How I made $6000 from my first Ebook in less than 2 months
Adaora, a first-time author, made $6000 from her ebook in less than two months. We had her share the strategies she used in hitting such numbers with us.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Adaora and I am a software engineer currently building cloud and mixed reality products at Microsoft. I am also a content creator and recently I wrote my first book which automatically makes me an author.
From a cloud engineer to a digital creator. Could you share with us how the journey was for you? What motivated you?
At the start of my career as a cloud engineer, it was a little bit difficult navigating that terrain. My industry comes with its fair share of challenges so I decided to write a book about all of that someday even though I didn’t take it seriously back then.
After over two years of being a cloud engineer, I finally felt I was knowledgeable enough about it and I could put the things I knew into writing for people that want to venture into cloud engineering. I just wanted to simplify cloud engineering for beginners.
I stalled for a bit though and tried shaking off the thought at some point but it kept coming back so I decided to give it a try.
What advice would you give a tech bro/sis who is highly skilled and is looking to start their own digital creation journey?
I won’t tell them to go for it or just do it because it doesn’t really apply to everybody.
I would say that you should know and understand yourself because not everyone would write a book, and that is fine. n the other hand, some people are long overdue to write their ebooks and put out their digital products.
If you know you are highly knowledgeable and you can offer value, and it is something you can balance with your actual work, why not? You should definitely go for it.
Make your research, reach out to colleagues, friends, and mentors to help you go through the book to make sure you are not putting out something shabby. ost importantly, you should put yourself out there.
When I wanted to write my ebook, I reached out to mentors, friends who were already digital creators, and colleagues.
I had people who encouraged me and also people who discouraged me. I chose to lean to the people who encouraged me to go for it.
Did you have any fears or doubts when you were writing this book, especially as it was your first Ebook?
Yes, I did! I almost didn’t write it but at a point, I just thought to myself; Why not just go for it?
If they buy it, it’s their business and if they don’t, it’s still their business.
I would say that making YouTube videos are easier for me unlike writing a book. Writing a book was completely new territory for me and it took me a few months to complete it. I think the hardest part about writing a book is writing the first one.
I’m glad I have written the first one and I’m aware that I’ve made a few mistakes along the process. I have learned from those mistakes and I’m certainly not going to repeat them. I believe that when writing my second book if there’ll be a second one, it would be easier than the first.
What are the top 3 strategies you used to sell your Ebook?
I made myself visible. I was talking about cloud computing everywhere I had the opportunity to. I already made myself an authority before publishing the book. I didn’t just put the book out as a new face. A lot of people already knew and trusted me.
Last year, I intentionally granted only interviews that would allow me to speak about cloud engineering.
The second thing I did is put out the book on pre-order for a month. I also took advantage of my platform. I didn’t run any paid ads. I spoke about the book everywhere I went to. Both offline and online. As the proud Igbo girl that I am, I don’t take a break from pushing my book. Not even for a day.
Did you use an editor at any point?
Yes. It is important you use professionals. I designed the cover on canva but I didn’t like it so I had to get a professional designer to do that for me and I loved the result. I also reached out to two different types of editors. A technical editor because of the book’s subject and also a normal editor to check my grammar and proofread the book.
What’s been your experience using Selar and why did you choose to host your ebook on Selar?
It’s easy to sell on Selar and that’s one of the reasons it’s the primary platform I’m using to push the digital copy of my book.
Selar makes it easy to upload the book, the dashboard is easy to navigate and it’s easy to receive payments too, even in other currencies.
Another reason I chose Selar was because of my friend, Mitchelle. Shout-out to her! She published her book last year and she used Selar. She was the one who made me know Selar existed. She convinced me to try Selar. Moreover, the fact that Selar is built for African creators by Africans just made it more important for me to use it. It just makes sense for us to support each other.
If you had the opportunity to do it all over again, what would you do differently this time?
I will definitely have a team in place. I felt overwhelmed replying to DMs and responding to clients’ issues and questions. I would have a support staff that would handle the DMs and also filter them so that I get to attend to the important ones and delegate the rest. A team makes a lot of things easier.
