Traditionally, book publishing is a risky business. Publishers have high up front costs (to pay editors, book and cover designers etc) to publish a book. Then they have to sell in large volumes to keep cost per unit down and return a profit. They have to spend money on marketing and distribution. And after all that, if the book fails to sell, the book stores return the books and the publisher has to eat the losses.
The rise of e-book publishing and print on demand has turned the industry on its head. Today, almost anyone can publish an e-Book with little to no cost and start making passive income. You don’t even have to be a great writer to earn money with publishing, so imagine what you can do if you are a great writer. You can self-publish e-Books and sell them through retailers like Amazon (Kindle Store), Apple (iBookstore) and Barnes and Noble’s (Nook) electronic book stores and generate passive income.
What is an e-Book?
An E-book or an electronic book is the latest and arguably, the greatest way to deliver books to readers. Due to their ease of production and release, they can also be an easy and effective stream of passive income. Platforms like Amazon Kindle, have made it very easy to enter the market and you can easily publish books today. Let’s take a look at platforms that you can utilize to publish today.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing
The most popular platform for publishing e-Books is Amazon’s Kindle store. If you are looking for a simple and free way to publish and distribute books, then this is the place to start. Given that Amazon has 65% of all e-Book sales market share, you are guaranteed a great audience as well.
Smashwords
Smashwords is a publication service that aggregates publishes to all retailers (like Apple, Barne’s and Noble etc) via one ISBN (which is the barcode needed to sell books). This saves the author from running around and publish through different retailer.
Direct e-Book Sales
If you have managed to curate your own audience via other platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, private newsletter etc), you can push your e-Book sales through those formats as well. You can do this by either linking them to your Kindle, Apple and/or Barne’s and Noble listings or you can sell them pdf versions of your e-Book after receiving an online payment.
Getting Started
Now that we have discussed different platforms that are available, lets discuss the general strategy.
Step 1: Do the Market Research
Market research is crucial before you even begin to write. Look into what the trends are and evaluate whether it is even worth writing about the subject matter that you have in mind. Curating and writing a book is a time consuming process so make sure that it is worth your while before getting into it. This can be done by researching keywords and trends by using tools such as Google trends etc. Instagram and Twitter hashtags can also be an indicator for topics that may be in demand.
Step 2: Creating Content
This is where the bulk of the work resides and initially, this phase can be a bit intimidating. However, once you get the hang of things, they get easier. The good thing about publishing e-Books is that you don’t need to stick to a single niche. You can try different areas and figure out what you are good at. Keep in mind that you may not get success at your first try. But that shouldn’t be the aim either.
Another thing to keep in mind is that an e-Book doesn’t have to be unnecessarily long. Even short books can make money provided they are full of value and/or entertaining content. Short books can be sold cheap but in bulk to make money. If you are a good writer and are full of ideas, eventually you can put together a collection of books which can collectively generate a generous amount of income.
You don’t need to write the books yourself either. If you have an idea, you can pay and get someone else to write the book for you. There are several freelance writers available on services like Upwork and Fiverr who can write the book for you which you can then publish.
Step 3: Formatting Content
This can either be done while writing the book or separately. Once you are done writing the book, its important to go back and ensure that it’s formatted correctly. Kindle and Smashwords have their guidelines available for formatting. The best thing to keep in mind here is to keep things simple.
If you are using Microsoft Word, use Heading 1 for new chapters and insert page breaks before each chapter. Give Heading 2 for headings within the chapter. Text settings should be left as at default settings. Either space out the paragraphs or use first-line indents for fictional books. Do not complicate things and if necessary, hire someone to format the book for you. Again, you can find freelancers online to do this for you for a fee. Though not always the case, but generally a well formatted Word document translates well into Kindle.
It is also vital to create a linked table of contents. This can be done in MS word by going into the ‘References’ tab and inserting a table of contents. If you have used Heading 1 style to create chapter headings, this feature should do the rest of the work for you. You will have to create bookmarks and hyperlinks for each section in Smashwords. The style guide provided by Smashwords is comprehensive. Definitely worth reading as it provides all the guidance needed to create e-Books compatible with both platforms affiliated with Smashwords and with Kindle.
Step 4: Creating a Book Cover
A book cover is crucial when it comes to standing out from the crowd. It helps you create the first impression on your target audience before they read your content. You can either create the cover page yourself if you are comfortable with image editing software or you can leverage tools like the ones such as the free cover creator provided by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). A simple Google search can help you find background images online that are relevant and have a free use license. You can insert those in templates provided by the KDP tool and make short work of things.
There are also paid services like Fiverr and Upwork that can be leveraged along with Etsy and many others.
Step 5: Publishing your Book
Once the book is ready, it can be published through the publication process of Kindle Direct Publishing. The service is free to sign up for and carries users through an easy walk through process that can help your bring your book to the market within a day or 2 for sale.
When you go through KDP, you are given the option to use the Kindle Select program. The plan locks you into an agreement to sell your book through Amazon only for the first 3 months. But in exchange, you are provided with free promotional tools to help jumpstart your sales. After the 3 month term expires, you are free to branch out to other retailers like Apple and Nook etc.
Smashwords is also another distribution front that you can leverage to reach out numerous e-Book retailers.
Step 6: Marketing your e-Book
This is the hardest part of e-Book publishing. Getting the word out for your book can be the most cumbersome and tedious task. Also, if you have opted for the KDP Select route, you can market your book through that but then you are only limited to that front. Otherwise, you can opt for paid advertisements through Facebook ads or get influencers on platforms like Instagram to publicize your book. If you also have your own social media platforms with sizeable following, then you can and should leverage that as well to get the word out. Remember, stories and hashtags on these platforms are your friends.
Step 7: Rinse and Repeat
Once you have nailed down the blueprint for yourself, its just a matter of repeating the process. To be successful and continue to remain there, you must ensure that you aren’t putting out fluff content. As long as you continue to provide value to your readers and your books are informative, you can continue to sell. The books don’t necessarily have to be long either. A concise yet value packed book, can be just as valuable and marketable as a lengthy one.
Step 7: Making that Money
Now the most important part i.e. getting paid. After all, the intent for all this effort is to help you create a stream of passive income. The KDP platform takes 2 months to pay out. So expect to receive an aggregate payment every two months. Depending on how you have configured your payout method, you can conveniently have your payments deposited directly into your bank account. For Smashwords, payouts are done on a quarterly basis. For both of the platforms you can monitor your account activity by logging in going into your account settings.
Conclusion
If done correctly, publishing e-Books can be a ticket towards generating passive income. It is vital to do things correctly and publish quality content however. Though publishing one low quality book may bring you some passive income initially, it will be very difficult to continue publishing under the same name as you won’t get repeat customers and poor ratings on your existing books would discourage further people from buying your books. It’s important to have a good plan to market your work as well as continue publishing once you have established yourself.