How To Make Money Selling eBooks

Today you are going to learn EXACTLY how to make money selling eBooks.

In fact, these are the tried and proven methods that have helped me to create a passive income creating and selling eBooks.

The best part?

Everything here is working GREAT right now.

So let’s get started to make money selling eBooks.

The first thing You may be wondering Why eBooks and not Paperback?

Why I recommend selling an eBook to make money is because you can quickly gain traction and earn a living if you follow proper steps.

And the paperback market is competitive and for a new author, it is difficult to break that barrier of highly successful authors and become famous.

Though it’s not impossible, it will require a lot of effort as well as an amazing book.

However, for some genre’s like children’s books, especially picture books, paperback is really the only way to go.

The advantage of publishing and selling an eBook is that you will spend a lot less money and the return will be greater.

As every coin has two faces so does eBook and paperback versions.

But considering the amount of money you can make selling eBooks as a new author is slightly higher. So you can step up if the book becomes successful.

And the best thing about creating an eBook is that if you want at a later stage you can produce a paperback version without doing much work.

Even an eBook version is required if you want to create an audiobook.

Now considering such advantages let’s roll into money-making.

But before you even begin you have to consider these factors for creating an awesome eBook that sells like a hot cake.

How To Write An eBook And Make Money?

So here’s how to write your own eBook and make money.

1. Niche Selection

You have to do proper research on the niche (topic or category) you are going to write about.

Select a niche which involves a good audience reach as well as something you are passionate about or have some knowledge in.

If you go into writing something that you love and have a lot of experience in that field you will be able to create an amazing eBook.

Don’t go writing about what your friend or somebody else suggested you do if you don’t have any idea about that topic.

One of the advantages of choosing a specific niche is that it makes it easier for you to become an authority in that particular topic.

When you want to read detective and crime novels the first name you will think of is Arthur Conan Doyle.

This is because Arthur Conan Doyle established himself as an authority in the detective novel space.

This is the power of choosing a niche.

But in choosing the niche for your next book don’t go too narrow.

Aim for broad genres so that there will be audience potential so you can sell more eBooks.

Pro Tip: If the book ranks under #10,000 in the hundreds of thousands of books available on Amazon, it means there’s good potential traffic on the subject for you to capitalize on.

In case you are writing a non-fiction eBook make sure you solve the problem that your audience is looking for.

Compile the very best knowledge and information that can solve your reader’s problem.

You know none of these books will make it to the “New York Best Seller List” but will surely make a hell lot of passive income over time.

2. Research The Most Searched Category

When you self-publish your eBook on Amazon it is best to do some keyword research around your book topic.

Keyword research will give you an approximation of your audience and you will know whether your selected topic/niche has any audience or not.

Keyword research is important because that’s how people are going to find your eBook on Amazon when they will be searching.

Setting these keywords in Book Title, sub-titles, and the product description, and on tags will make your eBook appear on page one of Amazon for the selected keyword.

Thus you can expect higher sales and earn organically without spending a single penny on marketing.

Even having proper keywords can help you appear on the first page of Google which has huge potential to drive free traffic.

It can also result in higher sales for your eBook.

3. Hire a Professional Editor and Proofreader

After finishing writing your eBook make sure to hire a professional editor and proofreader for your manuscript.

Even though you are a native speaker of a particular language you are prone to make mistakes.

Nobody is perfect but your eBook should be perfect.

This is because when somebody reads your unedited published eBook and finds a mistake in grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc they will not take you as a professional author and may not buy your books in near future.

So hiring an editor and proofreader is required.

An editor not only checks for errors but they also suggest some meaningful insights that you may have missed like sentence phrasing, proper use of words, use of copyright materials, etc.

And the work of a proofreader is to check for errors in your manuscript.

Combining them both can result in a professional eBook manuscript that can make you look more professional and established as an author in the eyes of your reader.

Hiring an editor and proofreader doesn’t come cheap.

You have to spend here.

And this will 70% of your total expenditure.

You can read this article to know how much book editing costs to know more in detail.

