How to make money from eBooks

How to make money from

 e-Books

Most people think that, unless you get lucky and end up becoming the next Rowling, writing books is not an easy way to make money.

   But remember that blockbuster film The Martian (starring Matt Damon)? It actually started life as a humble self-published e-Book. The book's author, Andy Weir, sold the novel as an Amazon Kindle book for 99 cents a copy. Before long, it was topping best-selling charts and Hollywood took notice.

   Give or take a bit of Hollywood glam, that's all publishing an e-Book is: taking a text document, converting it into an e-Book and selling it – and we'll talk you through how to make as much profit from it as you can.   

 How much money can you make from e-Books?

   Producing an e-Book can be ridiculously cheap and, often, completely free, and selling your own e-book can net you anything from several pounds a day to almost nothing.

   The good news is that you get  says in your potential earnings, so it's worth taking a look at the sums:

•  e-Books sell for anywhere between 99p to £8.99 and up, but the store (and your publishing platform) will take a chunk of each sale.
•  You can sell your book for whatever price you like – and you can alter the price to test different tactics – but the ideal price depends on your book's length, reviews and competition.
•  If you've got cash to invest (or can crowdfund to pay for it), you could spend money on extra marketing for your book to increase its chances of success, but there are lots of ways to market it for free, like on social media.

  Here's how to maximize your Book profits...

  Tips for making money from your Book:

1.  Choose a popular topic for your e-Book

   

     We'd recommend writing about something you're genuinely interested in, rather than just choosing a topic that you think is going to make you money. If you have a book idea and feel like it would be something you'd buy yourself if you saw it in a shop, you're onto a winner.

     Your readers will be able to tell if you're passionate about the subject, and getting the words down on paper will be a lot easier for you as well.

      Pick a subject you're genuinely interested in but, that said, it's also worth looking at what sells. Visit your local bookshop or check out the best-selling lists on Amazon, Water stones and international sites like Barnes and Noble.

      Fiction (particularly erotic fiction) is by far the biggest seller in the e-Book market, but that doesn't mean other areas aren't profitable as well – it's all about finding your niche.

      For example, e-Books on religion and spirituality, and business and money, also tend to do well.

     Best ideas to write as an e-Book

   •   Your original novel, poems or short stories.
   •   Your old essays (check with your uni first!) or a study guide for your subject.
   •   A practical guide about something you know really well: living on a budget, bike maintenance, making the perfect dating app profile – anything!
   •   A children's book (even better if you can illustrate it too), or graphic comics.
   •   City guides or a collection of your favorite walking routes.
   •   Out-of-copyright books, repackaged with notes, an intro, or a translation and sold under your own imprint.
   •    If you're fluent in another language, team up with another writer and publish a translated version of their work.

2.  Write your e-Book to a high standard

      The more time and effort you put into your e-Book, the better it will be – and therefore the more you can charge for it.

      To create a high-quality e-Book, you will need to be willing to spend months (or even years!) writing it, and then proofreading and editing multiple drafts until it's up to scratch.

      Using free software to edit your e-Book can hugely help to improve its quality.

      We suggest downloading Grammarly to make sure your writing is free from spelling and grammar errors. And, try to get feedback on your writing from as many other people as you can along the way.

       The writing process might take a while, but it will be worth it to produce a high-quality text. Not only will this mean you can add a higher selling price to your e-Book, but your readers will also be more likely to recommend it to people they know, meaning (hopefully) more sales.

        We've written a full guide to writing and publishing your e-Book to help you get started.

3.  Choose the best-value publishing platform for you

      Once your e-Book's ready for publication (yay!), the hard work is nearly over. The next step to take when considering how best to monetize your e-Book is to research which publishing platform you could make the most money on.

       For an in-depth rundown of the leading sites, have a look through our guide to the best e-Book publishing platforms.

       The guide includes info about Smash words, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Apple iBooks Author, as well as some alternatives to using publishing platforms.

4.   Develop a marketing strategy for your e-Book

   

    

       Just as it pays off to spend time writing your e-Book to as high a standard as you can, it's also worth putting a fair amount of your energy into marketing your e-Book.

         To make money from your work, it's super important to get the word out there, and your e-Book marketing needn't cost you a penny.

            Social media is a hugely powerful marketing tool, so it's worth setting up professional accounts across major platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that will be focused on promoting your published e-Book.

          For inspiration, have a look at how your favorite authors present themselves online. Often, with successful writing accounts, you will see a good balance between posts about day-to-day life as a writer, with promotional posts about their books interspersed throughout.

         On top of this, it's also worth making a website with your writing portfolio that links out to where to buy your e-Book.

         Plus, you could contact book clubs directly to see if they would be interested in reading your text at a discounted price.

5.   Enter your e-Book into writing competitions

        After spending so long perfecting your e-Book, you deserve a little credit for your masterpiece. Writing competitions are not only amazing for kudos, but they often come with rather nice cash rewards...

         Writing competitions aren't the easiest way to make money from your e-Book as they're generally very competitive, but they are definitely worth a go. We'd recommend any writer to enter them.

          A quick Google search will help you find loads of writing competitions throughout the year. Bear in mind that some will only accept unpublished entries, but sometimes you'll find competitions that are open to entries from published writers as well, so keep a lookout.

      Bonus:  if you win any competitions, you could list them on your social media bios and website to build your reputation as a writer and attract more potential readers.

6.   Publish a series of e-Books

         If you publish a successful e-Book and find yourself with a growing audience, you could consider writing a whole series of texts built around the same characters or themes.

          The best ways to approach writing an e-Book series would depend on the nature of your work (i.e. fiction or non-fiction), but stick to your instincts about what feels right. Think about whether it would be a natural progression for your e-Book to become part of a series of works.

          For example, if your first e-Book was a novel about someone's first year of uni, readers would likely be keen to read follow-up stories about the student's adventures in their second and third years too.

          Make sure that, if you do write a follow-up text, it's written to an equally high-quality as the first. And, above all, make sure any future e-Books within a series all have their own artistic value, and aren't purely written for the money.