Do you have some knowledge, information, know some 'secrets', hints and tips, great gluten-free recipes, good websites/blogs/social media sites/forums, etc. which may be valuable to others, then why not write some eBooks. Although I sell an eBook called 'How to make $1000 a month from the internet' for just $3 in my eBook store, I am going to show you how easy it is to sell eBooks world-wide for absolutely no cost and very little effort once it has been written and is set up for sale.
The great thing about eBooks is that it is passive selling. Once it is available for sale you just sit back - everything (sales, delivery, payment) is automatic and it is very simple to set up too!
If eBooks aren't your thing, musicians can sell their own music files, photographers can sell their photos and artists can sell their graphics downloads. You can make and sell courses and coaching products on a subscription basis too (typically using Zoom, setting milestones, etc.).
Step 1 - Find a niche
So what can you write about for this eBook?
Well this depends on what hobbies and interests you have.
Do you belong to any forums, do you have any hobbies, interested in sports, repairing electronics, do you go on walks or car trips, do sewing, tell jokes, know jokes or funny stories, interesting facts, etc.? Well you may have knowledge (or can gain knowledge) that others will be prepared to pay a few $ for (even if just for the convenience of saving their time having to find out the information for themselves).
So let's take a few of the areas I mentioned above:
Forums: Have you ever had to search forums to find out the answer to a problem you had? Well, would other people also be looking for that same solution? If so, why not put the information in an eBook and sell it? For instance, I bought a cheap piece of electronic test equipment from a well-known Chinese merchant site but when it came, the instructions were in Chinese. I searched the forums, YouTube, Googled for help, but to no avail. So I spent several days trying to work out how to use and calibrate this piece of equipment and then I wrote a simple eBook in English and sold it for $3. So far I have sold over 180 of those eBooks for just a few days work and it has paid for the equipment three times over - and I still get the odd sale trickling in!
Repairing (electronics): If you know how to repair specific common faults in specific products, then many people will be looking for that information. You could sell a small eBook with pictures and detailed instructions. You could even offer to sell repair kits in the eBook. If you already have the components in stock and they are not easily obtainable in your country, people would easily pay say $3 for the eBook and perhaps pay you $20 for a $5 component repair kit if they could get it quickly within 48 hours.
Sewing: Many people sold face masks on Etsy during the pandemic. They had to buy the material, make the mask, get the orders, send out the masks and deal with any issue and returns (after Etsy took their cut). So they could spend a whole week doing this, only to find they had made $100 profit overall.
However, what they should have done is also sell the instructions and patterns in an eBook for $10 so people could make their own masks. In the eBook they could also insert Amazon affiliate links for materials and equipment, etc. which would earn them more revenue. Now this may not earn them $100 a week, but it leaves the whole week free for them to do other things (like write more ebooks and make even more money passively!).
Walks: If you know some nice walks, you can sell eBooks detailing the route, etc. I go into detail on this in my 'How to make $1000 a month' book, but if done well, there is a great potential to sell eBooks and also obtain additional revenue from sales made within the eBooks (e.g. affiliate ad links, adverts, etc.).
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So write down a list of all the things you are interested in or have experience in. Then think about what you might know (or can find out) that other people would find useful and be prepared to pay for. I would advise you to stay away from saturated, popular areas such as recipes or novels, but instead find a less-popular niche subject.
For instance, if you have been gluten intolerant for many years, you must know by now which food products are great and which ones taste like cardboard! Well any young gluten intolerant person would willing pay for a book on 'best products for gluten intolerants' and it would not only benefit their health but also save them some money.
If you have written that list of your interests/areas of expertise and really cannot think of anything, just keep looking. Every time you try to find out something and find it difficult, ask yourself if others would be willing to pay for that information and if so, write an eBook about it.
Step 2 - Write the eBook(s)
If you have Microsoft Word or the free LibreOffice packages, this is easy!
Just write your eBook with chapter headings, etc. - usually in A4 format.
When finished, export it as a PDF file.
Simples!
