Make no mistake – e-books are big business online. No matter what you search for there will be someone out there selling an e-book on it.
But the best thing about them is that they provide one of the most potentially lucrative businesses you could ever hope to start online. So long as you do your homework and don’t try and cut corners you can start making inroads into this business within days of deciding to get started. There is plenty to learn but none of it is beyond you – and even if you don’t think you’re up to the job there are plenty of people you can call on to help you.
If you’re thinking of selling e-books to make money online, your best bet is to write your own.
But why do that when there are plenty of affiliate e-books around that you can promote and earn a cut from?
The answer is simple. If you write and create your own e-book no one else will be selling anything quite like it. You’ve got a unique product that will draw attention since no one will have seen it before. As long as you do your research first, you could make a lot of money from one e-book alone.
So first thing’s first – how do you decide what to write an e-book about?
Think about what subjects are currently popular online. Making money will always be a great subject (look at this blog for example!) so anything that taps into this field which doesn’t cover the same ground as loads of other e-books could do well. Try and focus on a specific niche to get the best results; you could start by thinking about what you personally find interesting and see whether any of your hobbies might provide fertile ground to explore.
Once you’ve got some ideas see whether there are already any e-books doing well online on that subject. If there don’t seem to be any around you’ll need to dig a bit further to see if your subject is going to be popular enough to attract a lot of sales. A spot of keyword research and simply looking up related search terms on Google can help reveal the answer to this.
Okay – so let’s assume you now have an idea for an e-book you think will be popular. Next up you have to plan the contents and think of a great title. Titles are very important since they will give the potential buyer an idea of what to expect from the e-book itself. It needs to be specific and intriguing – and full of promise. Don’t worry if one doesn’t occur to you straightaway; quite often you will only think of it once the book is almost written.
The biggest problem when it comes to writing the book itself is staying on topic. It’s very easy to veer off course if you’re not careful, which is why having a pre-written outline to follow will keep you on track. If you plan this out before you begin writing you’ll find the whole process much easier to manage. If you don’t feel confident enough to write it yourself you can hire a ghostwriter to do it for you; there are plenty of sites online where you can hire a freelancer for a fixed fee that you decide on. This gives you complete control over the project.
Incidentally the word ‘e-book’ can be somewhat misleading for newbies to the business. An e-book can indeed be a hundred pages or more long, but it can also be no more than a dozen pages or so. The price for a shorter e-book will of course be lower, but it is still more than you might think given the length of the book itself.
Of course you need to think about more than just the e-book if you want to sell plenty of copies of it. You need to get the word out, and you need to have a great mini website to show it off. These mini websites are really single page sites which promote your e-book in a long sales letter. You would do well to spend as much time writing the sales letter as you did the e-book itself, since it has a very important job to do.
First off you need a stunning headline that will grab the attention. You need to really sell this to everyone who lands on your website so don’t be afraid to shout about the benefits of your e-book! You’ll notice I said benefits there and not features; that’s because the benefits will tell your readers what your book will do for them. That’s a very important point to understand since it could make the difference between getting a reasonable amount of sales and being buried under an avalanche of them!
Think about your price carefully too. Don’t be greedy – but at the same time don’t go too low either. You want to give an impression of quality. Do some research and see what similar titles in your subject area are selling for.
You can also sell more copies by offering bonuses along with the e-book itself. Could you write a number of special reports as well, each one a few pages long, which relate to the subject of your main book? Anything like this will encourage still more people to buy from you rather than going elsewhere for a similar title.
The ultimate goal for you should be to write a series of e-books which each have their own website to sell from. When you write each sales letter be sure to include plenty of keywords and phrases to attract a greater volume of search engine traffic to your site. Pick a good and relevant domain name too – it will help to draw in more people.
The hardest step is in writing that first e-book. Once you’ve got going and you’ve had some experience you’ll start writing them faster, picking better titles and subjects, and selling more copies as a result. Before you know it you’ll have a great business on your hands.
If you’d like to comment on this piece, please leave your message using the form below. Then get writing – your first e-book is there, you just have to get it out.
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Mika – thank you, that would be outstanding! Can you please e-mail me your e-mail address, and I will send you what I have so you can take a look and let me know!
Sincerely,
Michael
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What product for a sales or squeeze page (once an eBook is written) do you recommend for use? Should it be hosted with a blog or on its own site (domain)?
Also, have you written any eBooks? I have written 14 of them for the Make Money Online niche. Now my biggest issue is marketing and promotion of some solid content.
Wish I could hand that off to someone else who can “take that from here” so my focus can be on writing even more eBooks versus also marketing. Having to market myself is very time consuming, regardless of how much I’ve automated.
Such a strategic partnership would be a total win-win – here is my eBook – take it from here. I have a 55% commissions incentive program for my affiliates to do just that – I make only 45% – yet the effort to sign up probably alone dissuades people nonetheless, and it seems to be a 1% of the 1% that opt in – frustrating.
