One of the greatest feelings of accomplishment as a writer, blogger, or entrepreneur is publishing your ebook and making lots of sales from it.

There are several ebook hosting platforms to publish your book and get paid when someone buys it. One of which is Selar.  

In this article, we’d help you understand why you can use ebooks as a passive income strategy and guide you on how to get started and sell your ebooks on Selar.

Let’s go.

Why Use Ebooks to Generate Income?

Ebooks are a great way to share content with your audience. No matter how much other forms of content such as newsletters, podcasts, blog posts, and videos soar, people still like to read. 

And one of the best ways to reach these types of people is by having and selling an ebook. 

Here are several reasons we think that using ebooks as an income strategy is worth it. 

1. It is Easy to Get Started 

If you have a topic you want to write about, a laptop or paper and pen, you are good to go!

You don’t have to request permission to write and sell your ebook. Neither do you need a fancy website to sell your ebook. 

On Selar, all you just need to do is create your account and share your product link with anyone. It’s that easy.

2. It’s a Good Source of Passive Income

For clarity, Passive income is money you earn that doesn’t require you to do a lot of “Active” work to continue making it. In other words, “soft work” would pay you lots of money. And one such “soft work” is selling Ebooks. 

Once you have created your book, you can sell it as many times as possible. You only spend time creating your eBook to make it fit for sale. 

Once you’re done, you can create a sales page or an online store, write good sales copy, connect a payment system, drive traffic to the page by advertising, share product links on social media, and sit back and watch the cash flow. 

3. It’s a Global Business

The best part about selling ebooks is that it is a digital product that you can sell to anyone in any part of the world. 

So you are not limited by your country or location. With an ebook platform such as Selar, you can set up your account, upload your product, and watch it reach thousands of people in different countries.

Making money from ebooks is possible. However, it largely depends on the quality of your ebook. If you have a poorly written ebook, nobody will buy that.

So, the question is, how do you write an ebook that brings you lots of profit?

How to Write an Ebook That Sells Massively on Selar

Here’s how to write an ebook worth selling.

1. Find out what your audience wants

The first step to writing an ebook worth selling is researching who your audience is and what they need. Nobody needs it if it’s not solving a problem, inspiring, informing, or educating the audience. 

Create personas to help you better understand who you’re writing for. Pay attention to what sparks their interest and add or replicate it in your ebook. 

Generally, there are two types of content that’d be relevant to your audience. They are; evergreen or timely content. If it’s evergreen content, you can write your ebook once and sell it as often as you like because it never gets stale. 

If it’s a timely content, you’d have to make updates when necessary and inform your readers of the update. 

You can also look at the ebooks already available online. Take note of the book cover, title, price, and number of pages. Knowing this will help you decide what your ebook should look like to appeal to your audience. 

So, find out what your audience needs and plan toward providing it. 

LEARN How to Identify Your Target Audience as a Digital Creator

2. Decide a Title

The next most important thing is to decide on a title for your ebook. Use data from your research to develop a befitting topic for your ebook. 

Remember, the title of your ebook should be something that;

• You know a lot about it (Although you’d still carry out lots of research)
• Aligns with your business or personal brand. You don’t want to be building a leadership brand and write an ebook about “Dancing as an art..”
• Your audience is interested in and would greatly benefit from it. No one likes to lose. 
• Is everywhere online. That is, it’s oversaturated online, and your audience already has a source. 

If your title is one your audience can find for free online, why would they pay for it? And if your ebook would be about a popular topic, what difference would you bring to the table to make it stand out? 

3. Start Writing

Now you have data from your research and a befitting title, the next step is to write. But before you start, check to see if you have blog posts or newsletter content you can add to your ebook. 

Here are a few tips to help you write better. 

• Create an Outline

Before writing anything, start with an outline. Decide the depth of subheadings and bullet points to use in your ebook. Separate your content into parts, and choose how many headings and subheadings you’d have in your ebook. You do not want to overwhelm your readers with all your texts.

Add captions to any image or infographics you intend to use, and don’t forget to add quotes. (Kindly inspire us)

• Write the content

With your outline, writing the content of the ebook becomes easy. Your thoughts flow in the right direction, and you only add what needs to be there. Write from your wealth of knowledge and possibly add personal experiences that have shaped your thoughts about the topic. 

Conversely, writing what you know doesn’t automatically displace fact-checking. Ensure the statements are correct and backed up with research, findings, statistics, data, expert quotes, personal experience, etc. Also, when giving examples or tips, use a relevant example to discuss the subject.

• Edit

Once you’re done writing your ebook, the next thing is to edit. But not immediately. Leave the entire book for a few days and do something interesting. Afterward, you can come back to your draft for editing. 

Read your work from beginning to end and check for these things; 

• Content flow. Is there a good flow from the beginning to your ebook?
• Is your introduction fascinating to read?
• Does the content progress appropriately from one topic to another? 
• Are your points clearly stated and evident for the reader to see?
• Do the visuals support the content properly? 

You may even hire an editor for the best results. The aim is to eliminate any mistakes or errors you may have missed while writing. So, it’s best to get a second eye. 

• Proofread

The last thing to do is to proofread your text. Use tools like Grammarly to identify essential spelling or punctuation errors while writing and the Hemingway App to find grammar errors or lousy sentence structures. 

4. Design your Ebook

The next thing after writing is to design. If your ebook contains much text, consider adding visuals to break the text and reduce the strain on your reader’s eye. 

You have two options when designing your ebook. You may decide to use a template from design tools such as Canva, or you may choose to create from scratch. 

