Have you ever thought about writing a book and making money out of it? If your answer is yes, then the only thing that probably stops you is that you need a publisher to do it. But do you know that, there is a better option: eBooks (or E-book).

And this article discusses following two things:

1. 4 types of eBooks you can create and sell
2. Ways to make money from E-book

Here’s a reality: 

Anything can be bought on the internet. Which also means, anything can be sold over the internet.

So why don’t we take advantage of that?

The problem is that, we already spend a lot of time selling “products” over the Internet, and we are even beyond booking and providing services.

We are at a point where we can sell anything, even a skill or a thought. We can even pack them so well into a great versatile ebook that you can sell them anywhere.

What makes ebooks so practical is that they can be read anywhere and anytime, be it on a computer, an ebook reader, a tablet or iPad, or even a Smartphone. Which means the possibilities are endless when it comes to marketing and potential audiences.

Let’s start with the kind of ebooks you can create and then let’s see how you can make money using them.

4 types of ebooks you can put up for sale

1. The first and most obvious option is to write a book

Do you have a story in mind? A compilation of stories or poetry? Write them down and sell them. With the help of ebooks and E-book authoring tools, you can now create ebooks and convert them to any preferred format without the help of an expensive editor.

Of course, you won’t have access to the same resources that publishers have, which will help your book sell in large quantities around the world. But it will also be in charge of your own marketing, you’ll get all the rights and you’ll be able to write about whatever you want without being restricted to what a publisher thinks it will sell.

Also, let’s be honest, finding an agent, creating cover letters and surviving a lot of rejection letters is not what you would call “fun”.

So creating an ebook and selling it yourself will eliminate the need for all that. And ensure that your book not only goes out into the world, but starts selling right away.

Self-publishing is actually a widely disseminated section of the publishing industry that is slowly growing at great proportions. It has surpassed the online sales of the big publishers.

Considering the growing market and available distributors, it is now much easier to sell ebooks to almost anyone with Internet access and online payment options such as credit card or PayPal.

But if you don’t think you’re particularly talented at creating capricious worlds or if you have a special gift for poetry, don’t worry, there are many other ways to tell everything via ebooks.

2. Share your thoughts, reflections and funny stories

Do you have a peculiar writing voice when telling anecdotes? Do you have a sense of humor that translates well into writing? Believe it or not, people like to read funny and interesting things.

Why do you think there’s a big market for comedy and autobiographical genres? Why do you think gossip columns and embarrassing stories, or even Keeping Up With the Kardashians (an American reality television series focused on the Kardashian-Jenner family) are such great successes with people?

Basically people enjoy knowing about other people’s lives, following them and living indirectly through them.

If you are able to turn your life into such a fun compilation of anecdotes, then you can surely have good ebook material in your hands. It doesn’t even have to be fun, it can be something you’ve learned, an epiphany that came to you, a moment that changed your life and could help others.

Now can you imagine making a complete ebook, full of experiences that are so recognizable but told in a fun way that people wouldn’t be able to resist? You’ll get the equivalent of shared resources and tags, but converted into sales.

3. Turn your blog or website into an ebook

• What if you already have content you’re proud of on your blog or website?
• What if you have a large knowledge base on your website that your readers might have difficulty finding on your website?

Converting all that content and putting it into a well organized and divided ebook could be the perfect plan for your users. And a great way for you to make money.

A great way to make people appreciate all the content you’ve worked so hard to create your website or blog would be to offer them this E-book. And in exchange ask for a subscription to your blog or website, or for a small fee, as it’s all there and will limit the time they will spend browsing the website.

You can even add special content in the ebook, more than what your website or blog already contains, in an attempt to increase the downloads and appreciate the content.

4. Create an extension for your business

As mentioned above, you can now sell your skills online and it will be particularly easy to do so with an e-book.

Let’s say, for example, that you are a personal trainer or you have a gym. One way to share your personal experience and get more extra money is to create exercise routines with good explanatory illustrations and put them on sale.

Or if you’re a nutritionist, you can suggest diets for people to follow or a daily eating plan for people to be healthier.

How about being a cook or a baker? Prepare excellent recipes and create your own recipe book, even if you’re a housewife, it’s a skill and people love home-cooked food.

No matter what your skill, if you have enough knowledge and know business secrets that you have learned from the experience, you can share it on the Internet in the form of ebooks in exchange for money.

How to make money with your ebook

Well, you’ve got the ebook, now you’re wondering how to make money with it, after all, this is the main point of this blog post. Well, there are so many ways to do it, the options are endless!

Go to editors, distributors and aggregators online

The most guaranteed way to sell your book would be to use a known online ebook distribution platform, such as Amazon, Kobo or Nook. Considering that all three have eReaders, they already have a wide audience and clientele to sell your ebook as well. But there are other self publishing platforms, such as Lulu and Book Baby.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of signing up on each platform separately to sell your ebook there, you can use the help of an aggregator that can sell your ebooks to several distributors using the same platform, such as Smashwords and Draf2Digital.

Please note that the use of any of these services will limit the amount of money you can earn in rights. Some of these websites can take 10% to 40% of your sales.

Participate in an affiliate program

Another technique to help make money with your ebooks and get people to download them for free would be to find affiliates. You can advertise your products or whatever they offer somewhere or even talk about offers of them in your ebook, in large proportion. This way, you can allow your visitors to download the book for free and still get an income, depending on the conversion rate or your contract with the affiliate in question.

Create an ebook application

If you want to avoid the middleman, as in the previous examples, to get more money in rights, you can try to attract customers with the help of the app store.

One of the best things about ebooks now is that you can create ebooks for mobile and web applications. As with any application, mobile ebook apps can be downloaded directly to your phone and, once installed, it’s ready to start reading.

The ebook applications are a combination of the ebook and an ebook reader that initializes the book, which means the reader won’t need any other application to read the book.

The same can be said about the ebook web application. There is no need for an electronic reader on your desktop or laptop, as long as you install the ebook web application, it will come with the two together and you are ready to start reading.

First of all, apart from what is necessary to export the ebook application, there are no additional costs and you can upload the apps to the app store and then start selling them immediately to the readers.

Download directly from your site

The last way to sell your ebook would depend entirely on how many readers, followers and subscribers frequent your site, channel or blog, at least for you to make a good amount of money with it.

The more visitors you have, the more people will be interested in buying your ebook. You can always ask your followers to buy your ebook to help you create better content in the future.This method is the easiest and simplest way to sell your ebook, directly from your site. One way to accept payment for your ebook would be to add a PayPal widget to your site.

This way, people can buy without having to go through other channels and you get the full amount without anyone taking their share.

In short, ebooks have become so easy to make and sell today, and many people all over the world use them as a source of extra income.

So, what are you waiting for? Create that e-book and start making money!

Author Bio:

Hi, I am Nikesh Mehta owner and writer of this site.

I’m an analytics professional and also love writing on finance and related industry. I’ve done online course in Financial Markets and Investment Strategy from Indian School of Business.

I can be reached at [email protected]. You may also visit my LinkedIn profile.