How to Sell an eBook From a Website

How to Sell an eBook From a Website

Did you know that you can be extremely successful selling an eBook from a website, instead of selling it on Amazon as a Kindle book? I did this when I first got started online in 2006, years before Amazon became established as a way for authors to self-publish and before Kindle was created. Knowing how to sell an eBook from a website can earn you more income than you ever imagined.

There are several steps in this process. The first is to decide what your eBook will be about. In my case, I chose the topic of real estate farming because this was something I knew about in great detail after working in real estate for more than twenty years prior to becoming an online entrepreneur. I had a new neighbor who did not understand how to grow her real estate business by farming an area of her community, so I started by writing about ten pages where I outlined my method in a step-by-step manner. As she was implementing what I shared with her over the next week I continued to write more and expanded my eBook to about sixty pages.

At some point I decided to publish this information myself and then sell it on my website. Remember, this was in 2006 when the concept of eBooks was very new. Just the idea of being able to sell a digital information product from your website was a revolutionary one, started by Joe Vitale and Jim Edwards, both of whom did this themselves and then taught others to do so as well.

Recently Jim Edwards completely rewrote and updated his popular training on how to write and publish your own eBook in as little as 7 days. This is the foremost training on this proven strategy and the cost is much less than you would have imagined.

Selling an eBook, or even a course on a topic you know well is one of the best ways to monetize a website. A huge number of websites will rely on advertising such as Google or Facebook Ads as their main way to convert traffic into income, but while this can make you a little profit per click, it ultimately means that people are leaving your website when you do. The fact that those advertisers are paying you for these visitors tells you that you they are getting more money for them than that – otherwise there would be no benefit of the advert.

Instead, selling an item yourself is a much better way to convert your traffic into cash. That way, when someone clicks to buy, you will be making a much larger amount of profit, and you’ll still be keeping them on your site. And in fact if you use your eBook or course in order promote some of your other ideas, or just the ideals in your website, then you will be able to hopefully get even more visits in future from them as a result.

eBooks are a perfect fit because they don’t cost anything to produce, they don’t require storage, and they don’t require delivery. When everything is done online and from your own websites you are selling electrons that are delivered digitally.

But if you thought this was a ‘get rich quick scheme’, think again. Selling eBooks takes hard work and diligent efforts, and you need to know precisely what you are doing in order to be successful with it. Here’s the scoop.

First, you need to make sure that you have a website with a strong brand and real engagement from your followers. That means your site should have a mission statement and really be about something. For example, it’s no good creating a website called “fitness tips,” because this is such a vague and broad topic. No one is going to see that title and be excited to start following you! Focus on a specific demographic, be that hardcore bodybuilding, paleo fitness, kettlebell workouts and training, or fitness for men over fifty.

From there, you need to create genuinely unique and interesting content, and you need to post regularly. This will build your following and create “engagement.” I prefer to syndicate my content to social media sites and beyond for optimal results and I have even created an online course where I share my proven syndication optimization strategies and secrets.

Then you create the ebook, which needs to target a particular “value proposition” or pain point. How does this speak to your audience emotionally? Thinking back to my eBook on how to farm an area for ongoing listings and sales, the real estate agents who read it were typically at a breaking point in their careers and desperate for a solution of how to get more clients for their business.

Announce your new eBook through social media, but include time for pre-orders. Set up a pre-order page and let them come in. Then launch! If you did all this properly, your eBook could potentially earn you thousands of dollars overnight. Just don’t rush through it and be sure to pick up Jim Edwards’ excellent and inexpensive training.

Perhaps you will also to decide to sell your eBook on Kindle after you have written and published it. This can be an excellent strategy and you will want to test it out for yourself. The only restriction Amazon and KDP (this is Kindle Direct Publishing, the book publishing company created by Amazon) will place on your eBook is that you are not allowed to sell it on a website or other platform if you want to take advantage of KDP Select. This is a program where you can make your eBook or paperback book a free download for up to five days every ninety days as a way to get it into more people’s hands. You can opt in or out of KDP Select at the beginning of any ninety day period, so test it out and see what works best for you, your topic, and your target audience.

I hope this information has been helpful and I invite you to take a look at some of the books I have available. Authorship is a business model that I am proud to include in my overall business online. Please connect with me on social media or opt in to my list using the form on this site. Learning how to sell an eBook from a website could change your business forever.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, author of more than twenty bestselling books, entrepreneur with over fifty popular products, and online marketing strategist. Learn how to write and publish your own eBook in as little as 7 days from my long time friend and colleague Jim Edwards and get started on this lucrative path right away.