How To Sell Your Ebook for Long Term Profits
eBooks are a quick way to get content out there in front of your target audience. They help build your credibility and show your expertise. If you’re interested in writing and publishing an eBook but not sure where to start, this post will definitely help. It’s an excellent marketing tactic and not only does it build your credibility, it also simultaneously builds your brand and increases awareness for your business. So where do you start when you want to write and publish an eBook?
Self-Published or Traditionally Published?
In most instances, business owners choose to self-publish. When you self-publish, you control every aspect of your book, from getting the ISBN number and creating the book cover to creating and editing the material inside. Traditionally published books mean that you convince a publisher, like Random House for example, that your book will sell and has a unique topic and approach.
They sign a contract with you to publish your book. You get an advance, generally, and a percentage of sales. They control the editing process as well as the book’s outward appearance. Yes, to answer your question, many traditional publishers are now publishing eBooks. They also facilitate distribution to stores and in some cases they may help promote your book. Choose the self-publish option and you manage the distribution to stores and you keep a majority of the profits.
I have my own small publishing company, Hunter’s Moon Publishing, with Geoff Hoff. We refer to our company as a ’boutique’ publishing house that takes care of everything you need. Contact us if you are ready to move forward.
Distribution
If you go the self-publishing route, you may worry about the distribution of your book. How do you get your eBook into online book stores? It really isn’t anything to worry about. The solution is actually not nearly as daunting as you might imagine.
For example, you can create a seller account with Amazon’s Kindle and upload a book today. Your book will show up in Amazon’s Kindle store within a day or two and you can start selling. The same is true for Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other online book stores. Each store has its own steps to follow to format and upload your book. In general, the process is easy and you can have a book uploaded and ready for sale within a day or two.
Smashwords
Smashwords is an eBook service that distributes your book to a variety of book stores, book distributors, and libraries including iBooks and Barnes & Noble. They also facilitate presales so you can build buzz for your book before it’s released.
Because they distribute to such a wide variety of book stores and libraries, their formatting requirements are a bit more difficult than uploading your book to one book store. However, they offer a free formatting guide and they can send you a list of book formatters who are familiar with the requirements and can manage the task for you for a reasonable fee.
Marketing, Promoting, and Making Sales
The most important aspect of writing, in terms of long-term profits, is how to sell your ebook once it is completed. Whether you publish your book traditionally or you self-publish, and whether you sell your book only on your site or you make it available in stores, the responsibility for marketing it and promoting it is yours and yours alone. Leverage your resources and use what you know about marketing to promote your book. The hard part has already been accomplished – writing it.
