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Thanks a mir! I got my content on my blog and expertise on my topic, which even brought me paid freelance gigs, and a little audience on LI, therefore I am not going for the ebook.
Cheers!
Hi! I have been selling e-books for ten years now. Not that I can make a living out of it (although some books sold 5000+ copies). Ask me anything and I will try to help you as best as possible.
Wow, great!
1) Do you write the eBook, then sell, or do you first create a table of content and try to find potential buyers?
2) How do you determine pricing?
3) How do you distribute?
4) Best place/site/way to create the design?
5) How important is a SEO optimized title?
6) Any other things you wish you knew ten years ago?
1) My first e-book I made without posting anything, then announced, published and sold. For my most popular book (about finding cheap airfare) I just told the world 'hey, I'm writing this book, please pre-order to support me'. 900 people pre-ordered.
2) Asked on Twitter what people would want to pay. Then ignored it and asked a higher price (for the airfare book). Other prices depending on my popularity and popularity of subject.
3) My first e-books I sold with woocommerce. Current ones through Shopify, linked to my websites (such as thuisblijvenisduurder.com). The ones I made with a publisher, are selling on all places where one can buy books.
4) For the airfare book, I asked a professional cover designer to design the cover. The actual book I designed myself in Indesign. My first e-books (in 2012) I designed myself. The ones I made with a publisher were designed by a designer.
5) Depends on the topic, I guess. These are the book titles of my books:
6) Nothing helpful comes to mind.
Wow,thanks for the indepth insights! I think the titles are really compelling and I like the fun twists. Again thanks big time 🙏🏾
Great insights, thanks! Another question, since you've gone through it:
Self-published ebook vs. real publisher doing physical books? E.g. when to go for what, what's ultimately better in your opinion, how much people still want physical books?
I also publish physical books myself. Margins are 4-5x higher than with publisher. For example: I make a €12 profit on a €20 physical book when self-publishing and €3 with a publisher.
I use a publisher for a book about houseplants because I thought this would sell for years and I'm not interested in doing marketing for all these years. Also, this specific publisher uses a 50/50 deal on profits (which still makes only €3,50 for a book with selling price of €17).
In the Netherlands there still is a very large number of people buying physical books. For example my book on airfare sold 6000 now, of which 4000 physical books and 2000 e-books.
Why e-books?
- increase your margin on books (can be almost 100%)
- no returns or storage / fulfilment agency needed
- easy to publish
Why physical books?
- people are owning something physical
- increases credibility ('this guy made a book')
- paper books are way cooler
Why self-publishing?
- increase margins
- autonomy
- if you have an audience, you MUST self-publish, otherwise you're only helping the publisher make money
Why use publisher?
- to get your books in book stores
- to do marketing (they don't, really, it sucks)
- to get help designing, editing, selling, promoting, pr
Sorry for the incoherent answer. This is all from the top of my head. Maybe I should write a self-published e-book on how to write and publish a book.
Thank you, this is supremely helpful! 🙏 go for that new book ;)