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Do you want to know how to write an eBook that sells? This complete guide will show you everything you need to know to make a full-time income just by writing and selling eBooks.
Writing an ebook is one of the most effective ways to enter the realm of online business and start making money. While the idea of writing an ebook seems simple, the hardest part is writing a book that turns out to be a success.
There is a lot of information available about converting your first ebook into a bestseller. Some folks who started off publishing ebooks ended up with a best seller that grossed millions of dollars.
Here are some interesting stats outlining the growing penetration of ebooks, and the accompanying revenue growth, according to statista.com:
- The number of e-book readers in the U.S. is expected to grow from 77.8 million in 2021 to 88.4 million in 2025.
- Between 2010 and 2020, the compound annual growth rate of e-book revenue grew by 13.3 percent in the United States, and 45.3 percent in Germany.
- Trade e-book revenue amounted to 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, up from 983.3 million in the previous year.
- Estimates show that 191 million e-books were sold in the United States in 2020, according to the most recently available data.
- In 2020, the mean annual expenditure on digital book readers per consumer unit in the United States reached 26.71 U.S. dollars, up from 19.7 dollars in the previous year.
Here are some statistics about ebook self-publishing statistics that might interest you:
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- Self-published authors get 40–60% royalties per book. (Self-Publishing School)
- Self-published books made up 30–34% of e-book sales in 2020. (Self-Publishing Advice Center)
- Book sales figures in the UK in 2020 were performing better than publishers expected. (Printweek)
In this guide, we summarize the winning techniques that help you write an ebook that sells. The steps listed in this guide should make it easy for you to start your ebook journey and achieve your goals.
Benefits of eBook Publishing
a) It’s Really Easy
After you learn how to write an ebook, the next will be to find a platform that allows you to publish your eBook. There are a variety of platforms that let you create and sell your eBook. Good publishers like Richardhrees make the process a whole lot easy. The process of self-publishing it in print format – or finding someone to publish your work can be difficult.
Being able to take the process into your own hands and publish your work to the world in just a few clicks is an absolute breath of air. Additionally, it makes it simpler to edit or republish your work should you choose to alter the content. Kindle Direct Publishing, Kobo Writing Life, or Nook Press are all options.
2) Be Your Own Marketing Team
Electronic publishing lets you have complete control over the process of marketing and decide which direction you’d like to go in as well as the people you’d like to market your work to.
This will cut down many costs, and it allows you to precisely monitor your sales performance. Once you’re more comfortable with the procedure, you’ll be significantly more educated.
3) It’s Really Cheap
Learning how to write an eBook is one thing, printing is another. Print media is a costly medium, and there are expenses for every step of publishing. Aside from the costs of binding, printing, and distribution, it also takes a lot of time and cash when you’re working with an author.
You’ll encounter expenses for labor that result in driving the cost for the publication up. The majority of these costs are removed by publishing your book in the form of an eBook, and it allows you to market at a more attractive price, without having to cut your profits.
4) Accessibility
Many people will be using electronic devices like the Amazon Kindle, one of the main benefits is that you can now carry a library all over the world. That means, even if they only carry just one book while they visit the café, they’re taking the book. Al
so, it’s possible to access ebooks on laptops or smartphones, which makes it simpler for readers to remember to grab and read their book without having to recall where they put the book.
The selling process is significantly more accessible. In contrast to a traditional bookshop, buyers can purchase your book from their homes and not have to wait for delivery.
5) Sustainability
As the environmental crisis gets worse sustainability is of the utmost importance. The publishing of your book electronically implies less paper usage and the various materials and processes involved in making a print book.
As the awareness of environmental issues is growing, there could be a significant shift in consumers buying eBooks because of this. This is why this is a good time to learn how to write an eBook that sells.
Steps To Create An Ebook Successfully
1. Identify Your Goals & Audiences
Writing an ebook can help you accomplish one or more goals like income generation, branding, or lead generation. Identify these goals to influence the strategies and steps involved in writing the book.
