Making Money on Ebooks: 9 Real Facts You Should Know
Having created a couple of ebooks with no budget at all and which are mainly composed of a few novels and novellas, I can definitely say that ebook writing is definitely something that anyone should consider as a source of passive income side hustle.While I’m not making a full time living with my ebooks, I have been receiving income on a regular basis for ebooks that I’ve written several months ago.
But if you are contemplating on whether to write ebooks for money, here are a few facts you should consider:
Note: These information were derived from my more than a year’s experience writing ebooks. Some facts were also taken from various online sources.
9 real facts about making money on ebooks:
1. Could you really earn a living with ebooks?2. The state of the ebook market
3. Ebooks are lead magnets
4. Its easy to make ebooks
5. Where to sell your ebooks
6. Do you need a niche?
7. Does your cover page need to be exceptional?
8. Pricing your ebook
9. Promoting your ebook
Final Words
The Details:
1. Could you really earn a living with ebooks?
I have written a separate article regarding the common financial conditions of most ebook authors titled: Do You Want to Sell E-Books?
It’s full of information regarding how hard it is to earn a living being an ebook writer. But aren’t almost all business venture in the same condition nowadays?
This is because there is a low barrier to entry for most digital businesses of which writing ebooks is one. As a result, there is fierce competition for a limited number of ebook readers.
If you read the article I just mentioned, it states that: “of the approximately 200,000 authors selling ebooks on Amazon only about 5,000 or less than 3% consistently earn $10,000 a year or more.”
$10,000 might be more than a living wage in developing countries, but its way, way below living wage in developed countries like the USA, of which most of the ebook authors/sellers in Amazon live.
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2. The state of the ebook market
According to Mordor Intelligence, the ebook market is growing despite the continuing strong sales of printed books and the continuing fast growth of audiobooks.
Global ebook sales are expected to grow at a steady annual rate of 3.92% from 2023 to 2028 with North America as its strongest market. Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific is its fastest growing market.
The relative cheapness of ebooks as compared to printed books and audiobooks is a strong factor in its growth. Printed books and audiobooks could be up to 10 times more expensive than their ebook counterparts.
Ebooks are also eating away at the sales of printed books because they are so convenient to readers. You could literally store hundreds of ebooks in your ebook reader, iPad, or laptop while book collections can’t even fit in your cabinet.
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3. Ebooks are lead magnets
As already said, a vast majority of ebook authors don’t make a full time living writing them, but they can be excellent lead magnets.
This is the reason why there are businesspeople especially digital content marketers who give them away for free.
An ebook is very cheap and almost free to create and even easier to write. Gone are the days when ebooks are as long as novels. Now, ebooks can be as short as a few pages long, not even 10 pages in length.
A businessperson can write their sales pitch in their ebook and give it away for free to potential customers. Ebooks can even be used as cheap prizes or giveaways to attract potential customers.
It doesn’t matter what product you are selling. You can always give out ebooks to promote your product.
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4. Its easy to make ebooks
You don’t have to be a technical specialist to create ebooks. You can create your ebook content on virtually any word processor and then upload it to ebook platforms like Amazon Kindle or Draft2Digital for ebook formatting. It’s this free and easy.
You could use free and paid graphics softwares to create the cover of your ebook. For example, Canva is a freemium graphics software. You could use the basic free features of Canva to create your ebook cover or use the paid version for advanced features.
The Adobe suite of graphics software is pricy but is the industry standard when it comes to graphics software.
I personally use Procreate which is not only very affordable, but is very easy to use. I can create an ebook cover page within minutes by just using it.
If you’re concerned about your grammar and spelling, most word processors today have ample features for spelling and grammar checking. But professional spelling and grammar softwares like Grammarly can even take the place of real life proofreaders.
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5. Where to sell your ebooks
Without a doubt, Amazon Kindle is the largest ebook platform in the world, it holds 83% of the market for ebooks.
The downside of Amazon Kindle is that you have to enter into an exclusive licensing agreement with them. This means that you have to only sell your ebooks through Amazon Kindle or face being delisted by them.
I personally use Draft2Digital which is one of the top ebook aggregators. What is an aggregator? It is a company that distributes your ebooks to other ebook platforms and takes a small commission when your ebooks are sold to these ebook platforms.
