Introduction
The age of the internet has enabled aspiring writers to bring their work to a global audience and generate a steady income from self-publishing like never before. Self-publishing, by contrast with the traditional publishing model through which authors have to negotiate contracts with the major publishers, puts every decision about the content, its distribution and its profitability into the hands of the writer. With the emergence of platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Apple Books, and Kobo, writers now have access to publish e-books freely without restrictions. By knowing how this goes down when it comes to writing, publishing and marketing e-books, an author can successfully set up their own e-book self-publishing business with streams of royalties flowing into his or her account each month.
Writing an E-book That Sells
Before you start self-publishing, you must first write a great e-book and an e-book that’ll attract readers. The choice of what to write about is more critical since demand is different based on the genre. Fiction categories that have proven popular examples include romance, mystery, and fantasy, and non-fiction categories include self-help, business, health, or development. To find popular topics and gaps in the market, conduct market research using Amazon’s bestsellers list and reader reviews.
Once you’ve picked up a topic, structuring your book properly is the key to a smooth reading experience. A captivating opening, well defined sections, and a solid conclusion can make your book so much more interesting. No matter how many data scientists, data analysts or data engineers you have, your writing process is clear, readable and tells a story. Even non-fiction books make use of storytelling techniques to keep readers invested. Editing and proofreading are also important, poorly edited books get bad reviews and don’t sell. You can also hire a professional editor or use editing software tools, such as Grammarly or ProWritingAid, to improve the quality of your work.
E-book Formatting and Publishing
Properly formatting an e-book allows it to be rendered properly on any e-reader device, including Kindle readers, tablets, and smartphones. Amazon KDP requires the e-books to be formatted in MOBI or EPUB files, and even Apple Books or Google Play Books are compatible with EPUB formats as well. Formatting your text professionally can also be done with tools like Kindle Create, Scrivener, or Vellum.
After the formatting is done, authors publish their books on various self-publishing portals. The most popular choice would be Amazon KDP where you have a huge global reach and lucrative royalty options. Depending on its price and distribution options, an author can take a 35% or 70% royalty rate on a book. Other platforms such as Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble Press give you more exposure and a chance to earn more money. Some authors use aggregators — Draft2Digital, Smashwords — to release their books on many platforms at once.
Infuse the link with a good book cover and a nice description, which are essential when you load an e-book. A professional looking cover will entice the readers and increase sales. Most non-designers will either hire a professional designer or make use of online tools like Canva and BookBrush to create great covers. Write a great description with the book benefits and selling points and others keywords that will help the readers find it.
Pricing and Royalty Maximization
In e-book publishing, there is a catch; price is important. If priced too high, it can inhibit purchases, if too low, it does not do justice to the content. Self-published authors often play with pricing models and give their books away for free or at a reduced price for a limited time to generate reviews and ranking.
Amazon KDP’s Kindle Unlimited (KU) program is a subscription model that enables readers access to books for free while the authors are paid royalties based on the number of pages read. While KDP Select (an Amazon exclusive program) offers extra promotional tools such as Kindle Countdown Deal and Free Book Promotions to help sell books and increase rankings. Authors who publish wide (rather than exclusively with Amazon) leverage competitive pricing to maximize revenue with pricing strategies in Apple Books and Kobo.
Pre-order strategies can create buzz ( and, ultimately, sales soon after the book launches) for authors wanters. Establishing a pre-order period enables authors to pile up purchases that all count for rankings on launch day, including lists of best sellers.
How to Market and Promote Your E-book
Simply publishing an e-book is just the first step; you need to effectively promote it for it to be a success. Until a book has been properly promoted, even a good book can pass unnoticed. An author brand builds credibility and helps create second readers. Having an author website, blog and social media engagement can have an exponential impact on author visibility.
Promoting your e-book through email marketing is one of the best ways to do so. To collect readers’ email addresses, authors can offer free content such as sample chapters, exclusive guides, etc. Services such as Mailchimp and ConvertKit enable authors to send newsletters about book launches, discounts and updates.
You can gain visibility through running paid ads on Amazon, Facebook, and BookBub as well. Self-published authors can benefit greatly from Amazon Ads, as they target readers who are actively looking for books in particular genres. Facebook Ads, on the other hand, enable authors to reach niche aszwszudiences through interests and demographics. BookBub is a discount book deal for readers with a huge reader base that buys a ton of books.
Another effective marketing tactic is to encourage readers to write reviews. Books with lots of positive reviews will have a better chance of catching on. Requesting reviews can take many forms, including adding a ‘Request a Review’ for conspirators at the end of their book, social media engagement, or offering free review copies of their protest to bloggers and influencers.
Conclusion
Once you’ve published that first e-book, writing one or more additional e-books to scale your e-book business is one of the most lucrative things you can do for long-term income potential. Books that are part of a series do well as well, because if someone likes one book, they’re likely to buy the others.
Another approach is to maximize revenue by repurposing content. Transforming an e-book into an audiobook opens up the audience to listeners who prefer to have their books read to them. Services such as Audible’s ACX and Findaway Voices enable authors to produce and distribute audiobooks around the world. You can even produce print-on-demand versions of e-books through platforms, such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark to capture sales from readers who prefer physical books.
Working with other authors to promote each other or even creating partnerships to sell books together gives you the opportunity to reach even more readers and therefore sales!
Even though the world of digital publishing is ever-changing, when done correctly, self-publishing is still more financially rewarding than traditional publishing, as long as you do the work. Self-published authors like you can even transform their passion for writing into lucrative business by focusing on writing quality contents, targeted publishing platforms and effective market strategies leading to royalties in subsequent years.