If you aim to make money, you should not pick a competitive topic on Amazon. When you want to generate income, the topic is different from that you select when building a brand.
The target audience for your ebook determines the next steps in the process. If you don’t know who you are writing for, it is difficult to find what to write.
To get an idea of the target audience, create a persona of the customer, identify the demographics, their challenges, goals, questions, and things that create value for them.
2. Choose A Topic
Choosing the topic for an ebook is as important as selecting a business idea. It is all about striking the balance between demand and availability. An eBook topic is one of the core when you learn how to write an eBook that sells.
You should aim to find a topic that your audience is interested in but has not much competition for, and if there is a demand, there is no problem with competition. Having competitors is a sign that there is a demand for the topic. Poor demand is one of the biggest reasons books fail.
The topic you choose should also be related to your ebook goals. For example, you don’t want to write a book on animals if you aim to market a business.
So, think about the topics, identify the questions and problems the audience has, see if they are searching for them on Google, and find what they are currently buying from Amazon. Explore the platform to see the rankings of books in your niche. Find out how the bestsellers in the categories perform.
3. Start Writing The eBook
Once you have the idea in place, it is time to get started. A great way is to have a writing plan that seems to work for you. Identify the areas you want to write on, the headers, and other items you want to include.
From here, you can go one of the two ways – either outline the thoughts into detail and then create a draft or jump to writing. Pick what you feel the best for you and stick to it. Stop not until you have completed the first draft. This is one thing to master when learning how to write an eBook.
Most people ask how long the ebook should be. Like most other things, the length of the book depends on a variety of factors. While an average print book is about 50,000 words, ebooks are often shorter in length. It can be anywhere between 3000 words to up to over 50,000 depending on the topic.
Consider factors like the type of book, the target audience, the main point you want to cover, and the complication of the topic to get an idea of how long it should be.
Talking about the content, make sure you provide value to the readers with the right form of entertainment or education. The more your readers like the book, the more reviews it will get on Amazon. Higher the number of reviews for the book, the more copies you will sell.
4. Format The Book
A key factor affecting the popularity of your ebook is readability. Make sure you keep it simple, easy to grasp, and to the point. Use short sentences and bullet points to keep the engagement. Always use common fonts in regular size rather than getting fancy at it.
Choose a color scheme that complements the content and appeals to the eyes. Include images wherever possible; this will not only make the book more attractive but also give it a good depth. That’s how to write an eBook that sells.
After you edit it, again and again, you are likely to get some shortcomings. Hire a proofreader to check the book for spelling and grammar, style and language, and quality of content. Get feedback from the audience about the content. Ask them whether it was helpful. Ensure that your readers leave a positive review.
5. Produce The Book
You might have covered the most valuable content in your book and may implement some powerful marketing practices. But it will all be a waste if people are not encouraged to buy it. There are some factors that decide whether a visitor buys the book after landing on it. Here are the aspects you should focus on:
Title – Write a title that seems interesting, catches attention, describes what the book is about, and shows the value the reader can get from it. As a bonus, add keywords that help rank it in Google searches.
Description – This is where the reader wants to know more about your book. You want the description to be compelling enough to encourage them to buy. Begin with the best benefit the reader gets from the book. Explain how the book will solve their problems.
Cover Design – When you learn how to write an eBook that sells, you’ll know that the cover design plays a significant role. Take a look at the covers of books in your niche that do well. Design a professional-looking, eye-catching cover. You can consider hiring a designer that suits your budget and gets you some great ideas to choose from.
6. Promote The Book
No matter how great your book is; it is only worth it if people know about it. There are two things you should do right to see it selling – traffic and conversion. If you don’t have a wide audience for your ebook, you can leverage the power of Amazon. Though it does not promote all the books, it does favor those that help it make money.
Amazon looks at the aspects like downloads and reviews to find out whether its customers like the book. Use promotion sites to boost downloads and get it promoted on Amazon. However, for long-term success, you should create an email list. To make a big email list, consider social media, SEO, Youtube, and other platforms.
