12 Steps to Creating and selling your own eBook online – Step by Step how I did it and you can too!

Lynne Level 1

November 4, 2016, 5:03 am

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12 Steps to Creating and selling your own eBook online – Step by Step how I did it and you can too!

I recently wrote my first eBook to sell and within the first hour I made my first sale at $15. It has been one week and I have now made a total of 4 sales.

Loads of people have been asking me questions on how I did it and what my eBook is about.

This is actually the second eBook I have written but the first one I created to sell.

The eBook is about addiction. It is stories from my life before I got clean, so it is quite raw and at times maybe shocking.

My goal of this eBook (besides to make some money of course) is to save lives. I want people to see what it is like to be an addict, to be stuck in addiction and I plan to write some more eBooks.

So read below to see exactly what I did to write and promote my eBook resulting in immediate sales!

1 Researched how to write an eBook

No I am not a professional author and until last year I had never written an eBook or a book. I had only written content for my blogs.

I wanted to write an eBook last year to give away on my online marketing website so I researched how to write an eBook.

One of the most helpful things I came across was Pat Flynn’s eBook on how to write an eBook.

2 Wrote the eBook

Writing the eBook’s content was tough for my first eBook I kept being overwhelmed with the amount of work ahead of me and each time I sat down to write I hit a panic and procrastinated.

Eventually I made a decision. I will write this eBook and I will start right now.

I made a plan to write just one page a day. The first day I planned my eBook and then every day after I wrote one page a day.

Suddenly I was flying through writing my eBook!

3 Created a 3D eBook Cover

I am not a designer and I would never ever be able to create an eBook cover. There are loads of sellers here that will create a stunning eBook cover for you, so do a search in the marketplace or create a WTB.

Alternatively, you can use Canva, but then you can only create a 2D eBook cover but I did one as a practice run to see how it would look and honestly it came out quite nice, but being the perfectionist I am, I wanted a 3D eBook cover. It just looks way more professional in my opinion.

You will need a really nice looking eBook cover for your marketing, this really is essential to grab the eye of potential customers!

12 Steps to Creating and selling your own eBook online – Step by Step how I did it and you can too!

4 Created pdf’s for eBook

Yes pdf’s not one pdf. Ok for my first eBook that I wrote with the sole purpose of giving away on my website to entice people to subscribe I just did the one pdf.

For the eBook I just wrote recently for my addiction website the sole purpose of this book was to sell it.

So for this eBook I created 2 pdf’s.

One is the full eBook for sale, this eBook is 48 pages, which is 21 000 words and made up of 17chapters.

The second pdf is a preview, a teaser. It is the first 15 pages which is the first 4 chapters. This I created to gain subscribers to my newsletter and to give my readers a chance to read the beginning of my eBook which will entice them to buy the full eBook.

I created a WTB to create these pdfs since I am very fussy and I wanted things done in a very specific way. I have to say that I am very pleased with the results. This was my first time using the SeoClerks WTB section!

5 Created Subscribe forms for my website

I created 3 subscriber forms for my website. Maybe this seems like a bit of an overkill but I wanted to see where people are signing up from and monitor these campaigns.

The first sign up form I made was for the side bar of my website. I created an image with my eBook cover and some text letting readers know they would get the first few chapters free if they sign up.

I did the same for a sign up form for a blog post which I will discuss soon.

Then the third sign up form I created was a pop up for my website. I personally detest these but hey they convert the best so I went with it!

6 Listed my eBook for sale on ListingDock

The next thing I did was create my product listing on ListingDock.com. Just remember that if you are a member of SeoClerks you are also a member of ListingDock, WordClerks.com and CodeClerks.com.

Adding a listing is simple, but I added a few extra things. I added a custom coupon giving customers 10% discount.

I also changed the affiliate commission from the standard 10% to 20% to encourage online marketers to promote my eBook.

In the description of my eBook I also let everyone know that the affiliate commission is 20% on this product otherwise they would not know!

Just remember that if you make any product more than the standard 10% commission rate the difference will come out of your sale amount, which really is fine with me since if that person doesn’t sell the book you make nothing anyway. I want to reward anyone that sells my eBook for me.

It is a digital product. The work is done, so any sales I make now are pure profit anyway!

7 Wrote a Blog Post on my Website

The next thing I did was create a blog post on my website introducing my book and what it was all about.

I also let my readers know that they can get a preview of my eBook by subscribing to my website and if they do this they will also get a 10% discount coupon code if they want to purchase the full book.

I added the subscribe form that I mentioned above to this blog post.

I am added a little message to online marketers (or anyone really) that if they promote my book with their affiliate link they will 20% commission on my product and lifetime commissions from ListingDock.com

I saved this blog post as a draft.

8 Created follow up email and email for current subscribers

Now that everything was ready to go I first sent an email to my current subscribers with the preview to my eBook attached and giving them the coupon code for the 10% off if they wanted to buy it since they were already subscribed.

Then I created a follow up email for my new subscribers to my newsletter with the pdf preview of the eBook attached and also giving them the 10% discount coupon code.

9 Added the subscribe forms

My next step was to add the subscriber forms for the sidebar and the popup to my website now that the follow up email was set up.

10 Publish blog post

Now that everything has been set up I published my blog post. All my current subscribers have been sent the preview to my eBook and now they also received my blog post telling them more about the eBook.