But if you don’t want to spend or you are very tight on budget you can use some online tools to help you with your proofreading.

Some of them are:

1. Grammarly
2. WhiteSmoke
3. ProWritingAid
4. Paper Rater

These are some online tools that you can use to proofread your work without spending a hefty amount in hiring editor and proofreader.

Personally, I use Grammarly for proofreading my work.

Note: No online tool can give you a perfect result. Though it can 100% correct your grammar, spelling, and punctuation, it cannot completely understand your writing tone. These tools cannot replace a human editor and proofreader.

4. Having A Catchy Book Title And Subtitles

The book title is the second thing that captures the eyes of the reader after your book cover.

So you have to spend some extra time thinking about the title and sub-title of your eBook so that it can give some hint as to what your eBook is all about.

Your book title will make or break whether your readers will click on the eBook and read the content or not.

The best practice to title a book is to write a short, sweet, and interesting title.

And even if you need more you can describe it in your sub-title.

Don’t ever use complicated words.

The more easy and meaningful your title is the more good it can do for increasing your sales.

Try to come up with 3-4 titles for your eBook and then ask for feedback from your family and friends whether they like it or not.

Its always better to spend time on having a nice title for your eBook than to worry later why no one is downloading your eBook.

5. Design A Professional Book cover

We often heard the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

But everybody does.

Before any reader will click and read your amazing eBook the first thing they will notice is the book cover.

If they find the cover interesting and something that reels them in, only then will they click to read more about the book and then later on purchase.

So having an amazing book cover is still the key.

And to get such amazing eBook covers you should hire a professional designer who can design such an eBook cover.

If one thing where you should be spending money is on eBook cover to get a quality design.

You can get professional graphics designer on freelance sites like Upwork, 99design, Fiverr, etc.

But before you order a graphics designer for your eBook cover you should explain your design which you have been thinking on to the designer so you can get the required result.

Still, if you don’t have any budget to spend on cover designing you can use these two sites to design your own eBook cover for free to a maximum of $1.

The sites which I have used and still using are:

1. Canva
2. Crello

6. Take Time To Write An Awesome Description

Sometimes, authors are so excited to publish their eBook in Amazon that they spend less to no time on writing their eBook description.

Description section will be the third catch to make a final sell.

Though eBook cover and catchy title already made the reader halfway there to purchase your eBook, the description will let them make the final decision.

Take time to explain to your readers what your eBook content is all about.

Here’s a book description that sells.

This is an example of a book description from Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

7. Promote Your Ebook

You cannot reach your target audience by just organic traffic.

You have to promote your eBook extensively.

Ebook writing is 20% of the task. The remaining 80% will be your marketing and promotion.

Promotion can be paid as well as free.

Paid Promotion

You can use Amazon paid ads to increase the reach of your eBook audience.

And Amazon ads cost less and you can get higher returns as well.

You can even create Facebook ads to promote your eBook on Facebook.

This is the most widely used paid promotion technique and mostly all authors use it.

If you have the right campaign the cost per click is even lower than $0.1.

As Facebook is the largest social network you will get exposure to a wide variety of audience for your genre.

The next option you can use for doing paid promotion for your eBook is to use Google Ads.

Though I don’t recommend using Google Ads for fiction eBooks.

But you can surely use if you have a non-fiction eBook.

Free Promotion Method for generating ebook sales

1. Share on Facebook Groups

There are Facebook groups for every genre.

So you can join these groups and can share your eBooks there.

Note: Not all groups allows sharing for promotional purpose. While some do on different days.

So share when it is allowed.

Even if some groups don’t allow you can always ask the group admin for sharing your eBook.

Sometimes they charge but a lot of times they can do it for free and just need a free authors copy.

2. Share Your Ebook on Different Social Media

Like Facebook, you should continuously share your eBook on Twitter and Instagram.

If you are active on other platforms then share on them.

3. Host Giveaways

Giveaways are the best way to generate quick buzz for your eBook.

Though giving away books will not make any money but it will surely help you to gain reviews.

