It’s true what you’ve heard: There is a lot of money in e-books. How much money? Currently, there are marketers and entrepreneurs out there making hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars every month by doing nothing more than marketing e-books.
I want you to take a look at that range again: a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.
Now, there is a ton of variables that play into whether or not an e-book is going to make money. A first-time author might be ecstatic to finish the month at $500 while a seasoned e-book marketer using a custom writing service and paying that much for one e-book would probably not be quite as impressed with those numbers.
Then there’s the question of what the subject of the e-book is and to what niche it’s directed, but here’s the thing – the Internet is a big place. There is a market out there for literally any product. That means that an e-book on any subject should be a guaranteed moneymaker, right?
So why isn’t everyone making tens of thousands of dollars with them? Why aren’t you?
I’ve examined this question myself quite a few times as head of a custom writing and content creation company, and I’ve discovered a few things to be true. I’m going to let you in on five big mistakes e-book authors make. The good news is that if you see any of these and think, “Heh… guilty as charged!” now you’ll know it the next time you do it and you can make the necessary changes to start tipping the scales in favor of the tens-of-thousands scenario.
Mistake #1: Not Writing to a Specific Audience
If there’s one thing that you can’t do in an e-book, it’s generalize. As with most successful content strategies, it’s a great idea to have an ideal avatar in mind when you sit down to write. Know who this person is. Know if you’re writing to a man or a woman. If your writing needs to appeal to both genders, you should have two ideal avatars.
You should know what these people look like, the color of their hair, what they weigh, what they do for a living, how much disposable cash they have, their marital and parental statuses, what sites they are most likely to visit or what content is going to attract them to your e-book and motivate them to click through to your landing page to get it.
Then, you need to figure out how to talk directly to them, not at them, through your e-book. I cannot begin to stress how important that is.
Mistake #2: Not Devoting the Time Necessary to Write a Good E-book
There are two ways to solve this problem. The first one involves looking at your overall business and deciding what you can outsource and automate so you have time to sit down with a clear head and write. The second involves making the writing part of your automation and outsourcing strategy. Yes, you can absolutely collaborate with a ghostwriter and come out with a great e-book. You might want to tweak some things here and there and that’s fine. That takes far less time than doing all the writing.
After that, focus on making the process of obtaining the book as streamlined as possible. Make sure that the POS and delivery methods are easy to use and work seamlessly together.
Mistake #3 – Missing the Mark with the Title
If your title doesn’t spark interest, it’s not going to be in the hundreds – let alone the tens-of-thousands – category. No one wants to read a book that promises to help him or her “Lose Weight Eating Grapefruit,” but a book about “50 Ways to Melt Away Fat with Grapefruit” is an attention getter.
Your title has to use emotional language, and it has to promise to deliver a key takeaway, and it has to be relatable to your ideal avatar.
Mistake #4 – Writing on Too Broad a Topic
E-books are not encyclopedias. They generally focus on one specific topic and remain very centered on that topic throughout. I hate to say it, but people’s attention spans just aren’t what they used to be. Try and go for the in-depth analysis with people, and you’ll lose most of them pretty quickly.
The point of an e-book is to provide foundational information on a given subject. You want to come across as an expert, not make experts out of your readers. Remember, if you ever want to sell them on other info products, you need to leave them thinking that there’s so much more that they don’t know but that you do.
Once you establish that and have your readers on your email list, you could market a new e-book to them every month or every few months. They will buy everything you have to sell, just to find out what else they don’t know on this subject (or one similar).
Tell me, how does having an offering of multiple tens-of-thousands-level e-books sound to you? Keep it simple and keep them coming back for more, and you’ll find out it’s totally doable.
Mistake #5 – Writing in Bad Niches
There is nothing worse than putting time and effort into writing an e-book only to find you’re having moderate to heavy difficulty selling it. So how do you know if your topic is a winner? You do some investigating.
One of the best ways to figure out what topic to cover in an e-book is to know what people are searching for the most. Multiple sites list the 20 most expensive keywords on Google. These keywords are so lucrative because lots and lots of people are searching for them every day. These lists exist for other search engines too.
“Well, wait a minute – doesn’t that also mean that there is probably a sea of e-books out there on those topics?”
Yes, that’s exactly what it means. That’s why yours needs to stand out. Look at what else is out there. Research and download a few e-books in your niche. You’ll start to see patterns. Steer clear of the patterns and come up with a unique angle. If you market it well, the uniqueness factor alone will net you some very tidy profits.
Hopefully you’ll walk away from this blog with a clearer understanding of what works and what doesn’t with e-books. The ones who have already figured these things out through sweat equity are making a killing. It’s time you joined their ranks. Good luck!