Remember that you can make even more money by including ads and affiliate links in the eBook. Also high-resolution, full colour pictures cost nothing, so add as many as you like!
Step 3 - Sign up with Payhip
You now need to sell your eBook and receive money for it. You also may need to charge and pay VAT.
Payhip make this very easy and the ONLY cost to you is 5% of any sales! You don't need to pay anything in advance - no monthly payments, no 'storage' costs - nada! If you don't sell an eBook then you have lost nothing!
Once setup (you will need a Paypal account and/or a Stripe account which you can set up through Payhip) and you upload your PDF, this is what they do for you:
1.
Payhip store - the customer can visit your 'store' using a link that you supply, where they can see one or all of your eBooks (or a smaller group of them).
2. The customer can collect eBooks into their basket, Payhip will apply any discounts, add EU VAT if applicable, and then direct the customer to Paypal (or Stripe for Card payments) where they can pay.
3. Payhip will watermark the PDF with the customers email address and make it available to download immediately.
4. Payhip will send the customer a confirmation email with a download link - an invoice can be requested, if needed.
Note that any updates/revisions made to the PDF are free. The customer can simply use the same link again to get the latest version.
5. Payhip will send you email notifications of each sale too, as it happens. ding!
6. You will receive immediate payment from PayPal on each sale which goes into your PayPal account, or you get a monthly payment on all Stripe card sales into your bank account. Note that as well as removing the VAT from the sales price, Payhip will deduct 5% and PayPal or Stripe will also remove a bite too. Overall, you will receive approx. $8.5 for every $10 in sales (excl. VAT).
Note: All buyers who are living in the EU must be charged VAT on all digital products that they purchase, inc. eBooks that we sell - even if we only sell $50 of eBooks a year! Since we collect the VAT, we must forward it to the various EU government coffers. Payhip will add the VAT on automatically to your set price, or they can deduct the VAT from the sales price - it's your choice (I ask them to add it on ;-) ). Payhip will then
pay the VAT to the various EU governments for you - so you don't have to worry. The VAT rate varies among the EU countries wildly, but 2-4% is usually charged depending on the buyers origin.
Note: Payhip can also sell your physical products for you and they can also host and sell your video courses and coaching/subscription products too.
Step 4 - Marketing
So now you need to let the world know that your eBook is available.
Well, you must get busy on all the relevant social media sites, forums, etc. and tell them about your new eBook and paste in the Payhip link. Get your friends to advertise it too.
In addition, you
must also start your own blog site like this one. You can do this for free using Google's
Blogger.
This will be very valuable to you because anyone doing an internet search will then be able to find your blog and find your eBooks. Blogger will allow you to create web pages as well as blogs. You could even have a page-based Blogger website with pictures and links to your Payhip store as well as a blog with daily/weekly articles.
Once running, you can add adverts to the Blogger sites (e.g. Amazon affiliate ads, AdSense ads) and earn revenue from Amazon sales and AdSense ads too (again this is covered more fully in my 'How to make $1000 a month' book).
Of course, it is better to start your own WordPress-based website. Google Search will lead people to your website and you can advertise your book from there too and use it as a 'base' - but maybe that is for another day...
Step 5 - Now write more eBooks!
OK - you are not going to be able to retire selling one $5 eBook every week - but what if you had 30 eBooks or 100 eBooks for sale?
Before you start writing more eBooks, you should think about how you can write your eBooks so that they are in a 'series'. Don't just sell one big eBook for say $20. Sell smaller eBooks for say $3 or $5 each.
Then write the next one and the next and the next (say one every two weeks?). If your customers liked it and they found it useful, they will buy more as you release them.
Also, when they visit your Payhip store, you will have several eBooks available and you can offer a multibuy discount when they buy more than one. I often find that whilst people are in my Payhip store, they buy four or even six eBooks at a time because they get a 10% discount and it also saves them time.
The great thing is that once you have written that eBook, Google Search will help people to find it and the internet can deliver it to them instantly and for many more years, all whilst you are asleep in your bed or doing other things...
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