Making Money With eBook Sales

A lot of people have tried to make money online and a lot of people have failed, mainly because they were not ready to tap the potential of some ‘not-so-known’ earning resources.

Online earning goes beyond Google AdSense – the most popular application for earning online. In the last few years, the technological development has made it possible for people to read books online, something we refer to as eBooks.

If you have been to Amazon.com you will know that its “Kindle” edition is popular among the eBook reading masses.

Like Kindle, there are a few other applications that make it easy for you to read books online and also in creating your own eBook.

Gone are the days when you had to depend on publishers to get your book printed and distributed.

Now all you need is a manuscript and a good marketing program to sell eBooks. Let’s look at these in detail.

Content Creation

Your first step towards turning an eBook into a ‘money minting machine’ is CONTENT.  Excellent content comes from generating great ideas and selecting the best ones that sell.

From purely a business perspective of a small business entrepreneur, this is one of the best possible ways to earn money on the internet. Generally, most of the eBooks are non-fiction in nature and considering there are lots of competitors out there, you’ll need to develop on an idea that people are willing to purchase eBooks on.

You have to stand out from the competition and establish your foothold, which you can do by providing excellent and informative content that readers are interested in.

As you know, content creation is the toughest. You can write the eBook yourself or outsource the task. Even if you are outsourcing, you have to keep yourself inline with the eBook development, therefore, the main responsibility falls on you to develop it through every production stage.

Before you start developing its content, you need to analyze your idea deeply, especially from a sales point of view. Picking a topic is one the primary stumbling blocks.

You should write on those topics that online users demand information about. Take  Facebook – its popularity has given opportunity to several internet marketers to develop books on Facebook, dealing with its every aspect.

Same is the case with Twitter. The one thing important here is the ‘motivation factor.’ Question yourself – what can you write that will encourage people to buy?’ Or ask yourself – ‘will you buy the book you are writing?’ You will have your answer.

Now if you have decided on a topic or subject to write about, the next step is to RESEARCH- WRITING. Any kind of content creation is 80% research and 20% writing.

As preliminary preparation, research online sources for suitable information that is factual and accurate. Not only electronic files but offline resources like libraries should be used to extract research material. Once all your material is up-to-date, organize it in a rough format.

When you start to write in real time, prepare the rough draft as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about grammar and spelling. Keep editing for later. The best eBooks are ones that explains complex ideas in simpler terms for the readers.

Of course, needless to say, do not plagiarize or violate copyright laws. Similarly, you would not want someone else to plagiarize your work. Since eBooks are in PDF format, you can use technical help like password protection for your books. With password protection, unsolicited people cannot access your eBook and thus you can protect your copyright.

Each country has its own COPYRIGHT LAWS. Check with your publishing and copyright laws first. You need to register for a copyright because by doing so, the work enters public record.

Make sure that your eBook is not leaked before you get copyrights because if it does, you are in no position to sue anyone. In short, copyright is essential so get it before anyone else plagiarizes your work.

EBook Pricing and Marketing

Now that you have got the eBook ready completely, the next step is to ‘get it out there’ and earn some profits. From the business perspective, you need to keep the price not too high and not too low. See, the entire pricing game depends upon how well you create the book.

Some entrepreneurs give away eBooks for free to their website subscribers but that doesn’t mean they are not earning anything. Such kinds of eBooks are more product-based.

For instance, if you are in the industry marketing health products, you have a site where you upload content daily and you have also placed affiliate links connecting to those health products you represent.

When your website is popular and has loyal subscribers, you can create a 100 page product-based eBook – talking about ailments and its remedies, which typically are the products you are an affiliate of – and give away the eBook to members.

If readers find the information interesting, they will definitely buy. If you want this kind of eBook marketing and sales generation strategy, the math goes something like this:

No. of active website subscribers – 200 users

Your affiliate commission from each sale – 25% minimum

Without an eBook, you sell to 80 users in a month products worth $125, suppose. Therefore, you earn – 25% of $125 x 80 sales = $2500 per month.

Again,

No. of active website subscribers – 200 users

Your affiliate commission from each sale – 25% minimum

EBook creation cost – Nothing per se if you write it on your own; possibly $300-$400 for a 75 page eBook if outsourced to another writer.

With an eBook, you sell to 150 users in a month products worth $125, suppose. Therefore, you’ll earn – 25% of $125 x 150 sales = $4687.5 per month. Reduce $400 for outsourcing costs and another $100 for setting up a website; you profit $4187.5 per month.

In the above business proposition, your increase in product sales after the eBook promotion is due to only one factor – EXCELLENT AND CONVINCING CONTENT.

Now, if you choose not to give away the eBook for free and wish to sell it, you can go the conventional way.

Of course, as I have been saying many times, your eBook should provide excellent content. If you are sure of it, then your marketing and revenue plan would involve creating a detailed sales page highlighting the ‘why’ readers need to purchase it, marketing the sales page through affiliate promotion and numerous other internet marketing strategies like directory promotion and forum interactions.

Here, you have to decide on the eBook cost also. There are books people buy for hundreds of dollars and there are books people won’t even pay a penny for. To keep it simple, sell the eBook affordably for others with different purchasing power, let’s say, $27

This is a pretty straight-forward way to make money from eBook selling. Since nearly 90% of internet marketers and small business entrepreneurs are doing it, you will have stiff competition. But if you are sure that your content is relevant, there is no limit to the amount of money you can earn. Let’s see the earning potential here:

Site setting up and maintenance costs – $100

EBook writing cost – $400 (nothing if you have written it)

Affiliate percentage you are giving – 25% to 5 affiliates with 10 sales each

Sales per month – 100

Per eBook cost – $27

Therefore, your income before expenditure is – $27 x 100 sales = $2700

Deductions:

Maintenance – $100

EBook cost – $400 (one time payment)

Affiliates – 25% of $27 = $ 6.75 to per affiliate sale; 10×5=50 sales mean 50 x $6.75 = $337.5

Finally, your gross earning – $1862.5.

In both strategies, the earning is profitable. Of course, you cannot expect these or better sales statistics to happen in the first month itself. You have to promote the eBook ceaselessly.

Payments

The payment system on your site should be fully automated. 90% of buyers are people who deal payments through credit cards so that is a must.

Integrating credit card payment on the site is not that difficult. Other modes of receiving payment are PayPal and ClickBank. Both the websites charge minimum fees per transaction. You also need to give a money back guarantee to buyers  with the purchase.

Since the buyers pay in full instantly, they expect to get the product instantly too. So make sure the server’s uptime is good. You can set the eBook as a downloadable feature upon payment or you can send the eBook as an email attachment.

Moreover, when buyers purchase, they have to enter their email and name. In one sense, it helps you to create a membership list too. So in case you create  another eBook or any other product, you already have a ready made list to focus on first.

Last Action

After everything is ready, DON’T FORGET TO MAKE A TEST PURCHASE. Ask a friend to purchase from your site and browse also. This way you’ll know if the automated payment scripts and onsite links are working correctly.