7 Best Platforms Where To Sell Ebooks
Kobo
Kobo is only 2 percent of the ebook market at the moment. However, you can still use it to reach an international audience. This is because Kobo can reach up to 190 countries.
Kobo Writing Life is simple to use. It starts by adding information and uploading your writing that it will then transform into the ePub file. You then set the price and monitor sales through the website. The book will then be listed through Kobo’s Ebookstore, which is the largest online retailer of eBooks.
Books A Million
Books-A-Million, also known as BAM!, is a bookstore chain in the United States, operating 260 stores across 32 states.
It is an established bookstore that competes with other online stores such as Audible.com, Lulu, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, and Scholastic. Based on our thorough Books-A-Million review as compared with its rivals, Books-A-Million is a mid-range performance brand in its field. However, it is still a great platform to publish and sell your eBooks.
Amazon
Being one of the most popular online stores for eBooks, Amazon has a large self-publishing division that includes Kindle Direct Publishing. It allows you to publish your business ebook through Amazon’s Kindle Store
It lets them be accessible on Kindle devices as well as applications for iOS, Android, and more. Self-publishing is completely free and can earn you up to 70% royalty on sales.
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble is the largest bookshop in the world and a major retailer of educational products and digital media. The company operates more than 600 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states and owns one of the most popular online stores, BN.com.
The Nook Digital business offers a range of NOOK tablets and e-readers, as well as an extensive library of digital content via the Nook Store.
Barnes & Noble sells around 155 million books in physical form each year and is the second-largest magazine retailer in America and has around 5,500 magazine titles as well as 1,000 newspapers. This makes it a great platform to publish and sell your eBooks.
Smashwords
Smashwords lets you publish your book through a range of different sources which include the Smashwords store as well as iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Scribd. You can earn up to 85 percent of sales on Smashwords and earn 60 percent of the price listed on sales to other sources.
Smashwords was created in 2008 by author Mark Coker 2008 and allows you to sell your books to smaller retailers of ebooks like B&N, Bake, and Taylor in addition to library networks such as OverDrive as well as Gardeners.
Book Baby
BookBaby is the one-stop shop for nearly every self-publishing service you’d like. While it’s expensive and obscure, the BookBaby packages are an option that is popular with writers who are short on time (and rich in cash).
BookBaby is different from other self-publishing companies in that it does not take any share of the revenue. The company does provide a variety of paid services, including formatting, design, and distribution. You can also utilize the platform to access several of the top retailers like iBooks as well as Amazon.
Blurb self-publishing
Blurb is an online self-publishing service founded by Eileen Gittens, in 2006. The company was founded to assist photographers and authors in self-publishing and marketing their books. Blurb is unique in its features that make them stand out from other self-publishing firms that are available in the present.
They utilize a book that is a downloadable design software and create software known as BookSmart which can be easily installed on any computer.
Self-publishers are in control of the layout, images, as well as the appearance of the book. You can design the eBook in the comfort of your home. When you’re satisfied with the book then add it to the website and begin printing copies for sale on the internet or in book stores.
Blurb lets you upload your eBook using Bookwright and Adobe InDesign and it will convert it into a fixed-layout eBook at $9.99. It could also transform your work into a reflowable book by importing a text document. It is then possible to offer them on well-known platforms such as Apple as well as Amazon.
EBook Writing Software
Grammarly
Grammarly is an extremely sophisticated writing aid. It provides plagiarism and grammar tests and allows writers to improve the readability of their work.
The company is located within San Francisco. The first version was released in 2009. Grammarly was first released in 2009. Grammarly product is offered as a collection of web and desktop applications in addition to software plug-ins.
In essence, Grammarly scans a piece of writing, and then, using artificial intelligence detects mistakes in writing, spelling errors, and other problems. It has the following tools:
Grammarly detects punctuation and grammar mistakes of all types. It also offers in-real-time tips and tips for correcting the errors, such as mistakes with commas that are not properly placed, misspelled apostrophes, as well as other punctuation errors.
