How Much Money Can I Make Selling Ebooks

How I Earned $45K Self-Publishing ten Ebooks: Summit Takeaways

Information technology feels like yesterday that I was cocky-publishing my very first ebook, Make a Living Writing: The 21st Century Guide. I made quite a few mistakes putting that out, and information technology's no longer available (cough).

Just I lived and learned, and created better ebooks. As I prepped to release my latest, Small Blog, Big Income: Avant-garde Ninja Tricks for Profitable Blogging, I realized I now accept TEN ebooks bachelor for sale, counting my complimentary ebook for subscribers.

I've learned a ton along the way, then I thought I'd salvage others some fourth dimension and unpack it all by educational activity yous how to make money writing ebooks.

I've fabricated over $45,000 selling ebooks over the past 6 years, without a lot of try (I added information technology upwards when I was writing the new ebook, because I was curious!). So it can add up to a substantial clamper of change, over time.

What helps me earn well from each ebook I release these days? Hither are 17 hard-won tips for how to make money writing ebooks.

17 Things I've Learned Most How to Make Money Writing Ebooks

1. Ask Readers First

Equally with any production you develop, begin by discovering what your readers desperately need—and therefore, would spend coin to learn from you. Take a survey, run a question-driven weblog post and read the comments, hold a tweetchat, outset a Facebook thread. However you exercise it, find out what your readers' pains are, and recall well-nigh how you tin can solve them.

two. Inquiry the Competition

Once yous know what readers want, it's time to enquiry the contest to fine-melody how to position your ebook, and to tweak the title to use the best possible keywords.

Are there already a lot of recent ebooks on this topic? Who are the superlative sellers? What Amazon categories do they apply? What are they charging? This competitive intel will help you tweak your ebook concept. Information technology definitely did for me with that offset Small Blog, Big Income ebook, which started out every bit "How I Earn a Six-Figure Income From My Tiny Niche Blog."

These days, I'thousand using Dave Chesson's great research tool KDP Rocket (yeah, since I use and love it, I affiliate sell it), which gives yous quick answers to these key competitive-inquiry questions. The revised title has "niche blogger," "brand money blogging," other useful key terms the initial title idea lacked.

A review of current offerings and feedback from my author mastermind showed me that my initial championship choice might feel scammy to some (fifty-fifty though that's exactly what the content is), and it wasn't different enough from other offerings. Don't write an ebook in a vacuum!

3. Shorter Is Amend

People don't want to read endless ebooks like my outset one, which topped 200 pages! Improve to break up your material into multiple ebooks than to endeavour to cram information technology all into one. Yes, Amazon is now penalizing shorter ebooks in author royalties…only short ebooks are still more effective in building reader loyalty, especially in nonfiction.

iv. Write a Serial

Cypher is easier to sell than a sequel to a previous ebook. I've washed a series of iv Freelance Writers Den ebooks adapted from bootcamps, and the new Small-scale Web log, Big Income ebook is the sequel to the original Pocket-size Blog, Big Income: A Niche Blogger'southward 7-Step Success Formula.

Know what I did to sell the new one? I sent an e-mail to everyone who bought the offset one, and made hundreds of sales. Easy!

5. Cheaper Is Ameliorate

Trust me, y'all will earn more in the long run with lower-priced ebooks, almost every time. On Amazon, annihilation above $3.99 is existent tough sledding.

I recently heard from a new writer who wanted me to affiliate sell his $27 ebook. I said, "Take you visited Amazon lately?"

Call back, though they may exist a paid production, ebooks are rarely a huge earner, especially in the brusque run. Most ebook sellers price them low to get people into their marketing funnel and sell them pricier stuff — their consulting, premium courses, and the similar.

If you're dreaming of selling a $79 ebook as your primary earner, you'll have a hard fourth dimension making sales, unless you're a big name with a built-in audition dying to buy anything you lot put out.

6. Repurpose Your Content

I've done well turning everything from live event transcripts to collections of blog posts into ebooks. People are not offended that you're recycling—different buyers like to purchase things in dissimilar formats, and some like ebooks.

Don't think you have to write from scratch! Aside from my very first ebook and the two Minor Blog, Big Income entries, all of my other ebooks are repurposed content.

7. Collaborate

Aye, Collaborators are terrific for ebook writing! Almost of my ebooks take co-authors—I even did one with xl different authors that I edited and presented. That means I had forty other writers who would promote the ebook.

Curated content rocks. Collaborating will allow you to generate more ebooks faster, which is important.

viii. Write Multiple Books

The easiest mode to sell more copies of your ebook is to take another ebook come out. Readers will be more receptive and less bellyaching than if y'all keep flogging that 1, one-time ebook. A new ebook gets readers looking over—and buying—your old titles.

When you take additional ebooks, you can also create 'package' sales of multiple ebooks at a discount. That'due south been i of my most popular types of ebook offers.

9. Refresh/Update Your Ebooks

You can too redesign the embrace of an older ebook, update and introduce a new edition, or otherwise refresh an older ebook and promote it to create a sales surge. Linda Formichelli and I did this with our co-written ebook 13 Means to Become the Writing Done Faster, which initially had a cheesy, homemade embrace — and nosotros've been selling copies steadily ever since.

10. Invest in Design

I don't go on Fiverr and pay $x for a cover. I normally invest $1200-$2000 in my ebook publishing process—and brand information technology back the showtime week. You can recoup for the relatively modest size of your audience and look more than successful with amend-quality ebook design.

