How To Make An Ebook And Sell It The Right Way. Start To End.

Ebooks have been around for ages and how to make an ebook is not on everyones minds.

However, eBooks, regardless of what you think of them have become a dominant force in the publishing and digital content space, offering creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses an effective way to share knowledge, generate revenue, and build authority.

Whether you’re an expert in a particular niche, a business owner, or an aspiring author, creating an ebook can open up multiple opportunities.

Lets go into the typical stats area

The ebook industry has experienced consistent growth over the past decade. While traditional print publishing still holds a significant market share, ebooks have carved out a strong position, especially in self-publishing:

• Global Market Value: The global ebook market was valued at approximately $19 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 3-5% in the coming years.
• Consumer Adoption: In the U.S., over 30% of adults read ebooks, with younger generations increasingly favoring digital content over print.
• Self-Publishing Boom: Platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) allow independent authors to reach millions of readers worldwide. In 2022, self-published ebooks accounted for nearly 40% of all ebook sales on Amazon. You don't even need Amazon to do it for you, you can do it all by yourself.
  
• High-Profit Margins: Unlike physical books, ebooks require no printing or shipping costs. Authors can retain up to 70% of royalties on platforms like KDP, compared to traditional publishing deals that offer around 10-15%.

Why you should you make an ebook?

With the industry’s steady growth, there are multiple compelling reasons to create an ebook:

1. Low Barrier to Entry

One of the most significant advantages of ebooks is the accessibility of publishing. Unlike traditional publishing, which requires securing a deal with a publishing house, self-publishing allows anyone to create and distribute an ebook at minimal cost. Platforms such as Amazon KDP, Gumroad, and Smashwords/ Draft2Digital make it easy to publish and sell ebooks worldwide.

2. Passive Income Potential

Once an ebook is created and listed for sale, it has the potential to generate revenue indefinitely with little ongoing effort. Many successful authors and entrepreneurs have turned ebook sales into a steady stream of passive income, whether through one-time sales or subscription-based models.

3. Positioning as an Authority

Publishing an ebook on a specialized topic helps establish credibility in your niche. Books have long been associated with credibility. Creating an ebook- even if it is free to downlioad, still applies the credibility factor.

4. Lead Generation & Business Growth

For business owners and digital marketers, ebooks can serve as powerful lead magnets. Offering a free or low-cost ebook in exchange for an email address can help build a targeted email list, which can later be used for marketing products, services, or additional digital content.

5. Scalability & Global Reach

Unlike traditional books, which require significant logistics to distribute, ebooks can be instantly downloaded by customers worldwide. This allows creators to tap into a global audience without geographical limitations. People are making money just with picture books so the language barrier to some markets has been reduced even more.

6. No Inventory or Shipping Costs

Physical books come with printing, storage, and shipping costs, which can eat into profits. Ebooks, on the other hand, are purely digital, eliminating the need for inventory and reducing overhead expenses. You still have to find a host or a platform to "store" your ebook (see further down), but generally there is minimal overhead

However, there are things to consider...

While ebooks offer numerous advantages, there are challenges to be aware of:

• Marketing & Visibility: With millions of ebooks available, standing out requires effective marketing, SEO, and possibly paid promotions.
• Piracy: Digital products are susceptible to piracy, though DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools can mitigate the risk. However what we have noticed is that if someone is pirating your work then your work is worth noticing. Also they offer free distribution :)
• Platform Fees & Policies: Platforms like Amazon take a percentage of sales, and some have restrictive policies.

And we forget about...

How to sell an ebook is not writing about an evergreen product. Ebooks are not ever green. They change. Regardless of people say, they have to change or adapt.

Why are powders, vitamins, protein bars and dog food so successful- if you can get into that space?

It is because they are consumable.

• Amazon is profitable because you keep on buying from them. 
• You buy a car and then years later to have to buy another one. Before that you have to replace bits of the car. Take it into a service.
• People buy iPhones when a new model comes out or when their phone "gets old". But you can arguably state that apart from the features, it is just a phone. The features are added to get you to buy a new phone
• Buy one Game of Thrones book and more than likely you buy others. To keep it going you create a TV show (multiple ones would be beneficial) and tie in merch
• Microsoft gets you to upgrade

Digital products are OK as long as you don't just sell one and that is it. Your product has to be:

• Consumable
• Allow the person to come back regularly
• Change up the style/ create new styles
• Add beneficial features

So when you are finding an ebook to sell just wonder. Can you upgrade it? Can you add more features down the road?