11 Shared my Blog Post Socially

Now that everything was set up and sent out via newsletter I shared my blog post socially on FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Twitter.
When I share socially I share on my personal profiles, my business pages and profiles, as well as in a few niche related groups.
I also wrote a blog post on LinkedIn and added the link to my website post.
I still plan on adding a Youtube video to promote my eBook but since I have young kids and not so much time I haven’t been able to get to this.

12 Spread the word amongst online marketers

I then told a few online marketers I know about my eBook, I gave a few copies away for free along with the preview and the eBook cover image, you know just in case they would like to market it and make 20% commission.

If you want someone to market your products make it as easy as possible for them right?

I also offered to create special coupon codes offering their readers special discounts.
I have had a really good response from a number of online marketers already which is really exciting.

I hope you have enjoyed this post, feel free to follow me
Lynne

Comments

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CryptoGuru

This is exactly what i needed to get started. As you know i have been thinking about writing an e-book and selling it. Actually you are my inspiration to do this and now you have given me the tools i need to succeed. I love the fact that you share your success and you pay it forward to help other get ahead as well. I actually did not see the cover and wow does it really stand out! I love the way it looks and the feel that it gives you when you look at it. The struggle is real and the cover shows this. Thank you for sharing this with me and everyone else i really appreciate it. Congratulations on all your sales and i wish you many more! Also if you want a reseller for your book let me know, i would not mine adding it to my Seoclerks. Have a Nice Day!

8 years ago

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Lynne

Any time at all Jkeyz2 and this is not like a professional run down of how to do it... this is just what I did, my own process. I am sure there must be like some seriously professional guidelines somewhere but I just wing it as I go along and I had some nice success with it.. so yes it does work.

I know you have some really great clout with social networks, so I am sure you will make your first sales really quickly too.

I am happy to inspire and motivate you. It is this community that pushed me to do what I have always wanted to do and share my story with the world.

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

This is awesome Lynne, thanks for sharing!

Regarding this:

In the description of my eBook I also let everyone know that the affiliate commission is 20% on this product otherwise they would not know!

I got contacted by a seller here on SEOClerks today, with an offer to promote his services for 40% affiliate commission. The very first thing I did, was to check his services but I couldn't see a single bit of information about the custom affiliate commissions so I talked to Bev about it. All in all, this has been put on the "to do" list, and this will be implemented in the near future.

There's no point in custom affiliate commission in case people aren't aware of it, and they will be!

8 years ago

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Lynne

Oh yes Andre, I think that would be brilliant for sure, imagine having that showing so that affiliate marketers can see which services they can make the most commission promoting!

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

Yeah exactly! - That will make it easier for everyone. Both sellers and affiliates as the sellers won't have to contact each affiliate personally. So this will be a superb feature!

8 years ago

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Cristian

I liked the fact that you already need to have the book written right from point 2 haha. The rest is just branding and marketing, very good strategy actually! I like the fact that you put so much effort into promoting your ebook once it was finished.

You are very dedicated, I'm struggling in writing an ebook for ages now, I always fail at point 2, never finish what I started because for some reason I never seem to agree that my content is good enough and I should stop editing it every day and just move on with the next chapters.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Oh my gosh Cristian! Do you think I sit there and finish writing my eBook thinking I have a best seller on my hands? Not a chance.

I also have my doubts and my fears. I am filled with insecurities all the time, but you know what? Everyone else feels this same way too.

I have a rule when it comes to all my content, whether it is a blog post on my website, or a page of my eBook.. plan, write, do a once over check and edit mistakes. Then I leave it, I am not allowed to go back to it and change it. If I do go back I will edit the eBook until it is gone!

8 years ago

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Cristian

You have a really good writing system, I had to force myself to think like that. I always feel the need to come back and improve it, especially from a SEO point of view, constant optimization has become a part of my life now lol.

8 years ago

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joegirl

Awesome job! Thanks for the tip. And that book cover design is so eye catching

. There are so many great tips to glean from you article. Write one page a day, create a teaser, get affiliates to help sell your book.

8 years ago

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vinaya

I have published two ebooks on Amazon. I was able to sell 100 copies of my first book. I had priced $2.99 and earned 70 percent commission. I second book sold more than the first book, however, I did not earn much for my second book. I did not write my first book, I compiled stories that I had already written in the past and created a cover using cover creation tool. However, I spent money to design my second book. I did not invest any money in order to produce my first book, however, I invested a lot of money on my second book (I had to hire an illustrator to do illustrations), I was hardly able to recover my investment.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Thank you for this very informative post. This will surely be of help for those who plan on writing an e-book. And for me, this is an inspiring post that right now I am evaluating if I am capable of writing a book. And the first step that you mentioned is research, I agree with that because I know that writing a book would entail a lot of research work and gathering data is not an easy task. Maybe if I would have enough time to write then I would have an e-book within this year. Thanks again and I really appreciate your post.

7 years ago

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vinaya

Writing an ebook is not difficult as it sounds, even so is publishing. You are posting on number of forums means you can write. Since you have the ability to write you can easily write an ebook. All you have to do is research on the topic that gets most traction and develop the book. The next step is publishing. There are numerous free publishing platforms. You can try Amazon Kindle. Good thing about Amazon Kindle is your book will be available on Amazon, which is one of the biggest online marketplaces.

7 years ago

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