How to Make Money Selling Ebooks

© Terri Seymour of SeymourProducts.com

If you are looking for ways to make money online or to expand your existing home business, selling ebooks could be just what you need. Selling ebooks is easy, affordable and there are practically no expenses (other than purchasing the ebooks). You might want to write some of the ebooks yourself to save money and to help spread the word about you and your business!

You can either purchase ebooks with or without resell rights. I would recommend buying ebooks with resell rights so your customers have an additional reason to purchase from you. They can then sell the ebooks themselves!

There are several ways you can set up your new ebook selling site or ebook store.


Sell on Ebay

You can auction off your ebooks on eBay. eBay has very specific policies on selling ebooks so be SURE to read and follow all their policies.


Offer Ebooks on Your Site

If you already have a site, you can easily offer the ebooks on your existing site. Make a folder called ebooks (or whatever you like) and upload it to your host. Upload all your ebooks into this folder. Give them keyed names so people will not be able to guess the file name.

For example: if you have an ebook called Ezine Publishing and you call the file ezinepublishing.zip, this could make it very easy for someone to "guess" the download link by the name and download the ebook for free.

You want to code the names- for example:

instead of ezine publishing, you might name the file ez-pub-32c.zip These coded names are nearly impossible for people to guess so they are unable to steal the ebook.

Then add an index page where you would introduce your ebook store to your visitors. Let them know there will be no shipping cost as they are delivered electronically. Make sure you introduce your ebook store on your site homepage as well.

You might also want to list the categories on the index page so your customers can click directly to the ebooks they are interested in. Have a short description of the ebook and a graphic (if possible). You can have a whole page for each ebook or you can put several on a page.

Go to Paypal and make up a button to put on your site for ordering. If you do not like Paypal, use any payment service you want.

**TIP - To avoid the time of making up each individual button, use the code from the first button and just change the necessary info like price, item name and code. This will save you a lot of time in setting up your ebook store.


Automatic Digital Delivery

You can purchase a program for setting up your store and having all purchases automatically delivered. This saves you a lot of time plus gives your customers the items immediately which helps with repeat sales.

One such program that does this very well is called The Digital Store. Do a search for this or automatic digital delivery ebooks and you will find a wide variety of scripts/programs to suit your needs.

Be sure to continually add new ebooks for your existing customers. We have had numerous repeat sales by doing this. Also, you might want to have a mailing list to keep people up to date of your new additions and any specials or sales you may be having.


Affiliate Programs

You can also sell other people's ebooks by joining their affiliate program. This means that for every ebook you sell, you will get a commission from the ebook owner. If you write your own ebook, you could also start your own affiliate program. To find such programs just do a search for ebook affiliate programs.

If you do purchase and/or write your own ebooks for resale, be sure and choose/write the ebooks with a lot of useful, helpful information and resources. There are a lot of ebooks that are simply full of ads and sales letters for the writer's products. You want to steer clear of these types of ebooks.

People love to buy and read good ebooks and if you offer a good selection and price, they will continue to buy from you.