One of the most profitable means of creating a business and making money online is to write and sell eBooks. This is a home based business that is very easy for anyone to start.
You can even create these information products without spending any money if you have the right tools. They can be sold very easily on the internet. Here are some points to look out for.
- What are Ebooks
- How to start writing your eBook
- It is important to test your eBook
- Go ahead and write the eBook
- Where to Sell your Ebooks
- Marketing your Ebooks
Some eBooks can sell for as high as $300. You do not have to be a professional writer to start this business. You can hire other people to do the writing for you.
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A personal computer and a connection to the internet is all that you require to create an eBook and start to make extra money on the internet. EBook marketing is very profitable and is an interesting way to work at home and earn extra money.
You do not need any complex accounting system or a place to store your product. It involves no shipping and there is no cost of reproduction. You can continue to sell copies without bothering about running out of copies.
What are Ebooks
Ebooks are books. But in a format where they can be delivered or downloaded online. You can write them yourself, employ writers, use public domain content, and create your ebooks from many sources.
And just about any subject can be covered — just as many, if not more, than what a traditional publisher might release because you can tailor your tomes to niche markets. Travel guides, how-to manuals, mystery, romance, science fiction, self-help, technology, religions… just about any subject is fair game as long as there is a market of ready buyers.
(One of the best ways to check for is to scan the bestseller lists on Amazon. And not just the overall list but also the ones for categories and subcategories.)
Also, you won’t have to rely on an editor or publisher telling you whether a book will be published. And you won’t have to rely on a bookstore to put your book on its shelves. You’re in complete control of the entire process.
In fact, you’re going to handle everything yourself, including marketing and selling. And that means you get to keep all the profits. They’re nothing to sneeze at.
Self-published authors have had big success in recent years. Take Hugh Howey, who sold a series of science fiction books through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.
At one point, he was selling 20,000 — 30,000 copies a month, which generated $150,000 in income monthly. Amanda Hocking, who writes “paranormal romance” and fantasy novels, has sold well more than a million books on Amazon, generating over $2 million in sales. That’s proof that you can make money self-publishing on Amazon.
How to start writing your eBook
Start by choosing a topic that you are familiar with. It is much easier to talk about something that you already know. You will also spend less time on research if most of what you are going to say is in your head.
Your aim is to provide your readers with valuable information that can help them to solve problems in their lives. You can explore topics that will help people to save or to make money.
A lot of other people may also want to improve their health or relationships. You can also write an eBook that will teach a valuable skill.
It is important to test your eBook
There are several ways to test if your idea for an eBook is a good one. The easiest way to do this is to build a blog where you can ask your readers to let you know what they need to know about the topic.
You can also check out online forums that are built around that niche. You can easily find out what people want to know by looking at the topics of threads in the forum.
Go ahead and write the eBook
Once you have found a hot topic that has a potential market, do not waste any more time. Start writing your eBook immediately. It does not have to be too long.
There are several best-selling eBooks that are not more than twenty to thirty pages long. The most important thing is to ensure that the information that you present in the book provides value for your readers.
People who are searching for solutions to their problems do not want to go through an encyclopedia before they get it.
Where to Sell your Ebooks
As an ebook publisher, you have a few options available for selling your works.
You can set up your own website and sell your ebook directly online. You might make a PDF available to your readers for example. A simple shopping cart or PayPal link and you’re all set.
A reader visits your site, they order, and they get a download link and get your book. It’s pretty much all automated, and you simply keep an eye on things to make sure the site is running smoothly.
The benefit of this is you control the entire process, get all of the customer information (so you can promote additional products, services, or books), and you can charge higher prices.
You may find this surprising, but many ebooks sold directly on a website (especially if it’s on a focused topic) can sell for $40 or more which is double what a traditional print book would sell for.
One of the easiest ways to sell ebooks is to work through a third-party site like Amazon. You may have ordered products, even books, from Amazon in the past. But this is a whole different side to this massive e-commerce site.
The big benefit to working through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, even though they charge you a commission on your sales, is their reach. Around 89 million Americans are said to be active ebook readers.
That’s your potential audience, all those people visiting this site and browsing for a new book. It could be your book they find when doing a search on a related keyword. In fact, 38 percent of daily sales of ebooks on Amazon go to self-published titles.
While you may not make as much money as you would selling directly on your own site, you’ll have the opportunity to reach an audience who you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
The process of selling your ebook on Kindle is straightforward. You sign up, then upload your ebook. They take care of converting it to their proprietary format. Then you’re ready to sell and grow your business through Amazon.com.
Marketing your Ebooks
Publishers usually don’t actively market or promote the vast majority of the books they release. Only those from established best-selling authors get this attention.
But, as an ebook publisher, you’re going to relish having this same control over your marketing and sales strategy. With all the options available, you should have no problem finding a way to get your book title(s) out into the world and grab the attention of potential readers.
I recommend a multichannel approach — approach the marketing from several different angles. One definite channel is social media.
Leverage your Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn contacts, and more to get the word out. When the book is published, post it on Facebook with a link back to your website with more information and a way to order, for example.
But it’s not enough to send out one announcement. You have to build buzz around your ebook. Encourage people to tell friends about your ebook and spread the word. Post content related to your book. Create contests. Do giveaways. Get creative with your marketing.
You should also promote your book on your blog, get active in forums related to the topic your book is about and tell people about it, and if you have an email list, be sure to promote it there too.
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You might also offer a free chapter of your ebook. That will get readers hooked so that they want more and will buy the rest of the ebook.
The key is to be proactive with your marketing efforts to continually generate buzz and interest for your book.
Also, if you’re selling your ebooks on Amazon you can do paid ads directly on Amazon to promote your books to a highly targeted audience based on keyword searches and specific products (like related books).
So now you understand why selling ebooks can be such a money-maker, it’s time to get started. Figure out what type of ebook you want to sell, where you’ll get the content, and then where you’re going to sell it — and how you’ll market it online.
It’s a low-cost, low-risk business opportunity that has a huge upside!