Reviews also help the user in making a purchase decision.

You can give review copies to influencers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Group Admins, Book reviewers, Book Bloggers, etc.

And in return, they will share the review of your eBook on their respective platforms.

This type of promotion will definitely help you in bringing more sales as other people are promoting your ebook.

“Word of Mouth” is the best promotion technique that anyone can use.

8. Create an Audiobook

So now you have published your eBook. The next step will be to create an audiobook at a later stage.

This is a purely optional step, so if you want you can skip this step.

This is just an additional step to increase your revenue as Audiobooks are becoming more and more popular.

And the audiobook can only be created after you published your eBook.

So creating an audiobook will be an added advantage for you.

Though the creation and publishing of an audiobook is a complex process as you will be required to hire a professional voice-over artist.

Yes, you should not narrate your own audiobook.

I highly recommend that you get a narrator to create an audio version of your eBook.

Make Money Selling Ebooks By Giving Them Away For Free

When you publish an eBook on Amazon you can set the price depending upon your wish.

So set it $0 for a few days.

Well, that may sound just opposite as you are publishing an eBook to make money.

Well yes, it is.

But listing your eBook for free on Amazon will boost your eBook presence on Amazon Kindle and you may end up in the Kindle Bestseller list.

Though you will not make any profit out of it you will definitely reach a wider audience as everyone loves free eBooks.

In return, you will also get reviews which is better for selling more eBooks in the future.

Run this promotion for only 5 days, not more than that.

Later change the price to something like $2.99.

Now when new readers will come to view your eBook they can see some reviews too on your page.

Thus it will help you sell your eBooks more easily and you can make money selling eBooks fast.

Make Money With Ebooks By Selling It Online On:

1. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

Selling eBooks on Amazon is the best and easiest way to make money without going through hardships and struggles of traditional publishing.

I have a guide to publishing an ebook on Amazon that you can read to know more in detail.

Amazon KDP is the holy grail for people who want to self-publish their eBook.

You can also utilize Amazon Audible to create an Audiobook version of your eBook.

My first recommendation is to choose Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

2. Google Play Books

You can also list your eBook on Google Play Books if you like.

This is still a good choice as all the android smartphones come with Google Books preinstalled so you can get some more downloads.

It also has the option to put your eBook for free.

So you can also use this option to promote your eBook.

Though it will not generate much sales.

Do this at a later stage when you will your eBook sales become stagnant on Amazon or you have more of an audience who reads on Google Books.

3. iBooks

iBooks are for people who have iPhone, mac, or iPad.

Publishing in iBooks has the most complicated process than many other platforms out there.

So I rather skip it.

But if you got the time you can give it a shot.

But better ignore it as it will not bring much on the table.

Other platforms

There are some other e-publishing platforms that you can use to publish your eBook.

These are:

1. Kobo
2. Nook
3. Scribd

Make Money Selling Ebooks On Your Own Blog

You know all the eBook publishing platform charge some commission and you will only get 35-70%.

But you can make 100% profit from selling your eBooks on your own blog.

This is tricky and is the final step when you already have a fan following.

I only recommend selling eBooks on your own website when you’ve already established yourself as some authority in your niche.

You can create your authority either just by selling eBooks on a particular niche or you can provide some value and insights on your blog.

If you don’t have an Authors blog you should definitely get one.

You can use Siteground or Bluehost for creating your Author’s Blog.

The Most Important Step To Make Money Selling Ebooks Is:

Write Continuously.

If you write one eBook in the first month try to create more in the second month and so on.

You have to keep writing eBooks to create new things in the trending market.

Don’t limit yourself.

You just need one book to become hit.

And if it becomes a hit the reader will go back to buy your previous eBooks also.

Thus one book can sell all of your books.

All you have to do is write, write, and write.

Never stop even if you didn’t get the required results or even if you didn’t make any money selling eBooks.

It takes time but selling eBooks can make good money for a lifetime.

This is the power of passive income and you can get it by creating and selling eBooks.