If not can you add more products to the main product. This then becomes an "add product" model. Your main product (if not upgradable/ consumable etc) has to then have help in complimentary products.

How to make an ebook. 1. Who needs it.

Don't make an ebook and then sell it. First, figure out what there is around.

When starting, the easiest method is to ask people who like the niche that you are wanting to go into. Setting up social groups, going out to groups and hanging out with people in that niche is a sure fire way to find out what they are looking for. If you can gel with them, talk about products and what is missing then you can start to build products that people want. But first you need rapport.

When you create the product you can actually tell people what you are creating and show them the process of creation. It will make them feel special and also show them that you are open to questions and tweaks.

When you start to wrap up and come close to finishing people are now wanting to see the end product.

Guess what, now you have an audience that is building and is going to be more receptive to the product you have. They are also going to be the ones that are going to buy and give you feedback. They are also the ones that are going to spread your word.

Now you might already have an idea for a product but it can be run past your group for validation. They might give you pointers on improvements or even state products already in the marketplace that do the same job.

If you think that is too much work :) then just go to charts and see what is selling.

This is a chart of the top offers from Clickbank for Feb 2025.

You will notice that they are all physical products:

• weight loss
• healthy teeth and gums
• hearing health
• etc

Now they are physical products but can they be electronicified (?). Sure they can and we know that people are buying these products. So an example would be:

• The healthy teeth and gums super guide for that Hollywood smile
• Hear the birds and your grand kids with this no nonsense hearing health guide (targeting an audience that is always under served yet spend a lot of time online and spend a lot of money online- the over 60s audience.)

The same people that are promoting these products would also probably promote your ebook, especially if it could be used as an add in or leader product.

Just a very quick Google search for Quentium Plus gave us quite a few pages with the product and reviews of said product. And Youtube reviews:

And as an added bonus, which affiliate product could you use as a follow up product?

We can go on with other physical products.

Clothing, beauty and sports dominate online shopping. Here are a few example titles that spring to mind for ebooks:

1. What are the best running shoes that Olympic athletes swear by...and why
2. The 20 tips for healthy rejuvenated skin from top dermatology experts
3. The best soccer tips from pro soccer players- turning your 11 year old into a pro

The examples mirror clothing, beauty and sports. If you are finding that running shoes are selling well, then some people will want to know about the best running shoes, tips, cleanliness regimes, reducing sports injuries.

It is a "bolt on" ebook that runs in parallel with the niche chosen.

We have our audience, whats next?

After the audience we have to write the ebook. This is not hard at all. Why? Because now a days everything is set up to be super simple. But, we have to think of a few things first

1. Because of mobile and iPads etc your ebook can not be set up to read like a normal book. It has to be formatted right or else it just looks odd when you view it on a mobile device. The main problem? Mobile devices don't have page numbers and so your ebook can't have page numbers. It just can't and doesn't work. So you bookmark  each chapter and refer to it within a table of contents.
2. It is important to style your ebook well so it doesn't get rejected from Amazon and any other place you want your book to be published. It also just looks better. The SmashWords Style Guide is completely free, a bit of a read but also shows you how to set up an ebook right. It states you can't add pictures, you can- and different coloured text.
3. For PC save the document in Word or PDF. Amazon loves Word files so use that.
4. Remember structure and flow. Depending upon what you want your ebook to do it can be as short or as long as you want as long as it is no longer or shorter.

How to make an ebook 2: AI or yourself and minimal effort ideas?

AI generated books are up and coming and regardless of what people say, they are here and here to stay. Amazon will prompt you to say if you created your ebook with AI. At the moment they are OK with it, but in time with too many ebooks of questionable value, they might stop AI generated ebooks.

AI is great as long as you know what the AI is writing. AI can be wrong, it is guided by you and will give you answers based upon your prompts.

So we asked about backlinks to our ebook and AI advised HARO (help a reporter out). Unfortunately that service has been discontinued for a while now. So knowing what is being said is also helpful in creating your ebook.

You could even create the ebook based upon articles that you might have on your computer. As long as they are of similar topic you can use those. AI can be used to "join" the articles together, rewrite them or update the text to whats new.

AI can generate ideas for structure- topics to look over. You can then go away look at those and then add additional terms and titles to what you have found.

Place in relevant pictures (with references if required) and then save it off.

