Late last night, I sent my third workbook, Generating story ideas, out into the world. You can pick it up in the store right now, or you can read on about the internal struggle I’ve been having about, you know, writing pages of work that might never get read.

Generating story ideas is the result of four years of practicing journalism and two weeks of library-cloistered typing sessions. Spanning 21 pages, the workbook includes seven topics on manifesting quality story ideas, plus two worksheets for putting the techniques into action.

Readers will learn:

• How to squelch writer’s block quickly and efficiently by learning to identify the story ideas right in front of your face,

• How to differentiate between bad ideas and ideas that lead to quality stories any blog would want to publish—before you even start writing,

• To identify the seven most popular story scripts you see in news articles and learn how to mimic their success,

• And the four story generation techniques I’ve used to develop hundreds of stories.

All peppered with geeky and modern examples that make it easier to follow than the stuffy, dated journalism textbooks I had to read in school. Priced at just $5 for any student’s budget.

A few people have asked me, “If you’re not interested in making a living off of selling these workbooks, why are you charging at all?”

The reason is, I want people who download these guides to be invested enough to read them, and to absorb the advice I’ve put into them. I download free ebooks all the time and never get around to them, or if I do, discredit the information as low quality since I got it for free.

I don’t think (and my early reviewers don’t seem to think) that I’m ripping people off by charging. I was especially moved when Steven Savage told me the Building a beat workbook completely changed his outlook on writing.

So putting it as transparently as I can, that’s my thinking on the matter. And as I continue to work on Effective interview techniques in these upcoming weeks, I’ll focus on making a product I would have paid a good $50 for when I was becoming what I am now.

Thanks for listening. I’d love to hear your best counter-arguments on ebooks, value, and economics in the comments.