How to Make an eBook Into An eCourse

Have you ever thought about how to make an eBook into an eCourse? Like most repurposing, it's actually quite easy to do. It's simply a case of presenting the same material in a slightly different way; a way that is more attractive to the audience that uses it. Let's review the steps for creating an eCourse.

The first thing you need to do is to decide who your audience will be. By that, I mean that you have to distinguish between what those who take an eCourse expect from those who would read an eBook. You can ask yourself the same question: "What differences would I expect there to be between the two?"

One difference might be the an eBook in most cases provides information only; whereas an eCourse may provide worksheets and exercises. The worksheets would enable the person using the eCourse to record some structured notes. The exercises would provide the opportunity to put whatever was learned into practice.

The second thing you would want to do would be to create those worksheets. What worksheets do you think would be the most helpful to someone using the material?

You could create a cheat sheet. You'll find that different people mean different things when they talk about cheat sheets. For myself, I prefer to create a page with blanks on it that create a summary of the material. For example, if there are five characteristics that I want someone to remember, then I provide a place where all of them can be written down together.

This is quite different from the way that others create cheat sheets. For them, the blanks in the worksheet are chronological. In other words, there may be several other things that need to be recorded in between the main points.

Personally, I find this approach rather frustrating. To me, a summary of the concepts is a more useful tool; and that's what a worksheet is for: it's a place to group common ideas.

The third thing you might want to include in an eCourse are some exercises. This will require some creativity on your part, much more than simply creating the eBook, or the eCourse. Exercises are the place for users to put into practice what they've learned.

If I was going to create some homework for this article, then I might ask you to look at an eBook you had written, and then to decide what you wanted people to be able to do as a result of reading it.

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