Other ideas for ebooks with very little effort can be:

• Interviews with X person/ people in your niche
• Wrap up of the year in X niche
• How you used X product to generate Y. Once person bought an affiliate ebook- tried it out and documented the process. It got sales and then a side job of promoting products for offline stores. It also helped that the author of the affiliate book was popular (gained traffic) and people wanted to figure out if it worked or not.
  

How to make an ebook 3: Which platform should you sell on?

So far the process of setting up an ebook has actually been not that bad. The main issue is who do you use to sell the ebook?

Ebook selling platforms like you because they need your ebook and traffic to make money. What they offer and what you want is what you are looking for. The main ideas is that:

• Do they have a good customer service. This also goes for refunds, how the ebook is presented, navigation, trust etc. If it is bad then it will reflect poorly upon you
• Do they pay you quickly and timely. Also how do they pay you?
• What do they allow you to do? Can you access customer emails? Can you upload to a certain amount, have restrictions on downloads or pay more for higher sized ebooks (like Amazon does)
• Do you need to generate traffic?
• Do they host your ebook?
• Does your sales page need to be set up in a certain way (just like Clickbank).

They will all have positives and negatives. Those negatives should be less than the positives for your need, not someone elses.

Each platform has positives and negatives. The main ones are:

• Amazon KDP: Extremely simple to set up and have access to a boat load of customers. But those customers have a boat load of products to look for and you can get lost in the sea of products. Also, there is no following up on customers- Amazon keeps that private
• Gumroad. Super simple like really simple and quick to set up. Fees are super low and they host. However you have to generate the traffic
• Clickbank. Professional eproduct seller. Has been around for ages. Has some questionable products for sale. Set up fees and transaction overall fees can be large. You have to generate traffic to a point and the army of affiliates? Sure, if you can get one great, but those affiliates who actually do sell a product are elusive and will only sell a sure thing.
• Other websites like Payhip etc. These are all cool and offer tons of features for very minimal transaction fee. You have to drive the traffic.

And that is the key here. You have to drive traffic to your ebook and selling an ebook is ultimately the hardest thing to do because it can be easy to create one (see above :) ).

What we have done is the following:

1. Used KDP because of the audience. Also they sort our customer complaints and refunds. It is a set it and forget it system
2. Link within the ebook back to our website (never place affiliate links within a KDP ebook)
3. If it is a big ebook with additional sections then we use Clickbank but we also have traffic coming to the site to generate sales. This also kicks in the Clickbank sales mechanism. Clickbank requires a lot from your sales page. They will also handle the transactions and hosting of your product which is nice.
4. If it is an easy simple ebook then we use Gumroad. It is stoopidly easy to set up an ebook to be sold with them. When we did it we looked around and checked to see if we did it right. If you have your pdf, title picture and sales copy already written up then it takes 5 minutes to set up- if that.

 You have your ebook on a platform...now what?

Now you have to generate sales.

Only Amazon has really the infrastructure to drive traffic to your ebook. The others need other people to do it.

But what you have to be careful with is the following:

• Apart from Gumroad, Clickbank and Amazon rate you depending upon if you have refunds. Amazon has a whole area dedicated to what product ranks where. Any platform that ranks you with other products has refunds bolted into their equations.

This means that you can throw all the traffic you want to your ebook but if very few of them buy and then refund...well your ebook is not going to do well.

So specific traffic is wise.

• Building up a website to drive traffic through dedicated keywords is good but it is a long term strategy
• Paying for keywords and ads is nice but you have to definitely figure out if those numbers are converting to make that venture profitable. It might also take quite a bit of traffic to figure this out. On top of that, if you are selling an ebook at $2.95 that traffic needs to convert highly or be very cheap for you to profit
• Affiliates are a fun idea- get other people to sell your products. But they follow the 80-20 rule. 20% will generate 80% of sales- and that 20% is probably too high a number. Good affiliates are hard to come by
• Social is a better idea but you need to tap into your own friends and family. If you don't want to do this then you are forgetting a resource that can generate sales, be nice to you and also be able to spread your theme around through their friends.

Each one has its pluses and minuses. But to make each one work you need to keep at it, find the techniques, find what works...and which one is good for you. Because if you are having no fun (and losing money) traffic generation can be a pain. Find one that you like and then go for it.

If you want the indepth/ deep playbook on how to create ebook after ebook. Each one the audience is wanting more and more.  Then check out here

Wanting to know how the top ebook sellers promote their ebooks each and every time. Then this will help you out.

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