I employ the webmaster team I employ for my blog and Den community, but if you want turnkey assist, I'm hearing good things about Archangel Ink's services and have seen prissy products from them (and so I recommend and chapter sell them). I learned nigh them from self-publishing skilful Steve Scott, who I read regularly. Observe some self-publishing successes and watch what they do — you'll save yourself a ton of time and endeavour.

11. Participate in Events

Again, people: Think collaboration! Instead of trying to sell your ebook all by yourself, team upwards with 5-x other authors and practise it together. Do it in person at a bookstore, practise information technology online—but get together.

That mode, you all pool your pocket-size lists and end up with a much bigger audience. I recently ran a 99-cent, 1-day, multi-author ebook sale off a simple web log post that netted thousands of dollars for the authors (without paying for ads on BookBub or whatsoever of the other book-promo sites).

12. Know Your Goal

Know what yous're trying to accomplish with your ebook before you write, price, and marketplace it. If it's supposed to exist your cash cow, you'll write, design, and marketplace it differently than if it's your $1 tripwire.

Some authors use their ebooks to build authority and land lucrative public speaking gigs, or fill up seats at their live or online conferences. With this new ebook, for instance, I'thou finally acceding to many requests that I offer blog coaching, and debuting that service. When your ebook is the tip of a sales iceberg of related services, you lot tin earn a lot more.

13. Sell Inside Your Book

One recently learned trick for me is to offer one cheap additional ebook earlier the table of contents in your ebook. That way, information technology shows upwards in Amazon's 'Look Inside the Book' excerpt, and exposes readers to more of your items.

Flip to the end of my ebooks, and yous'll see a link to every single product I offer. Don't forget to update your endpapers in your ebooks equally you add together new products. Your reader is now a qualified buyer from you, and that means they're a good bet to buy boosted things from you.

14. Presell, Presell, Presell

Selling ebooks is all virtually preparing the fashion. It's impossible to get-go too early, talking nearly an ebook! Conversation in social media most your typhoon, your cover possibilities, your topic. Publish web log posts on the topic. Invitee post alee of the release.

Offer your readers discounts for reserving presale copies. Get the buzz going, earlier official launch day. At this point, the bulk of the money I earn from ebooks happen during presales! And running a presale besides ways you've got a listing of people who've read the volume that you tin can email on release day and ask to leave Amazon reviews.

xv. 99 Cents Is the New Gratis

A lot of authors are hooked on the sectional, free Kindle Direct Publishing promo ebook launch. They'll even pay BuckBooks and the similar hundreds to promote their free offering! I've tried it myself, and I'g here to say I call back these gratis giveaways are a crock—peculiarly for bloggers with a smaller audience. Yes, you get some sales afterwards them, because the freebie event spikes your rankings…only the bear upon tends to exist fleeting.

You become thousands of gratuitous downloads, get all excited that fizz is spreading…and oft, end up making $300 when you lot switch to request folks to pay for your ebook. At this point, I've heard also many reports of that from other self-publishing authors. I retrieve this is a strategy that once worked well, but now that the market is super-saturated with ebook releases, it merely doesn't anymore.

Why doesn't a KDP freebie event lead to a lot of sales? Considering free downloaders are NOT buyers. They're freeloaders. So their downloads don't hateful much. Instead, do a 99-cent sale. That's a manner to become a big pool of qualified buyers — peculiarly if you follow this side by side tip:

16. Capture Buyers' Emails

The big problem with selling on Amazon is y'all don't know who buys. You don't get a list of previous purchasers you can sell the next ebook or course.

Solve this by leaving something out of your ebook that they must come up to your site and requite you their email accost to get. In the case of my newest Small Blog, Large Income installment, it's a special written report with 90 Actionable Tips for earning more from blogging. I create fillable workbooks for many of my ebooks, and so readers have a expert place to accept notes and build their own action program, based on the tips.

The other way to know who your buyers are is…

17. Continue All the Money

Yes, I know I depart from the pack on this 1. My Amazon sales are only a small role of my ebook sales strategy, and with the e-tail giant'southward ever-irresolute rules and policies which seem to result in ever-smaller author royalties, I recommend information technology be a modest part of yours.

When you lot sell an ebook on your own site, to your ain audience, you lot are in complete control of the process, and you keep all the money. This is what you lot built your niche audience for—and then yous tin sell them straight, and not be dependent on the whims of Amazon's algorithms to earn! I neglect to see why I should give Amazon 70% of the money for selling an ebook to someone I already know.

On Amazon, you cannot run bundle sales or offer readers special discounts the general public doesn't become. And that makes it a bad place to debut a volume, in my view.

I put my ebooks on Amazon after presales and after launch week, when I'chiliad done offering deals to my audition. Yep, I've been told I'm a fool, and if I went KDP Select exclusively and emailed all my peeps to buy on Amazon, I could rank well and Amazon would become a greenbacks car…and all I tin can say is, I'm skeptical.

As a niche blogger, it's fundamental that y'all keep rewarding your subscribers and make them feel special when they buy. They should experience they're getting the inside line and that it's well worth staying on your list. If they exercise, they volition buy again and once more. Transport them to Amazon to buy your volume, and…well, information technology's less special.

I also feel confident that there's no style I would have earned shut to $50,000 selling these ebooks via Amazon. They just take as well big of a chunk of your sales.

xviii. Bonus! Track the Trends

If I had a last point to add, it would be that the world of online self-publishing keeps on changing. The points in a higher place outline my philosophy to this betoken, merely the playing field keeps shifting. Try new things, and stay on acme of what'south going on in the ebook sales market place to run across where y'all have the best opportunity.

Got self-publishing questions? Exit a comment, and let's hash out.