Why publish eBooks? Well..it’s simple! You should publish eBooks for passive income.
When I tell my friends and family that I publish eBooks online most of them give me a blank stare. Most of them didn’t know you could do that.
In fact, some of them wrongly suspect that I’m some kind of big shot author or something like that. That’s far from the truth.
In fact, my writing skills aren’t all that (I barely passed high school English with Cs for that matter). But that hasn’t stopped me from a career of earning over 6 figures online with eBooks.
Can you really become self published?
It’s crazy to me that most people think you need to have the backing of a big time publisher to be able to publish your own books.
These days, anyone can become self published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program.
And there are a ton of other sites where you can self publish books like Nook, Kobo, and SmashWords. It is literally true that ANYONE can publish their content online.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small indie author like me or someone who has the backing of a big publishing house.
The ability to publish your work online and make money from it has been a big leveling field that the publishing world has not seen in decades (or maybe ever).
Anyways, if you aren’t publishing your own eBooks, you could be leaving some money on the table.
These days I publish under various pen names and under various genres as well.
Obviously, one of my biggest eBook money makers is erotica. I think if you are starting out, erotica is a great place to get started and get your feet wet.
This is because the stories are short and you can experiment around when you are starting out. In fact, I started writing erotica many years ago (maybe 4 years ago now) and have made over six figures doing it.
It’s a pretty cool gig. But since then, I have also moved on to more traditional eBooks.
The market is a bit harder to crack, but if you are able to do it, you can make some good passive income as well.
So this blog post is really going to detail WHY you should publish eBooks for passive income.
Publishing eBooks is still one of the best ways to make passive income online.
1. Passive income
The #1 reason to publish eBooks in my opinion is to make passive income.
What is passive income? It means you do some kind of upfront work and make money on that asset over time. The best example of this is a real estate rental property.
And best of all, with passive income you make money 24/7…even when you’re sleeping or spending time with family or friends.
But not all passive income streams are equal.
The quality of a passive income stream depends on a variety of factors, including: income potential, scaleability, and maintenance.
Let’s start off with income potential. The income potential with eBooks is pretty high. I personally sell most of my eBooks on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This is because amazon DOMINATES the ebook market.
In fact, I think they own 90% of the online market.
The income potential is HUGE. You may not rack in 6 figures per year, but you could easily make 5 figures passively.
Secondly, publishing eBooks is a highly scalable business – especially if you publish on Amazon. And this is because you can buy ads to drive traffic to your book.
Now, this strategy won’t work with erotica (as you cannot advertise erotic books). However with other books, you can advertise on the Amazon platform to drive insane traffic to your books.
I do this for many of my books and they have made decent money over the years even after backing out the ad costs.
Finally, eBooks don’t generally require a lot of maintenance. Sure, for some books you may want to update the information, but for all intents and purposes, they don’t require a lot of additional work to KEEP the income stream coming in.
If you owned a website, you know what I’m talking about. There’s always something that breaks. Maybe your web provider crashes and you spend all day trying to get the site back online.
And you definitely know what I mean when you own a rental property.
You have to do things like repaint the property, deal with pesky tenants, and unclog the toilet for the 100th time when good old Dan just flushed an entire roll of toilet paper.
That’s no fun. But with eBooks, I have literally written some books that I haven’t touched in years.
I just hit publish and the royalty checks from Amazon come rolling in every single month. And some of these books have made a few hundred every single month!
2. Leverage your customer base
Writing an eBook is a great way to leverage your customer base. Let’s say you have a very successful website and get hundreds and thousands of visitors every single month.
Or maybe you have a big email list that has thousands of subscribers. Or maybe you have a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers.
If you have a customer base, an eBook is a great way to engage them. If you have a rabid fan base, sell them an eBook.
It doesn’t require too much work on your end and you can end up making a good chunk of passive income change.
In fact, I have had several niche sites where I created an eBook based on some of the content I had already written. I tossed the book all over the site and it sold a dozen copies or so every month.
Not a bad way to monetize traffic that you’re already getting, right? 🙂
3. Leverage other parts of your business
eBooks is also a great way to leverage other parts of your business. This is because an eBook is a great lead magnet.
What’s a lead magnet? Well, it’s something you do to attract customers to some other part of your business.
Maybe you use the eBook as a magnet to attract attention to your email list. Or maybe you use the eBook to promote an online course you are selling.
Lots of big names do this. They may sell an eBook for $2 or $3 bucks, but it’s just a lead magnet.
What they’re actually trying to sell you is something else…a seminar to attend, an online course to buy, a coaching consultation to purchase.
Hell, some even give away their eBooks for free!
The why doesn’t really matter.
But what does matter is that eBooks are a great way to promote other aspects of your business.
4. Leverage your other content
eBooks are a great way to leverage your content. If you are a big time blog writer, I bet you have dozens and dozens (maybe even hundreds) of articles on your website.
If you are a YoutTuber, I bet you have hours and hours of content onto your site.
Creating an eBook allows you to repackage and reorganize your content and sell it for a profit.
In what other kind of business can you do this? Its pretty amazing!
5. Ability to scale
I touched on this before, but I think eBooks are a very scalable business…especially if you pubish on Amazon.
If you publish on Amazon, you get access to Amazon Marketing Services (AMS).
This means you can advertise your book to other similar books that people may want to buy. You can also target keywords that people are searching for.
And this is a great way to boost your sales profitably.
Right now I am probably running 10 or 15 campaigns for my various books and all of them have been driving traffic to my books at a profitable conversion rate.
This is a completely understated benefit of publishing eboks because this is money that you would not have made anyways!
eBooks For Passive Income: Final Thoughts
Overall, publishing eBooks for passive income is a really amazing side hustle.
With eBooks you can build powerful “digital assets” that can make money for you for years to come. It’s kind of like building digital real estate in a way.
I have been publishing eBooks for years now and they are able to supplement my lifestyle pretty well.
In fact, they have helped fund my travels all over the world!
Readers, what do you think? Have any of you personally made money with eBooks? Let me know in the comments below!