If you must know, Draft2Digital has acquired one of the biggest ebook aggregator in the world which is SmashWords. This is how big Draft2Digital has become. They also distribute ebooks on Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, online libraries and other ebook platforms.
If you want to know the other online ebook publishing platforms, all you have to do for example is to Google Search the keywords: “online ebook publishing platforms".
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6. Do you need a niche?
Contrary to what I read online about finding a niche for your ebook writing, I found out that I was able to sell ebooks on different niches.
I have sold ebooks in both the fiction and non-fiction category. I have sold ebooks in business, romance, fantasy, contemporary and so on. For me at least, my ebooks don’t have to fall on a distinct niche.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy what I’m writing and write only ebooks based on their market popularity.
Rather, I write ebooks that I enjoy writing that also happens to be what readers are reading, at least according to my market research.
I suggest doing your market research before writing an ebook. Then based on your market research, select niches that you enjoy writing an ebook for.
Remember, ebook writing is a business, and businesses need customers (readers) and market research to have a chance of becoming successful.
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7. Does your cover page need to be exceptional?
There are so-called ebook experts who teach that you must have a high quality or exceptional ebook cover for your ebook to sell. But what exactly is a “quality” or “exceptional” book cover?
Does it mean hiring an expensive professional graphics designer or an ebook services company to design an ebook cover for you?
If you must know, so-called exceptional ebook covers can cost from a hundred to a thousand dollars if you use the services of a professional ebook services company.
I make my own ebook covers and to my experience, my ebooks have sold in spite of this. I am not advising you not to use professional graphics designers, but you should ask this to yourself:
Would my ebook sales make up for what I would spend hiring a professional graphics designer to create my ebook cover?
What I suggest is to make your ebook cover yourself first and then maybe hire professionals later to revise or replace your ebook cover once you’re sure that what you would be spending for the ebook cover would be more than paid for by your ebook sales.
I suggest you concentrate also on your ebook description or summary which is like your “movie trailer” to your ebook. There are ebook readers who buy ebooks from unknown authors based solely on their ebook description or summary alone.
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8. Pricing your ebook
There have been many debates regarding this. One argument is that a low price conveys that an ebook is of low quality. Another argument is that high priced ebooks turn off price conscious but rabid ebook buyers.
But with the glut of ebooks today, the battleground for the customer’s (ebook reader’s) money is now centering on pricing. Many ebook authors have even resorted to giving away some of their ebooks with the hopes of attracting customers who would buy their other ebooks.
Unfortunately, many ebook authors today are realizing that free ebooks only attract non-paying ebook readers who won’t read their other ebooks if they put a price on it, even a cheap one.
It’s best that you put a price on your ebook even if it’s as low as one dollar. This way, you still get a small sale which could accumulate into a large amount if you sell more.
If your ebook is selling well, you can then raise prices slowly until you notice that there is a big drop in your sales. This means that you have reached your pricing threshold.
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9. Promoting your ebook
Once you have created an ebook and uploaded it in an online ebook platform, it would automatically be indexed by Google Search and the other search engines.
This means that if a person Googles your name or the title of your ebook, Google would show your ebook and the ebook platform it is located in.
Although online ebook platforms are already doing the ebook marketing for you, you should also create online content associated with your name and your ebook’s title. The rest would be done by Google to make sure that people are informed that you have an ebook for sale online.
Remember that it’s not only your name or ebook that would be shown by the search engines, but all available online information about you.
Make sure that you have a “clean” persona online and even offline so you don’t turn off customers from buying and reading your ebook.
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Final Words
Although many articles online promote that writing is a good way to earn passive income, not many delve into the real fact that it is very hard to make a living by just writing ebooks. A vast majority of ebook authors don’t make a full living writing ebooks.
But ebooks are a good source of passive income. Ebooks that you have written months or even years ago may still earn you money today.
It’s easy to make an ebook, you don’t even have to be hard on yourself by concentrating on a specific niche, you don’t even have to make exceptional ebook covers initially until your ebook sells really well.
But besides a source of passive income, ebooks also make excellent lead magnets because they’re so easy and cheap to produce and free to distribute.
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You Might Be Interested To Read This Article:
Do You Want to Sell E-Books?
There are many aspiring writers who want to write their own books and with the popularity of self-publishing this has become very easy. All you have to do is write your book in a word processor and convert the file into the required e-book format. You can then upload this file to an e-commerce store or to your own website where you can sell it online...