How anyone can make money writing and selling eBooks
Selling e-books is big business online. There are hundreds of thousands of e-books available on just about every topic imaginable. Now you might be thinking why you should take the time to write your own e-books when you can simply sign up for ClickBank. Well, when you sign up as an affiliate with ClickBank you can promote any book you want, but so can everyone else. When you write your own eBook you create a UNIQUE PRODUCT! This is a great advantage if you already have a loyal group of visitors to your blog. Imagine you run a website that gets 50,000 unique visitors per month, you now have the opportunity to market your unique product to 50,000 people per month (assuming you stay at 50,000 visits per month, if you continue with the steps I’ll describe in future publications). then you have the opportunity to get more and more unique visitors every month).
Let’s explore the opportunity to make money using the numbers I just gave. Let’s say you write an ebook on a topic you know in detail and charge $10 (which is cheap for an ebook, many books on ClickBank sell for over $50). Ok, now let’s say you are not the best marketer in the world and only get 1% of your visitors to buy the ebook. This would mean that 500 people buy your UNIQUE product. 500 x $10 is $5,000! This is just one example and it’s one where you sell it cheap to 1% of your audience!
You could potentially make a lot of money from a single ebook as long as you research and market your ebook properly.
The first thing you will need to do is decide on a topic to write about. One thing I always hear from people who advise writing your own eBook is “Write about something you’re passionate about”, don’t get me wrong, I agree with this, up to a point. I agree that it’s a good idea to write about something you enjoy, but if you’re reading this article, then you’re looking to make some money! You have to think about what topics are most popular online. Earning money is always a popular topic (that’s why you’re here, right!), but you should try to find a middle ground between something you personally enjoy and something popular.
Now something you’re interested in is likely to be popular anyway, but it’s important to at least have prior knowledge of the topic you’re right about. For example, football (or soccer for Americans) is the most important sport in the world. Let’s say you have no knowledge on the subject or any personal interest in football, but you want to write about it because of its popularity. You could read about it and get some knowledge, but you should look to write it and put it on the market as soon as you can. To get to the point where you can write a decent eBook on a topic you have no prior knowledge of, it’s going to take more than a study session or two.
If you focus on something you know or enjoy, then you can give your own unique opinions and perspectives on the topic. Again, it doesn’t have to be your passion in life, but it should at least be an interest of yours. Not only that, but you’ll make it much faster if you really enjoy it!
Now you’ll need to do some research before you start your e-book. You need to make sure that the topic you are talking about is popular. You can do this by searching for e-books that are currently selling well. Once you find one that works particularly well, you’ll want to check out other books in the same genre. Make sure the successful book is not an exceptional case of success in an otherwise unsuccessful market.
Now I am going to discuss how you can promote the e-book. This is vitally important to the success of your product! I am going to discuss two methods of promoting e-books. Feel free to comment which one you think would be the most profitable.
One way to promote your ebook would be to set up a mini website. You need to get the word out and you need to have a great platform to show it off. These mini websites are really single page sites that promote your ebook in one long sales letter. Take your time on this and make sure it’s detailed and engaging! If your only intention is to sell ebooks, this is probably the best way to go.
If you want eBooks to be just one part of your empire, the advice I would give you is to start a website with the goal of getting traffic and generating a steady rate of traffic. Focus on building your website first. Show people you’re trustworthy, then once you publish your ebook they’ll know it’s safe to buy, skepticism is no longer an issue! Not only that, but if you wait until you have a consistent visitor base, you can promote your ebook!
Let’s explore that idea further! You now have a website and get around 50,000 unique visitors per month. It’s not like someone just stumbled across a website and saw an ebook offer, you can promote it! Mention your upcoming eBooks in comments and blog posts, have a countdown to launch, have a special offer for the first 100 buyers. Now build excitement for your e-book launch. A week before the release date, you can post the first 10 pages of the book just to have everyone on the edge of their seats waiting for their eBooks to be released!
Let’s talk about the book itself. You will need to think of a good title for the book. Don’t get ahead of yourself though because this will probably change ten times during the writing process. A good headline is vital, but that doesn’t mean it should be the first thing you decide on. I’ve seen many people delay writing their eBooks because they haven’t thought of a catchy title yet, so don’t fall into that trap! Many times the title will come to mind as you write it.
The next thing to remember is to make sure you stay on topic! If you write an ebook and then publish it using a mini website, your book should be very detailed and never off topic. If you already have a regular visitor base due to a successful blog, then you can have more creative freedom! You are selling to regular visitors to your blog so that you can maintain the style in which you do it on your blogs without fear of it being received negatively!
I would recommend writing down all of your main points just to make sure you get them all right, you don’t want to publish your book and find that you forgot something important! Not only that, but if you write it as you go it can feel like it’s not structured properly, write everything you want to discuss in order! I recommend writing and numbering the points on a piece of paper! (a bit old school, I know, but it’s better than constantly having to close windows on your computer to find them)
You must remember to write your e-books in PDF format. This is for your own protection only, if they are not in PDF format, someone could easily copy and resell them without your consent. Adobe is the most popular PDF converter on the market, but it’s expensive! My recommendation is to write your eBook before you download Adobe PDF Converter, then once you’re done writing you can download the 30-day free trial and convert your eBooks to PDF. It’s great software, so you should consider buying it at some point! How about after you make a few thousand dollars selling your e-books?
Ok, so how should you decide what price to sell for? Well, obviously, if your ebook is 30 pages long, then you shouldn’t be charging $50 for it! Remember, we’re looking for money-making ideas, not scams! If you are honest and truthful with people then they can become loyal and regular customers, on top of that, how would you like to be scammed in these tough times? I recommend keeping the price of your first book at a reasonable price. With some time and effort, this could become a regular source of income, so get as many people as possible to read your first book. Let’s be clear, when I say reasonable I don’t mean cheap! If it’s too cheap, it gives the impression that it lacks quality!
Another great way to promote your book is by offering bonuses or contests. A bonus, for example, could be a small e-book on a similar topic. You have to be careful with the competitions, do not get ahead of yourself and offer Playstations or iPads from the beginning! Using online contests to promote your ebooks can drive incredible sales and is a topic I’ll be discussing in a future blog! Subscribe to receive an automatic update when it is published!
Your ultimate goal should be to write a series of e-books. The reason I recommend setting up a blog first and focusing on traffic is because you can write a series of eBooks while waiting for your monthly visitor count to hit the tens of thousands. If you follow all of my advice, you’ll have a successful blog that can make money through a number of different channels and a series of e-books waiting to be launched strategically to maximize the number of buyers. Worst case scenario if your website is down and even then you would still have your eBooks which could be sold through a mini website.