Modern technology has made it easier for anyone to consider self publishing their own ebook or electronic book. Because of technology and low costs associated with marketing on the internet, you can not only create, but also sell your own ebook for a price that makes it extremely accessible to your readers while still being profitable for you.

Fortunately, there are many excellent guides available on how to create a profitable ebook.

Creating your own ebook can be very profitable and highly rewarding, especially if you create product that ends up making consistent sales for you.

Before all this can happen, however, you need to research the market and find something that people would be interested in paying money for. This may not necessarily end up being a topic that you are knowledgeable about. In this case, you should consider hiring the services of a professional freelance writer (called a ghostwriter), to research and write your book.

I realize that this may not sound like good advice to you if you are someone who believes that the ebook has to come from your own knowledge or expertise, but if you put your ego aside for the time being and look at yourself as an "online publisher", then it makes perfect sense, since the role of a commercial book publisher is to:

A) Identify a viable commercial opportunity in the market place

B) Capitalize on the opportunity they have identified by sourcing or commissioning a skilled author to create a product that fulfils a market need

You now have two strategies for creating an electronic book:

  1. Become an ebook author and write the ebook yourself
  2. Become an ebook publisher and hire someone to write the ebook for you.

Several years ago, I decided to create and sell an ebook after going through a $2,000 course on how to make money online creating and selling ebooks with a business partner.

The basic method taught in this course was as follows:

  • Find a potentially profitable niche market to test
  • Test the marketplace to see if your idea for an ebook (or other information product) passes the test (i.e. a specific set of filters to determine viability and probability of success)
  • Create a downloadable (i.e. digital or electronic) product or choose a primary affiliate product to promote online
  • Sell your product with a direct marketing sales page

After following the system and creating a list of about 20 potentially profitable niche markets in Step 1 above, we found that only one niche market passed all of the specific filters set out in the training program. This niche was something that neither my partner or I had any knowledge about or expertise in.

So, we decided to outsource the creation of the product to a professional writer.

After posting the work on elance, we ended up finding someone who we felt confident to go with. We then provided the author with a specific brief of what the ebook had to cover and 30 days later we received a finished 80 page ebook, professionally written, formatted and edited. Total cost came to around $1,000.

Because neither my business partner or I were saddled with the task of researching and writing the book, I was able to get the sales letter written and completed by the time our writer had finished writing our book.

I had also created an account with Clickbank.com to handle all payment processing activities for our ebook while waiting for the finished product to be delivered. One of the great benefits of selling digital products through Clickbank, is that if accepted, your product becomes instantly available for thousands of affiliate marketers to promote.

Because we decided to outsource the creation of our information product, we were ready to start selling it as soon as it was completed.

After three months of promoting the product, my business partner and I decided to go our separate ways. I bought my partner’s share of the business and just let the website promoting my ebook run on auto pilot, as I moved on to different projects.

This ebook has been selling consistently since may 2005. In fact, I recouped my investment in the first 12 months and since then, I have been making a profit on auto-pilot. Since I pay 60% commission to affiliates who sell my product and Clickbank handles all payment processing (including payment of affiliate commissions) and product delivery, I don’t really do anything, except collect payments and answer an occasional customer email.

Now, I can probably hear you thinking "if I don’t know anything about the subject matter of the product I’m promoting, how can I tell if the ebook is any good?"

Simple. just look at the refund rate of the product (Clickbank has a strict customer protection policy that allows all product buyers up to 60 days to decide whether they are happy with their purchase. If they are not happy, they automatically receive a full refund on their money). If the ebook was no good, people would just ask for a refund and get their money back.

As it happens, I have sold thousands of copies of my ebook since 2005 and have only had about 5 refund requests during all this time (the main reason for the refund being that the buyers thought they were getting an actual physical product delivered to their home address, instead of a downloadable electronic book). This means that my ebook is actually pretty good (I have also done customer surveys with buyers and all of those who responded confirmed that they were very happy with my product).

So, there you have it! You can author and publish your own ebook, or you can commission someone through elance to write one for you. You can be a successful ebook publisher and generate a nice income stream from selling information products online, even if you know nothing about the subject of your ebook. I have done it and so can you! Good luck with your new venture as an ebook author or online publisher and I hope it is wildly successful for you.

If you are interested in learning how to create your own profitable information products, then check out Product Profits Club – an online membership site where members learn how to develop info-products and software, including advanced modules on product research, outsourcing, promotion, pricing strategy and generating publicity. As a special for our valued readers and site visitors, we have secured a complimentary FREE Lifetime Silver Membership Pass to Product Profits Club. This membership is normally valued at $47, but you can access it for FREE today by clicking here: Product Profits Club Free Lifetime Silver Membership Pass.

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Julie Warner
Author: Julie Warner

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