Well, the e-Book is finally finished and ready for publication. Now what? I consulted some eZine articles and an eHow article, How to Sell One Million ebooks on the Internet, in order to find the best way to market, publish and sell my e-book. I will be honest, the process did not take long. I mainly just wanted to get the e-book done and out. It is a quality e-book with a good subject that isn’t widely written about. My idol makes around $10,000 a month from his LEED e-book.
This is my idol:
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/
I cannot compete with him. This guy makes like 20,000 a month total. My figure is more like $50 - $100 a month, but I am working temporarily and going to school right now. This is my side venture. Maybe one day, I will be able to pursue it full-time, but it is really my hobby. Visit his site for some really good information about how to make real money.
For the topic of my e-book, I chose “The Complete Online Coupon E-book”. It is chock full of information about how to find coupons online, and is virtually my other blog, page for page, all in one package. I am thinking of retiring the coupon blog for one about going to school online, which seems to interest more people.
So far, I have sold zero copies. Tangible items are easier for me to sell – things like clothing, laptops, and coupons themselves. I find electronic information like e-books and computer programs to be lousy sellers, but Pat has had so much luck with his – which is so much more specialized, etc. than this one, that I decided to try it. Since I am finishing the blog and starting another today, it also gave me a good stopping point.
I wrote my e-book in Microsoft Word 2007, which now has the ability to save files in pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format for easy e-book writing. I published the e-book using the four publishing methods listed below. It has yet to sell a copy, but it has only been around 20 hours. My goal is to sell at least 10 copies before investing in any advertising, etc. I would hate to waste advertising dollars on something that is not going to be successful at all, and I really haven’t had much luck with digital media. If you have an excellent topic like Sam, I would recommend it. Otherwise, I’ll probably stick to clothing, etc. on eBay.
1. eBay – eBay is a good site to publish your e-book, I guess. eBay is always a good method to market just about anything. Here is a link to my eBay advertisement if you would like to see an example of a published e-book on eBay.
eBay listing of The Complete Online Coupon E-Book
Most anything sells on eBay. Grilled cheese pictures of the Virgin Mary, etc. Why not my e-book? First, they want you to use some type of classified format, but I just bypassed that. Just change the keywords in your title. A short summary and $2.15 later, my e-book was up and running. Now the little e-book is just waiting on a purchaser.
2. Tradebit – You must register for an account at Tradebit. Click here to register. There are no fees, etc. to sell your product, but a fee is taken from the sell of your product. In other words, if you sell your item for $4.99, Tradebit will probably make some type of fee from it, usually around $1 for that much, and you will receive $3.99 for the sale of your e-book. Other might sell your e-book for you and make a commission similar to Clickbank, etc. Tradebit is a good starting point, and you can list your item for free. You can also sell music, etc. there. Here is a link to the listing for the e-book on Tradebit.com:
Tradebit.com listing of the The Complete Online Coupon E-book
3. Lulu.com – Lulu is a wonderful site for authors. You can package and sell your ebook here, and they even have marketing packages available. The marketing packages are too much for me, but you may find them useful. Marketing the e-book is probably the most important part of publishing your e-book. If I sell my 10 copies, I will probably market more. Who knows? At Lulu.com, you select sizes, bindings, etc., upload your files, build a cover, set the price, and promote your book all in one place. I find Lulu.com to be a great place for authors, and I would recommend it to anyone with a manuscript.
This is my Lulu created cover:
Lulu.com listing of The Complete Online Coupon E-book
4. MobiPocket – Amazon e-books supposedly are sourced from MobiPocket now. I’m not sure. I listed my book here as well.
5. I have also submitted the book to CreateSpace.com. I am not sure if they will accept the manuscript, but at least I tried. CreateSpace is also an excellent source when it comes to publishing a book. This is Amazon.com’s way to put your book in actual print form and sell it on Amazon.com, and it’s free!
CreateSpace.com listing of the The Complete Online Coupon E-book
Things to do : An effective press release, post links on forums, etc., send a few emails, and do some more marketing research, write a post for my other blog to sell e-books. Post an update later.
Here is another eHow article on How to Promote an e-book
http://www.ehow.com/how_2197069_promote-an-ebook.html
eTexts and eBooks Directory Directory of most eBooks, sold in the Internet.
Electronical Books in PDF.
The Complete Online Coupon E-Book
