking for.

The goal of this free ebook offer is to increase the number of people subscribed to the blog.

From the first part:
The free ebook landing page is made with a static Wordpress Page. You enter the subscribe form on the Thank you page will be the link for the free ebook. The subscribe form is an RSS to your email feature that is inside Feedburner. They'll give you the code to drop this into any page you want to get folks signed up for email updates from your RSS feed.

The second portion is called placing a footer/signature in your RSS feed.
Here's a good rundown of the kinds of things you can put at the end of your posts. Add a Footer to Your RSS Feed: 7 Practical Examples

Your friend links to the free report as his footer message in his feed. There are a few wordpress plugins that will do this for you. Take a look at: WordPress › RSS Footer « WordPress Plugins, WordPress › Ozh' Better Feed « WordPress Plugins

Does that help explain how what your friend is doing that you too can do?

[David365]

Thanks Vanessa thats really useful for me as well. I use Feed Footer, but mainly to just put a copyright notice. Those links you've given show there's a lot more I could be doing.

[mercuryrising]

What David said... that was what I was looking for. Mucho appreciated.