If you are a past or current food science student you’ve probably collected a lot of notes. If you haven’t tossed them out yet, they are probably gathering dust on a shelf or box somewhere, or languishing in digital purgatory waiting to be either put to good use or deleted forever. In this blog, you will learn how to put them to good use by converting them to an eBook and selling them.
Who Should You Sell to?
Your primary market for your eBook will be other food science students. However, you can sell to anyone who might be interested in learning fundamental concepts or solving problems in food science. Textbooks can be boring to read and difficult to understand. Hopefully, your notes have broken things down to make them much clearer and fun to read. Perhaps you have come up with some great mnemonics and other memory tools to remember key ideas. It would be a shame to let these go to waste.
Start With the End in Mind
As a student of food science, you probably did not think about selling your notes. Therefore you may just have them on paper or have written them in such a way that as you go over them now, you can’t even understand what you wrote. This makes it a lot harder to convert them to salable digital products. Therefore, from now on, as you gather new information through classes and training, write and organize them with the intention that one day they are going to make money for you. In other words, start with the end in mind.
Now let’s see how you should proceed from here.
Convert Your Notes to Digital Form
Hopefully, you do have good notes that make sense to you as you go over them. You may plan to scan these and sell them as is to friends who are taking the class with you right now and are desperate for them. However, I suggest converting your notes to a Word format. This will create opportunities to sell to a wider market. Of course, you will have to spend time typing them out. This might be a pain so if you don’t have the time, paying someone to do that for you is a good option.
Organize, Edit, and Format Your Notes
Once you have your notes converted to Word, take the time to organize them into a format that is readable, engaging, and easy to understand. Consider doing the following:
- Number the pages
- Create a title page and introduction
- Make your notes scannable by organizing them into major headings and subheadings
- Create a table of contents based on your major headings
- Run a spell check to make sure that there are no grammatical errors. Using a spell-checking and grammar software may come in handy at this point
- Check that font style, size, and line spacing are kept consistent throughout your book.
Design a Cover for Your eBook
Your eBook cover is important for two reasons. First, it’s what potential buyers will see when they’re browsing online stores or search engines. Second, it helps set the tone for your book. If you’re writing about the science behind mayonnaise, for example, you may want to have a picture of mayonnaise on the cover.
Get Feedback
Have someone who represents your audience read over the eBook and provide you with feedback. Compensating him or her for their time is a good idea. It does not have to be with money though.
Set Your Price
If you want to make money from your eBook, you need to price it correctly. Here are a few things to consider when pricing your eBook:
- The topic of your eBook: Is it something that people are willing to pay for?
- The length of your eBook: A longer eBook can be priced higher than a shorter one.
- The competition: How much are other eBooks on the same topic selling for?
- Your target market: Who is your target market and how much do they typically spend on eBooks?
Upload and Start Selling
Once you have all of these elements in place, you’re ready to start selling and marketing your eBook. Upload to platforms like Food Science Toolbox to start selling. The best way to market your product is through social media to promote it to your friends and followers.
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Dr. Courtney Simons is a food science educator with research expertise in dry bean flour composition and functionality. He is interested in sharing his knowledge of fundamental concepts in food science and preservation. Dr. Simons is a graduate of North Dakota State University.
