TIPS FOR CREATING AND LAUNCHING AN EBOOK PUBLISHING BUSINESS

Here are some of my top tips for creating and launching an eBook , so you can
take the confusion out of the process and start writing!

• Write and hire an editor. The first step when creating your eBook is to
simply sit down and write it. Decide on the problem you’ll help your audience
solve, then write in a voice similar to how you blog, conversationally, not stiff.
The length of the completed document depends on your topic, audience and
writing style; write until you’ve covered all the important information, then
trim the excess.

Hiring an editor will help you tighten up the content — and if you want to be
perceived as a professional, don’t skip this step. Eat the costs, because you’re
going to make good money off this eBook anyhow, right?

• Choose a format. You want your PDF eBook to look appealing on both an ereader
and a computer screen. So don’t think in terms of oldschool
book formats. Favour easy to read, large font and plenty of visually friendly white
space. Notice the details in eBooks by other writers — the appearance of their header
and footer, the location of page numbers, etc. — and incorporate those effective
presentations into your own work.

• Decide on a price and platform. Because this is a relatively new medium,
there’s no magic formula for figuring out how to price your work. While prices
vary, informational eguides often cost more than traditional books. It’s not
unusual to see them priced at $19, $29, $49 or more. Research your niche, ask
for feedback and settle on what feels right.

From there, decide whether you’ll sell your eBook straight from your website or
use a distributor like Amazon.com or Smashwords.com. If you sell from your own site, you keep all the profits, which sound pretty great, right? The challenge is that you’ll need a decentsized platform to do this successfully.
If you use Amazon or Smashwords , you’ll cast a wider net, but they’ll take a cut of your sales. That means the decision comes down to a few factors: the size of your audience, how much you’re selling your eBook for and how you feel about sharing the
proceeds.

• Consider PayPal and E-junkie if you sell your eBook yourself. If you opt to sell your book straight from your own site or blog rather than use a distributor, consider using PayPal (www.paypal.com) and E-junkie (www.e-junkie.com) to make the e-commerce process automatic. E-junkie costs only $5/month initially, routes your sales through PayPal and sends your eBook to buyers automatically. It also offers an affiliate option, which lets other bloggers earn a commission for selling your products. At least 33 percent commission is standard, and many authors offer 50 percent.

Besides PayPal, you can also use any one of the following payment processors with E-junkie. If you like you can combine E-junkie with one or more payment processors to offer buyers a choice of checkout methods. The payment processors you can use with E-junkie besides PayPal are:

- Google Checkout - https://checkout.google.com/


- 2CheckOut - www.2checkout.com (Buy Now buttons only, not for cart checkouts)
- ClickBank - www.clickbank.com (Buy Now buttons only, not for cart checkouts)
- TrialPay - www.trialpay.com

Payment processors act as a "middleman" where the buyer actually pays the payment processor, and then the payment processor pays you.

E-junkie, on the other hand, provides shopping cart and buy now buttons to let you sell downloads and tangible goods on your website, blog, eBay, MySpace, Google Base, CraigsList and other websites using PayPal Payments Standard, PayPal Payments Advanced, PayPal Payments Pro, PayPal Payflow Pro, Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, TrialPay, ClickBank and 2CheckOut.

For merchants selling downloads, E-junkie automates and secures the digital delivery of files and codes. If you are selling tangible goods, E-junkie automates the shipping calculation and inventory management. Their shopping cart has a built in sales tax, VAT, packaging and shipping cost calculator.

With E-junkie you can sell ebooks, sell mp3 tracks and albums, sell software, icons, fonts, artwork, phone cards, event tickets, cds, posters, books, t-shirts and almost everything else you want to sell.

E-junkie has no transaction limit, no bandwidth limit, no setup fee and no transaction fee.

• Promote! Once your eBook is written, formatted and ready to see the world,
it’s time to create a promotion plan . Approach bloggers with big platforms and
ask for reviews, Q&As or guest posts, keeping in mind that you’ll have to
actually write the guest posts you promise.

Use your network! Keep track of the people you pitch and their responses in a
Google Doc. If you do this properly, you’ll be able to remember everyone who’s
helping spread the word about your book and thank them accordingly.

• Offer prelaunch discounts and bonuses. If you have a solid email list, offer
your subscribers a discount to show your appreciation for their support and
make some sales in the process. And give people who purchase your eBook a
little something extra that they’re not expecting, like a discount on another
product from you or an affiliate. It’s always a good idea to sweeten the pot,
right?

Writing and launching an eBook may seem like a daunting process, but it
doesn’t have to be. If you know the rights steps to take throughout the process,
you’ll get your book out into the world in no time – and make some money while
you’re at it.