How to create your own “cottage industry” by selling ebooks!

It’s a great time to be a writer! You’re probably shaking your head saying: "Brad finally lost his marbles". Writing is more competitive than ever, the chances of getting published by a large house is nill and very few people make a living off their writing. So why is it a good time to be a writer?

Ebooks are your friend!

If you write any kind of fiction, and even certain types of non-fiction, ebooks can be your best friend right now. Think about it: You can publish and distribute your own ebooks with little cost to you. The biggest cost involved will be promoting your work.

The key here is the right pricing. If you’re a new and unknown author, then it’ll be hard to justify selling an ebook at $9.99 (Amazon’s preferred price point). Maybe start by giving them away for free to build a readership. Then, give away older titles for free in order to entice customers to buy your newer titles. Using free ebooks to entice new readers appears to be working for many other authors.

For example, Cory Doctorow releases a free ebook version at the same time his print book are released, and this actually increases his sales!

The time is right: Take advantage of the down economy

Large publishing houses are being plagued by downsizing staff, cutting costs, and some are holding off on new manuscripts. If you don’t already have an agent promoting your new novel to every publisher in town, then forget about it! Most large publishers won’t even consider a manuscript unless it comes from an agent.

In times when the economy is down (like now), it’s usually the "do-it-yourselvers" who thrive. They produce a good, something people want to buy, and sell it themselves – eliminating the middleman. This is nothing new, and why events like craft fairs thrive around the country. In fact, I’ve been to a few craft fairs in my day and I always see at least one author hawking his/her self-published book at the event.

Creating your own cottage industry

I think for anyone to be successful at this, finding the right niche is the key. Science fiction, romance and even mystery writers have it made, since those genres enjoy enormous and loyal followings. But you can probably take any writing niche and do the same.

Creating your own cottage industry is not hard, but it does take hard work. Create something unique. Try something new. Ebooks are not new anymore, but can still be applied in unique ways.

Nuts and Bolts: What are the tools for success?

- Good writing. There’s still no substitute for good, compelling writing. Anything you sell should be your very best!

- A website. Give your customers a place to find all your work in one spot. Make your website organized and easy to navigate. Include a blog with regular updates so visitors don’t feel abandoned because there’s a lack of fresh content – who’s going to feel comfortable buying from you if your site looks like it hasn’t been touched in 2 years? Not many.

- Ebook distribution method. A good place to start getting your ebooks out there are services like Feedbooks (distribute ebooks for free), or Smashwords (you make money off your ebooks). There are other services out there, but the two listed above because they allow you to publish your ebooks in multiple formats and are DRM free!

There are other ways to sell digital content, like Payloadz, but you have to able to compile your ebook yourself, in whatever format you decide. The 2 services I mentioned above make this process fairly automatic and easy. One more thing for you to chew on, though.

- A blog. I mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again. Incorporating a blog onto your site will go a long way to build your readership and will give people a reason to visit your site more frequently. Find a niche to blog about (ideally it should be the same niche that you’re selling ebooks in, but I’m sure there’s some flexibility here).

- A way to receive payments. This might seem obvious, but it’s one of those little details that needs to be worked out early on. Of course the most popular is Paypal, but other options exist now like Google Checkout. They each have their own pros and cons, so do your homework before settling on one.

- A well written, polished ebook manuscript. Good writing deserves another mention. One big reason why ebooks still have a bad reputation is because the quality on many self-published ebooks stinks. There are typos everywhere, spelling mistakes, paragraphs that don’t make sense, etc. So I beg all of you who are going to sell your own ebooks, make it the best thing you have ever written, and then improve it some more.

Hard work, persistence and a little patience will pay off

I’m not promising riches here. In fact, you only make enough to cover your hosting fees. But if you enjoy doing it, and are having fun, then keep at it! Since you are creating the content and selling it you can experiment and see what works best. Maybe instead of selling individual ebooks, sell them as a subscription (for $X they get X number of ebooks per year).

Get out there and show ‘em what you got!

Be creative and give it a shot. You really don’t have much to lose (other than a little time and a little money to start with). Create your own cottage industry and then come back and give us a report from the trenches by leaving a comment below. If you are already doing this, or something similar, then tell us what your up to in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you!

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Read More: Self-Publishing, Writing, eBooks