The Beginners’ Guide to Creating an Ebook That Sells

As a blogger, I love creating ebooks and selling it for profits for many reasons. Unlike creating other products, you don’t need to be tech savvy in order to create an ebook. You just need to start writing the ebook from scratch or repurpose your existing blog content.

Either way, it is shouldn’t be a tedious task for you especially if you’re a blogger who regularly write content for your blog.

If you’re planning to write an ebook from scratch, this guide is just for you. In this post, I’ll explain A-Z of creating and selling ebooks for profits.

Without further delays, let’s get started.

Brainstorming ebook ideas

Before you start creating your first ebook, probably one of the first questions you should be asking yourself is ‘what should be the topic/title of the ebook’.

For instance, if you’re a blogger who blogs on ‘make money online’ niche and if you’re planning to write a premium ebook on “How to make money online”, it won’t cut any ice. As there are lots of ebooks out there on the same topic, chances are you won’t be making many sales out of it.

Needless to say, before jumping in to start writing a single word for your ebook, you’ll need to brainstorm ebook ideas first.

Take a notepad and write down as many as titles for your ebook. Make sure the topics are comfortable for you, so you don’t lose enthusiasm down the road until you finish it. If you want to see examples of ebooks or e-learning courses, many websites provide various types of courses, such as website creation and IT diploma courses online.

As a due diligence, ask a few questions yourself to pick the right topic

1. Will your ebook solve any problem of your potential customers?
2. Are there enough people looking for the solutions?
3. Is there any other ebook on the same topic?
4. How do you plan to sell your ebook?

Finding demand

Now that you have brainstormed your ebook idea, it’s the time to validate if your audience is actually looking for the ebook you’re about to write. There are many ways to validate the demand.

Let’s take a look at some of them.

• Forums: Search on forums on your niche or Q&A sites like Quora.com. If many people are asking the same question, it’s likely the potential topic for your ebook.
• Conduct a survey: Conduct a survey on your blog and ask your readers what they wanted from you.
• Ask on social media
• Look at Google keywords search volume
• Ebook marketplaces: Take a look at the best sellers on your niche in Amazon. This will show you what works best on your niche and what doesn’t.

Promote your ebook before you start writing

Many ebook authors fall into the trap of not promoting the ebook until they finish writing it. In fact, if you’re serious about selling your ebooks, you’ll need to start promoting it before the creation process.

A nice strategy is to build a momentum among your leads by sending emails about the new release. You can even ask them what concerns they’re facing and tell them that you’re releasing a new ebook on that topic.

This is a great strategy for many reasons. Not only will it help you build a momentum among your potential customers, but also let you identify the real problems of your potential customers, so you can include the solutions for them in your ebook.

In fact, the sooner you start building the momentum, sooner customers enter the sales pipeline.

Build an email list

Building an email list is one of the best ways to promote your ebook. It helps you to create a strong bond with your potential customers. Truly, not every visitor will be in the buying phase when they first land on your website.

In fact, studies show that it takes, on average, at least 3-4 visits to your website for a new prospect to actually think about buying from you, and almost 95% of first-time visitors used to research your website and product before getting into the buying phase.

However, if you build an email list, you get a chance to nurture your leads and convince them to purchase your product down the road.

If you’ve not started building an email list, below are a few tips that will help you.

Create a landing page: You shouldn’t necessarily be a great designer in order to create a landing page. You can simply create an HTML landing page and upload it to your host. If you don’t want to mess up with coding, install any landing page plugin on your WordPress website and start driving traffic to it.

Create a beautiful opt-in form: Many marketers simply copy the default opt-in forms to their landing page. The problem with default opt-in forms you create from your list building software is that they are unattractive. Install a free plugin like Optin forms, so you can create beautiful high conversion forms without the need of editing the code.

Selling your ebook

When it comes to selling, one of the first things you should consider is to choose the right platform. For instance, if you’re not a well-known figure amongst your niche circles, it’s better to use a marketplace such as Amazon or Clickbank rather than trying to sell it on your own blog. Needless to say, selling can be harder when you’re selling it on your own blog.

Below are a few platforms to sell your ebook.

• Amazon: Amazon.com is one of the most popular marketplaces for selling anything. You can sell your ebook as a Kindle Edition or as a paperback edition.
• Lulu.com: The best thing about Lulu.com is unlike other marketplaces, Lulu.com allows you to sell PDF ebooks.
• Clickbank: What I like about Clickbank is that it is a crowded marketplace with lots of affiliates who are looking to promote various ebooks. Best of all, you can decide the affiliate commission rate yourself for your ebook.
• E-junkie: E-junkie is for those who want to take the full control of selling. However, you’ll need to pay a flat monthly fee of $5 regardless of the number of sales you make.
• Self-hosted selling: By using a free plugin like Easy digital Downloads and WooCommerce, you can host your ebook on your own server and sell it with full control. It is a great choice especially you’re selling many ebooks. If your current theme doesn’t support WooCommerce plugin, you may need to compare different supported themes and pick the most appropriate one for your website.

Start networking

Reach out to bloggers and other ebook authors in your niche. Get the word out before launching. Once you launched, ask them to download it for free and review it, which can be a nice social proof for your product.

The general rule of thumb for networking is to help people first before asking any favor. Start commenting on their blogs and have a meaningful interaction with them before you ask them to leave a review.

Over to you

Have you ever launched an ebook on your blog? Share your thoughts and experience with us by commenting below.