Everywhere you look these days, someone is reading a kindle, ipad, nook, or other ebook device. If you’ve got one yourself, you probably enjoy the convenience these gadgets offer, but you need not stop at reading books on them. If you have the entrepreneurial spirit, you could be making a little money.
Let’s look at how to make money from publishing ebooks, promoting other people’s ebooks, and offering services to authors.
Make Money by Selling Your Own Ebook
If you love to write and you can finish a book, then there’s no reason you can’t create your own ebook. Non-fiction tends to be easiest to sell, but up-and-coming authors are generating part-time incomes (sometimes full-time incomes!) selling everything from romance to science fiction to medical thrillers.
The costs of creating an ebook are relatively inexpensive. Ideally, you should have an editor proofread your manuscript, and you should have an artist create a cover for you (yes, even electronic texts need covers!). The more professional–i.e. like a real book–your piece is, the more likely you’ll be able to sell it.
Book promotion isn’t easy, but if you don’t mind networking online and putting in some extra work to get the word out, you could start making money as an ebook author.
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Make Money Promoting Other People’s Ebooks
For this, you need to have a blog, ideally one that you’ve already spent time building up and that is receiving visitors every day. Of course, it’s never too late to start. Get going now if this idea interests you. Once you have a blog, you can sign up to be an affiliate for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords (an independent ebook marketplace), etc.
Being an affiliate is sort of like working on commission. If you sell ebooks by directing people to the retailer’s site with your special affiliate link, you’ll make a percentage of the sale.
Book review blogs are great for making money with affiliate programs. People who search out reviews are already in the mood to buy books. Even if your blog is usually about other things, you could start sprinkling in non-fiction and fiction reviews on subjects of interest to your readers. If you’ve written a quality post about a book (and it happens to have your affiliate link embedded within), visitors might just click on the link to that book and buy it.
While you’re probably not going to get rich as an ebook affiliate, you can certainly make some extra money. It’s easier to sell ebooks than books (no need to pay for shipping, and folks with e-readers love the one-click ease of having their “goods” automatically delivered), and lots of people are buying them these days!
Make Money Offering Services to Independent Ebook Authors
Maybe you’ve decided affiliate marketing and writing your own ebooks aren’t for you (or maybe you’re already doing those things, but you’d like to increase your earnings). If you’re an artist or an editor, you might be able to make some extra money–maybe even start a new career–from the growing number of people choosing to become independent authors.
All those authors who are taking their work seriously need artists and editors to help make their work professional. If you have those skills, there’s no reason you can’t jump in and offer them–for a reasonable price, of course.
Also, if you’re building up a blog for affiliate marketing, you may be able to make more money by selling advertising to independent authors.
As you can see from this brief article, there are several ways to profit from the ebook craze. Try these or get creative and try others!
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