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Mika Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 4:35 am
I have written some ebooks, although not in the MMO niche. It all depends on the value of the content, Can people read your ebook and get some value out of it? Can they use it to solve a problem? make some money? or something else?
I’m happy to have a look at one of your ebooks if you want, and I’ll let you know if I think I could sell them or not.
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thanks a lot for the info regarding e-books, but now after we write an e-book, how do we publish it for sale online? or what do we have to do to actually put it out there online? is it a matter of going to ebay or amazon for example and just post it there as if we are selling anything else?? please inlighten us. thank you.
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Just thought i would comment and say neat theme, did you code it yourself? Looks great.
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Hi, I found your blog via Google while searching for what we need so sell to make money and your post regarding looks very interesting for me
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Say you sell this ebook created entirely by you on eBay. What’s to keep someone from selling your own work after buying it from you? They could price the book cheaper because they have not invested time in creating it.
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Thank you so much for this help.
I am in the process of writing my first book and am planning to send it to a literary agent but i was advised to sell it online first to show i have supporters already so the agents might look on me more favourably.
I will definitely use the advise given from yourself when selling the ebook so thank you once again
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If you are looking for a ghostwriter for your e-book, blog or website, maybe I can help. I have ghost written and designed a five ebooks that are doing well. I also worked as a copywriter for a web development company for five years. My rates are very reasonable and all rights are yours! Email me for more info: dawneesays@aol.com.
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I just want to know do people get paid enough writing ebooks ,I might want to try it.
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What do you do after writing this ebook? I am confused on this part. Thanks!
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It’s probably better to hire ghostwriters to write ebooks, while concentrating on the marketing part.
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Wow.
You make it sound easy. And I agree. If you know how to do it, it’s not that hard.
thank You. I am reading all the articles you have written one by one.
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I feel so selling e-books is one of the good profitable and simplest business.The only difficult thing in this is writing the books.
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If you like to write and want to make money online, then writing an e-book might be something to think about. They’re much easier to have published than the steps used in creating a traditional book. It is also easier to sell e-books on the global World Wide Web, than it would be in trying to have it sold in stores. Who’s to say you will strike it rich, but you may be able to earn some extra cash. E-books can be printed as novels, or they can be printed as short articles. How much money you intend to make is simply up to you, given that you publish something that others will find enjoying. So, if you’re an excellent writer and have a bit of time on your hands, you can write a large novel. If you’re a good writer and don’t have a lot of time, you can write a short article. In either case, you might be surprised as to how much money you can make.
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it is really very beneficial article in order to earn money easily.it is also very interesting job.according to the latest trend,e-books would be sell like the normal books as the next generation would be totally dependent on the computers and electronic books.this business have very bright future
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This info was very helpfull,especiall for me because i am a writer…still learning though,haven’t got a publisher yet and i thnk this is gona be a chance to actualy publish my self…i write fictions,and i dont think they’ll sell on the e-books..what do u guys thnk about that? And having 2 think about something people are intrested in,it will be a bit of a challenge. Bt i like challanges though,so i thnk it wil be fun..id realy appreciate more info about e-books..once again,thnks!
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Mika Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 2:28 am
yeah, well Fiction books probably arent going to sell well as ebooks, they are mainly “how to’s” But maybe you should check out Amazon’s self publishing options, I am no expert, but I hear they have some good deals for aspiring authors.
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Sia Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Thnx Mika,i thought as much..i also thought about the “how 2″ part…ill definetly check out amazon and see wat they got in stock..thnx again! Keep up ths gud work guys!
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This is really different way of making money. I was not aware of this earlier. Thanks a lot. Swathi
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ya…i agree…besides we also can improve our language through writing ebooks …thats a good idea to earn money online…maybe u will b the next online JK Rowling…
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This is very much useful for me to make money through online.
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hi.. Thank you very much for such good thought which is very helpful to do online job and make money easily. But the toughest part is creating our own e-book.
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I like the information given about selling e-books. It is an easy way to make an income plus you get to write your own content and have others read it. Having my own website for each book may be difficult though.
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I think selling an E-book is a great way to make money the only problem is actually writing the book in my opinion. It is hard to find a topic that people will find interesting and take it seriously. I once thought about writing a E-book on dating on the internet but I yet have to do it.
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Mika Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 1:13 am
True, but you can always hire a ghost writer on elance.com or somewhere similar. And for ideas, its best to find out what people are looking for, I think the best way to do this is by using free keyword research tools available online to see what people are searching for, and how many people are searching for, and then find a way to fill their need.
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This is a best thing in the website.How To Make Money Selling E-Books purpose is, different kind of books we have in the online. What the book we want sell, in that book must have a more useful for user. (e.x) Harry potter book is award winning. There is a one more suggestion from my point of view if someone publish a book based on Micheal Jackson it will be highest selling of this year!!!!
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