Also, Grammarly comes with a powerful spell-checker. It is also possible to include words in a customized dictionary and even design an exclusive style guide with the Business version.
Freelance Writers Den
The Freelance Writers Den is the ideal place to connect with a rich writing community. Its more than 1,100 members are from across the globe is also helpful to true extroverts even in the event that they have already belonged to a writing circle in real life. Even the most affluent local writing group can’t be able to compete with the worldwide!
Membership in the Freelance Writers Den comes with many useful tools, resources, and learning opportunities. It’s $25 per month to join which is fair enough.
Literature & Latte (Scrivener)
In essence, Scrivener is a more advanced word processing application for writing and editing. Furthermore, it has many other options and capabilities specially designed to aid writers. This software can help you in a variety of ways:
- It makes planning and outlining easy.
- The place is ideal for storing and managing research notes of every kind.
- It makes editing easy and seamless.
- Assists in the preparation of the manuscript to be submitted for eBook submission.
- Enhances overall efficiency and productivity.
- This gives you more time to think about your ideas.
Scrivener has something to provide for all kinds of authors. The layout is great for writing book-length articles, but there are many kinds of writing that could benefit from its extensive listing of features. These include essays, short stories, research papers, novellas to name some.
WriteApp
WriteApp is the most simple and user-friendly writing application that you can find on the market. In the simplest terms, WriteApp is an application specifically designed for writers.
Its principal benefit is that it is a distraction-free writing platform. You also have access to many additional options, such as diverse shades of colors, hotkeys that accelerate your writing, and spell checker in various languages, and autocomplete.
The software excels at providing an uncluttered interface that allows you to concentrate on the most important thing in writing. As you type, it synchronizes all the information in the cloud, so you can access your files from any computer at any time you’d like to.
It’s also easy to share your work with friends and receive their comments without having to leave the application.
What Format For eBooks is Best to Use?
EBooks can be downloaded in various formats. Based on the end-user you are however, you could come across a need for one of the following formats:
PDFs are most likely to be the most popular type of file. They are the most well-known type of file “PDF” extension stands for “Portable Document Format,” and is ideal for ebooks designed to be read using the computer (digital marketers, you’ll need to keep this in mind). When you learn how to write an eBook, you’ll know that this is the most suitable format to render your eBook as it’s widely accepted by all devices.
EPUB
This type of file is known as “Electronic Publication,” and is an ebook format that can be more flexible. In other words, EPUB ebooks are able to “reflow” their text to adapt to different mobile gadgets and tablet computers.
This allows the book’s text to scroll between pages depending on what size device users are using the ebook. They are particularly useful for reading on smaller screen sizes such as smartphones, as well as tablets like the Nook from Barnes and Noble.
MOBI
The MOBI format was created by the Mobipocket Reader program, which was acquired from Amazon in 2005, but eventually shut down in the year 2016. However, the MOBI extension is still an increasingly popular ebook format, with compatibility with all most popular electronic readers (except that of the Nook).
While the format is not without certain limitations like it is not able to support audio or video. However, it does have DRM that helps to protect copyrighted materials from being copied and distributed or used for illegal viewing.
When you learn how to write an ebook that sells, you may understand that it might be necessary to render in MOBI format to reach an exclusive audience that only reads the MOBI format.
AZW
The ebook format is specifically designed for Kindle which is an electronic reader device from Amazon. But, it is also possible to download this format to tablets, smartphones, and laptops.
ODF
ODF is an acronym in the form of OpenDocument Format, a file format that is primarily used for OpenOffice which is a collection of open-source content creation software like Microsoft Office.
IBA
IBA is the ebook format that Apple has developed as the official format used by Apple’s Apple iBooks Author app. It supports videos, audio images, interactive elements. However, it’s used only for ebooks written with the iBooks app. It’s not compatible with other e-readers.
Final Thoughts
So, this is all about how to write an eBook that sells! Follow these tips and practices, you are sure to find it easy to create a draft that becomes a bestseller on the internet. The key is to focus on the needs of the audience and downloads will definitely follow!
