Send to Kindle
In these days of economic recession and job cuts, more and more people are starting their own home business in order to pay off debt and replace lost income. Others are doing it as a hobby whist more and more and supplementing their diminishing retirement incomes. No matter what your reasons are for starting your own home business, one of the biggest problems you will find is deciding on what product to sell. This article details a cheap and easy way to get started in an exiting on line business…producing and selling your own eBook.
How to Write Your First eBook On a Limited Budget
So, you have decided that eBooks are the product you want to promote with your home based business. Why eBooks?… Well they are great sellers on eBay, they are cheap to produce, easy to create,and most importantly provide readers with INFORMATION. Information is what people are looking for when buying eBooks. Also once produced, they can go on making you a passive income for years and years. It doesn’t get much better than that! But…you don’t want to sell the same tired old books that have been doing the rounds for years. What you really need is something fresh that solves a problem or teaches your readers a new skill…people are always looking for information to help them solve a problem or learn how to do something. What you really need to do is publish your own eBook! The big question now is how do you go about creating your very own eBook?
The truth is there is more than one way to create an eBook on a budget. They are:
- Have someone else do it for you
- Legally use someone else’s work
- Research your subject and write it yourself
Lets look at each of these in turn.
a) Have someone else do it for you
There are sites where you can post your work, and where freelance writers can take a look, and make bids on your projects. Do a quick check on Google for the best sites for hiring self-employed writers. For example one of the most popular “http://www.people per hour.com” have many many self employed writers available to write your eBook
If you decide to use a freelance writer, you must do the following:
1. Give as much detail as possible so that writers know exactly what you want. Some of them will be so eager for your project that they will produce a sample section based on your information just to get your business. Make sure you also ask the bidder to sign a non-disclosure arrangement. This information can be found on the site. You always must register, as well. Buyers can register for free.
2. Always ask bidders for examples of their work; otherwise, you may find they are not any better at writing than you are.
3. As in any business deal, don’t ever pay anyone until you have reviewed and are happy with their work.
But…as we are talking about producing our book on a budget, we need to look at the second way to create an inexpensive eBook.
b) Legally use someone else’s information
This is by far a cheapest method and is ideal for beginners on a low budget. But… How can this be done? The answer is using Public Domain materials. The Public Domain covers books, manuals, music and other works whose copyrights have expired or maybe never existed in the first place. This fabulous vault of information will cost you absolutely nothing and it is yours to legally copy and change as much as you like. There are no ongoing fees or royalties of any kind. Anything published before 1923 in the United States is considered public domain. This means that no one owns the copyright of the material, and therefore, anybody can use it. It gets even better than this. Some titles published between 1923 and 1963 may be Public Domain material if the copyright was not renewed by the 28th year. To cover yourself, it always advisable to check with a copyright attorney before publishing any work you might find. There are membership sites on the internet that have done all the work for you! Just pay a small monthly fee and get lots of great Public Domain material.
Okay, now we know where we can get our material for free, we now have to decide what to write about.
By far the best sellers are usually about the following:
1. Getting things for free
2. Gambling
3. Making Money
4. Saving money
5. Improving your health
6. Working from Home
7. eBay
8. “How to” guides
9. Learning a new skill
10. Improve appearance
11. To be entertained
12. Have a better lifestyle
13. How to solve a problem – any problem
you will make money with any of these subjects, because people will buy books with these contents – because you will be selling them for at least $10 or more. if you use public domain information you don’t need to be an expert in any of these fields to write an eBook on any of the above subjects – your content is already out there you just need to do some research and compile all the info to create your own product.
c) Research your subject and write it yourself
This is where you create your own unique product. Remember – your product is only available from you. This is why people will pay big money for your product. You must tell people they cannot get it anywhere else. So how do you write your own unique info product, and sell it? You can use existing eBooks and the internet for your research. But…You will not be copying them because that is illegal.
Research anything you like on the subject from the internet, or buy an eBook, get the main facts from it and add your own thoughts and ideas. If you read the eBook and do your own research then write an eBook of your own on the same subject then there’s no infringement of copyright. Go to your own favourite search Engine and find yet more relevant info on the subject. Research, research and more research, then try to write your eBook from scratch, that way it’s all your own work. You can legitimately sell it as your own work. Because it IS.
This is the secret of producing and writing your own valuable eBook and selling it on your own EBAY AUCTION or eBook website. As soon as you adapt and improve all this excellent information, it will instantly become YOURS. You will now own the copyright including SOLE rights over the eBook. You, being the copyright owner, are fully entitled to sell… sell… sell and sell again. Therefore your unique eBooks will also sell for a much higher price. They will easily sell for over $10 a time. Your product will be in huge demand because no one will be able to get it anywhere else. There are countless eBooks out there for research, many of them FREE. You can create money out of NOTHING.
Set yourself up for life. You could sell at $5 each and people will run over each other to get a new unseen before eBook for $5 on eBay. You will be the only person selling this so they will have to pay whatever price you ask. If you only charge £5 however and sell three a day this will bring in £100 a week. For a unique eBook on eBay this is not a problem if it’s done correctly.
OK so where do you go from there?
Write your eBook using a program such as Microsoft word or FrontPage. When you think you have enough relevant information for your eBook…usually at least 10 pages but of course the more pages…the better the value and of course you can charge all the more, you can add pictures, bold text, links to other websites etc to make it interesting.
Use all the good information that’s been given to you. The eBook only needs to be between 10 and 20 pages long to sell for between $5 and $30. Try to include links to relevant sites that can add more information to the info included in the eBook, these can be affiliate links that will earn you even more. Also maybe add a few relevant free eBooks that they would be able to resell. It makes the package bigger and more value for money. After all, there is plenty on the site below, give a few away to create a ‘package’ Just as long as they know that they cannot resell yours. If you have any websites or any other product to sell use a link. You could get more sales from it. Always have an affiliate link to your eBay store. You are almost finished… you have three methods of producing your eBook on a budget, the important thing now is to get started with whatever method suits you best and get your home based eBook business off to a great start!
Now you have done the hard part writing your eBook- now to deliver your eBook? whatever you do, do not deliver your eBook as a word or exe file. either of these will let your readers modify it slightly and pass it on as their own work. your eBook should be delivered as a pdf file or on cd rom. Below is a FREE service that can convert your Word or any word processor document to pdf format for you.
Whichever of the three methods described above you decide on, you are now well on your way to producing your first eBook on a limited budget
About the Author:
Stewart Alves is an eBay Seller and author of the Blog ‘Capital ebooks’. You can learn more about starting your own ebook Business and: SELLING THEM ON EBAY