Earn Money Online Selling eBooks
February 19, 2008 by Tom Lindstrom · 12 Comments
Is it possible to earn money online selling e-books, or even getting rich doing so? No one can guarantee you will become a millionaire by selling e-books online, but it is fully possible to earn a very nice income.Some people have a home business and work from home selling ebooks from their website.
Ebooks are electronic versions of printed material that can contain text, sound, and images. A new trend are the audio books.The profit potential from selling them is high because start up and operating expenses are very low.The biggest expense is purchasing books for sale, you can earn even more money if you write some of your own e-books.
Your writing skills don’t have to be stellar. There are online sources that will take your research and craft an e-book for you. Some of these companies even take care of marketing, payments, and shipping.
Buying e-books for Sale
You can purchase e-books from authors online.eBay is another source for e-book buying. Purchase e-books with resell rights.This allows customers to sell the e-books they buy from you themselves thus providing an incentive for them to do business with you.Make sure the e-books you buy (or write yourself) are full of useful information and resources.
Some e-books are nothing more than ads and sales pitches for the writer’s products. These “ad books” will turn off customers and decrease repeat business, and also ruin your reputation. People are looking for quality information, so do your research to determine what types of information people are seeking.
Before buying an e-book for resale, do an online search for the title.If lots of web sites are selling the book, it’s probably a popular title and will be a good seller.It also helps to sell e-books that cater to a specific market niche.Search online forums and other group sites to locate potential target markets for niche titles.Contact these groups with a short email inviting them to visit your site. Offer an incentive such as 20% off first purchase to increase site traffic.
E-books about current trends or hot topics will generate more income. Your income will really get a boost if you can spot the “next big topic” and write or purchase e-books to sell before the competition saturates the market.
Marketing Extras
You can use a common template for your e-books web site or sell them on an existing site you already have. However, to stand out from the competition, create you own web site to sell e-books. Always add new titles to your stock to keep old customers coming back and to attract new ones. Use email to notify customers of new titles and special sales. Offer discounts on slow moving titles.
Affiliate programs are another way to get rich selling e-books. The affiliate pays you a commission for of its e-books you sell. To earn extra cash from ebooks you write, start your own affiliate program, or join an affiliate program that does all the “paperwork” for you.
There are plenty of online and print books that will help you learn how to get in on the e-book sales bandwagon. A good place to begin is to join Affiliatenaire where you will get step-by-step instructions about how to earn money online selling other peoples products and services, including ebooks.
Sheila@viking-direct (17)
Apple Tablet (7)
Tom - Free Squeez... (7)
Duncan (5)
Sheila@SillyStats (5)
Curtis N (3)
Mark Clayson (3)
Rototiller (3)
Have you had any luck selling ebooks?
I am thinking of it being one of things I look into doing, very soon.
Hi Forrest! Selling ebooks should be one of the many income streams you have.I see you are blogging, so the easiest way to sell ebooks would be right from your blog.I have got a few sales, but this is something I have just started with.
-Tom
I can’t tell you how much I have spent on eBooks and even though I have made a few requests for a refund for the most part it’s been money well spent. More of an investment in my blogging future.
I do sell ebooks on my hobby blogs. I like using ClickBank for this as they make it easy. I don’t care for their marketplace interface so I purchase CB Engine, it’s so much easier and more detailed at the same time.
I will eventually write a couple of ebooks that fit my hobby blogs but for now I keep myself pretty busy. After all I must leave myself enough time to enjoy my hobbies and the money they make me.
Selling ebooks can be a very lucrative business online. I think that the easiest way to make money selling ebooks, or to get you started, at least, is to actually sell them on eBay. There’s a great ebook you can read that teaches you how to automate the entire process called eBay Imperium. Great book, very organized and written by a powerseller himself.
@ James
Thanks for commenting. Clickbank is the best medium for selling ebooks.No need to worry about anything, just collect your check when you make sales.
@ Real Auction Income
Hi! There are many good ebooks online that I would need to read,just not enough time.Any suggestions where to start
Nice articles you got here, very usefull for every one who need some tips or references. Ishould put some of your articles on my website. Maybe we can share our articles someday. Let me know if i can share my article here. You can reach me at http://www.tipscollections.com. Thanks
Hi Taufik! You are welcome to write an article, I will post it on my blog.
Very sincere advice. Thanks.
Very balanced article. Ebooks are a great resource for consumers and a great product for online business people. I have created and sold a number of them myself with good success.
One update to what you’ve written. Ebay ended the ability to auction digital download products which has had a profound impact on the way people sell on that site.
If you want to sell a digital download you need to create an eBay Classified ad. Otherwise, you’ll need to burn the ebook to a disc and sell the physical product instead and ship it out.
Andrew Seltz – Ebook Marketing Secretss last blog post..Free Download: One Into A Million E-Book
Hi Andrew, thanks for stopping by.Thanks for the update, everything changes so fast
I have heard about news of being able to create your own e-book for free online. The idea has crossed my mind several times because, I am the kinda girl who loves to blog and keep a diary. E-books can definitely be profitable but, only if you have good content and stuff that your readers are interested in. I am still asking myself who would read the ramblings of a talented WAHM who tries to make some extra money online. I think that my strongest talent is web design or graphics but that will not make a great e-book. What do you think would be a suitable e-book idea for a SAHM ?