Whichever one you decide, it’s best to first look at some templates online. Templates are great for inspiration. And if you find one that you like, you can add, remove, or duplicate pages to create your ebook. No stress!

Here are some tips to help you while designing your ebook.

• Be consistent with the font style throughout your book. Experts recommend no more than two font styles in one book, one for the heading and the other for the body text. 
• Choose a color palette that wouldn’t be a problem for the reader. Colors should make your ebook appealing and easy to read. 
• Visual hierarchy. There should be a flow hierarchy on all pages of the book. Every section starts with a heading, maybe a subheading, and the body of the content in regular font size. Down the hierarchy can be images and footnotes. 
• The ebook should have good margins and spacing, making it easy to read. Maintain the same margin for all the pages. 
• Don’t forget to number the pages. 

5. Create an exciting book cover

Use the data from your research to create an ebook cover that will appeal to your audience. Also, use visuals that complement your text better. 

Your ebook cover should contain the following; 

• Ebook Title
• Subtitle (If any)
• Author
• Company name/Logo
• Brand color/Images

When designing, use a visual hierarchy to organize the cover page. For example, the title has the largest font, while the subtitle and the author’s name are smaller.

Although we say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” best believe that the first thing people will judge about your book is the cover. So, don’t take chances. Ensure the book cover is eye-catching and complements the entire book. 

6. Download and publish your Ebook

The next step is to go ahead to download and publish your book. You can either make it downloadable as a PDF document or readable online. If you prefer to make it downloadable as a PDF, here are some ways to do that;

• Upload the PDF to your website (if you have any) to generate a link
• Add the PDF to your cloud storage, whether Google Drive or Dropbox folder, to create the link. 
• Upload the PDF to the web with Selar and share the live link with customers. They’ll either download your book as a PDF or read it online when they buy it. 

7. Create a landing page

Regardless of how you intend to sell your ebook, you must have a landing page that brings people to your sales funnel. 

When using an eCommerce store like Selar, you can add the product link to your landing page and shorten the buying journey for your customer. 

Here’s what a landing page looks like;

How to Sell Your eBook Online on Selar and Make Lots of Money

Selling on Selar is an easy way to get your book to your audience with minimal marketing efforts. The best part is that the service fee is minimal, and you get all your sales paid directly to your linked bank account.

So, if you’ve decided to sell your ebook on Selar (an excellent choice), there are many perks to enjoy. From the easy-to-use system to the free landing pages and wallets, it just gets better.

Here are a few guides on how to sell your ebook on Selar and make many sales.

1. Set a price for your Ebook 

Setting a price for your ebook is an essential part of sales. However, before putting a price on your ebook, conduct market research to discover how other writers charge for their ebooks on similar topics. 

Notice how book prices are like this: ₦ 20,000 ₦2,000. It’s all about pricing psychology and influencing your customers to see the cancellation as you giving a huge discount. 

Another method to price your ebook is by calculating the time and effort it took to create the ebook. And the amount you’d spend on marketing. You’d have a clearer picture of how to price your book. 

2. Sign up and Set up your account

After you’ve decided on a price for your ebook, the next step is to create an account. Signup and proceed to set up your bank details. On confirmation of your bank account, you can select your product type.

3. Select the product type

The next step is to select the product you want to sell on Selar. Which, in this case, is an ebook. There are clear guides that explain the categories of each product. So, ensure you read and select carefully. 

4. Upload your Ebook

After selecting your product type and filling in the requirements, the next thing to do is to upload your ebook and set it as a “Downloadable file.” Once you’re done, click on “Create a product” at the bottom of the page.

Alternatively, you can adjust your settings to allow your reader “Read Online.” This means that they can only read the book on Selar and not download it. 

5. Share and Sell

Now your product is published, you can copy and share your product link with your customers.

If set to “Downloadable file,” your users can freely download your book on Selar. However, if set to ‘Read Online,” your users will only read your book on the Selar website. 

All sales made from your ebook will be paid into the bank account you added to your profile. 

Make more sales! Use these 4 Unconventional Ways to Make Money From Ebooks Online

6. Track Sales

Tracking your sales is essential to know which marketing strategies are most effective. 

Selar offers a type of analytics to see how many people bought your book, demographics, etc. 

You may also use several techniques to track sales and reading time to make more informed decisions around your ebook and promotional strategies. 

Bonus Tip: How To Promote Your Ebook

Now that everything is ready, it’s time to promote your ebook. Some writers start to promote their books even before it is published, thereby building excitement and anticipation in their audience. 

You may want to adopt that strategy. However, the downside to this is that you must be sure your ebook will be ready in the said time; otherwise, a delay can harm your marketing strategies. 

So, here are several ways to promote your ebook.

• Create social media posts about your book. You may decide to share an excerpt from your book and direct them to your product link. Include visuals to attract your audience too. 

• Repurpose your content. You’ll need to have everything right at your fingertips to keep your content flowing. Simply reformat it to make the most sense – whether as blog posts, newsletters, emails, white papers, or even a short video. Include a link to the landing page or online store (Selar) in your emails and always speak in benefits so your readers find a reason to buy your book.

• Reach out to other authors in your niche and request guest posting. Have them write a review about your book and share it online.

• Offer giveaways and contest on your social media to arouse the interest of your audience and drive traffic to your online store on Selar. 

• Join Facebook groups and forums and participate in discussions around your specialized industry

• Launch your own Facebook group in your niche.

• Offer an affiliate program to content creators in your niche.

• Run Social media ads on your ebook and write a compelling copy to drive sales. 

Learn more ways to promote your product to improve sales.