You Can’t Make Money Selling Ebooks
I read with interest and with a chuckle to myself, all the doom mongers who say ebooks are dead.
Let me tell you “No they’re not” if you know what you’re doing.
For example I have an ebook that sells for $19.99 and in May sold 36 copies of it. A friend of mine sells an ebook about tennis ($24.97) that sold over 217 copies in one month alone!
So, ebooks aren’t dead if you get the topic right.
If you choose the business opportunity world or an Internet marketing topic you’ll find yourself competing with the big boys.
Along with the competition I guarantee you’ll see your ebook ripped off and sold on someone else’s site or EBay. I’m sorry if this sounds negative but many people want something for nothing in this world and aren’t prepared to work themselves.
In fact if you’re thinking of publishing an ebook I’d tell you to keep away from the following topics.
- Business Opportunities
- Legal Advice (Unless you’re a Lawyer)
- Medical Advice (Unless you’re a Doctor)
- Financial Advice (Unless you’re a Financial Advisor, Accountant, etc)
So what’s left?
Everything else!
If you’re looking for a topic I suggest you start with your own hobbies, interests, work experiences, and then move onto subjects you’d like to know about.
If a subject appeals to you you’re more likely to enjoy publishing an ebook about it.
For example you may know I have an ebook about Bonsai trees. When I first started looking into this market I knew nothing about Bonsai trees but always wanted one.
So the research and compiling of the ebook was enjoyable to me as I learnt more about the topic of Bonsai’s.
Formats To Use
There are a number of different ways you can publish your niche market ebook online. The first way is to use an ebook compiler such as active ebook, ebook generator or ebook pro.
These ebook compilers take your book that has been put together using HTML and turn it into an ebook. This way has both pros and cons to it however I prefer to use the Adobe PDF format.
By using Adobe I know that this format will work on 99.99% of computers, including Mac’s.
Many of the ebook compilers aren’t compatible with Mac’s therefore you will be cutting out a proportion of your market…..not good!
PDF’s are easy to set up and very to easy to use from both yours and your customers view. However, they do have a perceived downside.
With some of the ebook compilers you can control who views your ebook and therefore you’ll cut down on the possibility of people selling your ebook on their website or eBay.
With a PDF file although you can stop people cutting and pasting your text and printing if you wish, you can’t stop people passing your ebook around.
Copyright issues
I believe there are 2 forms of copyright that you will come across. One is more serious than the other.
1) If you buy a book from a bookstore and after you’ve read it you pass it to a friend because you liked it and think they would…this is technically an infringement of copyright. Now, everybody does this and it’s an accepted practice
2) The more serious matter is what I call the wholesale sale and distribution of your ebook either on or offline for profit.
If number 2 happens to you then I recommend that you pursue the matter firmly until the offending party ceases selling your book.
There are various methods to see if anyone has ripped off your website, one such way is to use the advanced search function at Google. Copy and paste some unique text from your website and Google will tell you if it’s indexed any sites that contain your text.
How to gain from the ‘pass around’ of your ebook
If your ebook does get passed around you can build in processes to enable you to at least profit from the people your book has been passed to.
Here’s a couple ways you can profit from pass around:
a) Build in relevant and subtle affiliate links that you can refer people to in your ebook. DO NOT fill your book with links, your customers have bought your book for the information inside and don’t want to feel that you’re pushing a further sale down their throats.
b) Inside your book you can offer a special gift to the person who has bought your book. For example I have given free consulting, another ebook, special software and more.
I’ve had people email and explain they were given my ebook by a friend and they’d like the free gift! At this point I explain that if they buy the book I will send them the free gift!
How to market your ebook
Here’s where many people fall down and if the correct steps are followed marketing your ebook can be a simple process.
Here are three simple methods you can use:
1) Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising. – Using the likes of Google, Overture, E-Spotting and FindWhat you can start driving qualified traffic to your site within 15 minutes.
2) Pick a sub topic from your book and write a 500 – 900 word article about that topic. Then submit these articles to related sites with your resource box and link back to your site at the end of the article.
3) Approach other website owners and offer them a JV deal to sell your book on their site for a percentage of the profits.
Now, and here’s something you won’t want to hear…..you WON’T get rich selling just one ebook.
I don’t care how many times you’ve read about a so called Guru selling 1000’s of copies of an ebook in one week……it won’t happen to you with your first ebook.
However, there are a number of things you can do to up your ebook profits.
1)Launch several ebooks. Let’s say you launch your first book and sell just 5 copies a week — less than one a day.
1 ebook (5 sales per week x $19.99) x 52 weeks = $5197.40
Not bad for one site….Now imagine you have 5 sites or 10 sites. You’d be looking at over $25,000 or $50,000 per year from selling simple ebooks! You can also charge more for some ebooks so your earnings are limited by your own imagination for creating ebooks!
2)To increase your profits from each ebook sale you can use up sell pages at point of sale. This is where your customers, when offered an additional product to buy, agree to purchase the additional product as well as the ebook.
Good upsell products are ‘Gold’ versions of your ebook with extra chapters/information, Audio interviews or recordings of the information in the book, CD Rom copies, consulting via email, the options are limited by your imagination only.
3)The third simple way to increase profits from the sale of your ebook is repeat or backend sales. The easiest sale is always to your existing satisfied clients.
And what do you offer them??? How about Volume 2, then Volume 3? Or another related ebook on a similar topic. For example if someone has bought a book on Garden Roses they may be interested in your next book on Daffodils and other easy to grow garden plants. Hey I’m not a gardener!
Once you have launched your first ebook move onto the next and then the next and the next!
I Like to quote – “Wash, Rinse, Repeat”
Your first book will take longer than the second, your third will be quicker than your second and so on!
I can now start an ebook project from concept to selling on the net within 7days and you can to………
How?
Just start!
