If you have written your first e-Book, sincere congratulations to you on your achievement.
Maybe you are in the process of writing this eBook and the question of how to sell your e-book online keeps popping into your mind and distracting you from getting on with the project in hand.
Well, the good news is that there are several ways of selling an eBook online and making a profit from your sales.
So once you have completed the writing of your e-book, have edited it yourself or had someone else to do the editing, along with having it proofread and an attractive cover made for this e-book, it is time to look at publishing the book for sale.
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Before Publishing You Will Need to Make the Decision of How to Sell Your e-Book Online
To help you with making that decision about how to sell your e-Book online, I’ve provided some options on this page. I have taken into account that this is probably your first experience of publishing and selling an e-book.
How to Sell Your e-Book Online
There are a number of methods available for selling an eBook online and I will list below just 3 of those methods that will help you to get started with selling your first eBook.
1. Selling Your e-Book on Your Own Website
If the subject of your eBook is relative to what your website is about then selling your eBook on your own website is one method that you could consider using.
Advantages of Selling on Your Own Website
- The upside of selling your eBook on your own website is that you can manage the sales yourself and receive full payment for your book.
- If you have a subscriber list that you email to regularly, you already have the advantage to promote your eBook which is a great opportunity for getting sales. Most people would rather buy from someone they already know and trust rather than someone they came across on the internet who they had no knowledge of previously.
- A large following on Social Media will also help with sales of your eBook.
Possible Disadvantages of Selling on Your Own Website
- How many visitors are you getting daily to your website? As an example; if your website is getting up to 500 visitors per day at 1 per cent conversion you could expect daily sales of a maximum of 5 eBooks. Of course, this is purely an example and your sales may be much greater depending on the number of visitors to your website and the number of those visitors who make a purchase.
- On the positive side, as mentioned above, promotions to your email list will increase the number of visitors to your site each time you send out a promotion.
- To sell your eBook on your own site you would need to have a shopping cart. There are many shopping carts available but there is a cost per month or per year, and you would need to consider the income from sales of your eBook against the cost of running a shopping cart on your website.
- PayPal provides a shopping cart that you can use on your website. There is a cost, but it is minimal, and if you decide to sell your eBook from your own website, I recommend using PayPal’s shopping cart.
2. Selling Your eBook through ClickBank
Selling an eBook through Clickbank is an option but I do not recommend it for your first eBook.
My reason for not recommending ClickBank for selling your first eBook
- To use Clickbank as a seller (called a Vendor) you would need to set up an affiliate program, meaning that you would provide an option for affiliate marketers to join your affiliate program.
- You would decide on the rate of commission that you will pay the affiliate marketers each time a sale of your eBook is made.
- The commission needs to be generous so as to attract affiliate marketers to your program. Although the affiliate marketer has made a sale of your product, the commission you will pay is an expense.
- You would need to have Banners made for the affiliate marketers to promote your eBook and this causes another expense in the promotion of sales.
3. Selling Your e-Book on Amazon Kindle
Selling your first e-Book on Amazon is a method that I recommend for you as a beginner in e-book sales.
Amazon is a great company to deal with. They do have strict Terms and Conditions which you must abide by, but I have no problem with that because these Terms and Conditions protect everybody concerned, including you as a publisher and seller of your product.
You will find all the information you require to set yourself up as a Kindle Publisher and Seller on Amazon.
The first step to selling your e-Book on Amazon is to open an Amazon account.
- To open your account log into: http://www.amazon.com
- Then click on ‘Sign In‘. You will find that on your screen where the large red arrow appears, as shown in the image below.
- Then Click on ‘Start Here‘ where the smaller red arrow appears in the image below, and open an account with Amazon.
You should now have your own Amazon Account.
Now go back to your browser and enter https://kdp.amazon.com/
Here is where you will be able to publish your e-Book.
If you are asked to sign in again, just enter the email and password that you used to set up your Amazon account.
You will be guided through the process of publishing and selling your first e-Book online.
Deciding on How Much to Charge for your e-Book
Amazon will guide you with pricing your e-Book but the decision on what to charge for your e-Book is yours.
Selling your e-Book on Amazon means that you will probably be selling at a lower price than you would sell if your were to use one of the methods mentioned above.
However, I advise you to look at that in a positive light as by selling on Amazon Kindle you have the opportunity to sell greater numbers of your e-book than you are likely to sell by any other means.
The good thing is that, particularly with your first e-Book, not only will you get sales that you more than likely wouldn’t get by selling on your website, or other methods of selling, you will have a much wider audience and the opportunity to become recognized as an ‘authority’ author in your field.
I encourage you to focus on the number of sales that you will make on Amazon as opposed to the amount you are charging.
Some interesting facts about E-books and E-Readers can be found here.
Important Reminders
- Be particular about doing what Amazon requires of you to do as a Kindle Publisher and Seller and you will definitely benefit from working alongside Amazon.
- Don’t hesitate to contact Amazon if you have any questions. Their staff are available to assist you, and you can send your enquiries directly to them through their website. Also, Amazon Help provides a ‘Chat’ session which I have found to be of great benefit for getting a quick reply
I trust that this information will assist you with selling your e-Book and I wish you every success.
Please feel welcome to leave your questions and comments below.