Writing an e-book to make some money?

Brassica

Compliments of the season to one and all!

Well, what's new. I'm totally brassic - still. Thinking of new ideas for 2011 and am considering publishing a racey e-book! I've written over half of it...obviously can't share with family or friends due to the, shall we say, 'steamy' nature of the piece. But seriously, has anyone published a book on the net and how did you get paid??

Any ideas welcome.

Brassica

ohdamnit

Hmmm, I suspect an ebook for this kind of thing is not the way to go, largely because you are going to need to get "published". Personally I would consider writing for either magazines or maybe existing websites as a freelancer. As a starting point I would do some market research to see if anybody is selling anything similar, if they are then there is a good chance you can make money. If not then it probably isn't worth it as developing a new market is far too costly.

I would suggest going to https://www.challenge.co these guys show you for free how to research niches, how to develop a blog, how to develop a product, etc. It is genuinely free, and they take you on a step by step journey on how to find a niche you can sell in.

ohdamnit

My girlfriend writes crime/thrillers for magazines (you know stories in the popular weekly magazines) and gets paid 1000-3000 per one that is accepted.

ohdamnit

Oh as a sidenote Amazon allow you to publish your own ebooks, and will handle payments, etc, but they will not promote your book which is the hardest part!

SailorSam

ohdamnit wrote: »

I would suggest going to www.challenge.co these guys show you for free how to research niches, how to develop a blog, how to develop a product, etc. It is genuinely free, and they take you on a step by step journey on how to find a niche you can sell in.

Thanks but the guy in the video says this challenge starts 1st July 2010.
Is it an ongoing thing ?

ohdamnit

Yes that is when it first started, but you just do it day by day it doesn't matter when you start.

sandycheeks

ohdamnit wrote: »

My girlfriend writes crime/thrillers for magazines (you know stories in the popular weekly magazines) and gets paid 1000-3000 per one that is accepted.

I love writing - how many words does she usually write per story?

Brassica

Some excellent ideas, thanks.

Maybe the amazon thing could work but I see what you mean about promoting it - that could be a problem; plus I want to retain anonymity, so that might be a problem re paying.

I thought about an ebook, releasing it on the net globally, charge £1 to read it, arrange payment via paypal, allow some ads on the page to generate some other earnings and I dunno..maybe it might work??

ohdamnit

sandycheeks wrote: »

I love writing - how many words does she usually write per story?

I will have to ask, you know she stopped last year, and wont show me her stuff

ohdamnit

Brassica wrote: »

Some excellent ideas, thanks.

Maybe the amazon thing could work but I see what you mean about promoting it - that could be a problem; plus I want to retain anonymity, so that might be a problem re paying.

I thought about an ebook, releasing it on the net globally, charge £1 to read it, arrange payment via paypal, allow some ads on the page to generate some other earnings and I dunno..maybe it might work??

The problem is "releasing it on the net globally", I am not sure you know what this means, but I may well be doing you a disservice. Getting your book in front of people is the key issue here. How do you let people know, how do they get to your site, etc?

Why would they buy your book? There is lots of stuff available on the net for free. Don't take this as a downer by any means, but I think you need to think about who is really going to buy your e-book? Why would they buy it? What are your competitors? What is your unique selling point?

Is anyone else doing this? If not, why not?

Like I say I would be very wary about spending any time doing anything before you know if there is even a market for your product. At £1 a time you need to sell a lot, if I tell you that my Dads website has been online for 4-5 years, is top ranked for search engines, and he only gets 60 visits a day, and we only convert at about 1% of visits that should show you how tough it can be.

I think that there might be some room for making money writing, but you need to know who you are going to sell to, and how you are going to reach them before you start writing.

Like I say I might be tempted to look at magazines, etc, these are completely anonymous, and you don't have to do the hard work of selling, etc.

Also consider somewhere like elance.com, where people are always looking for someone who can write articles, etc, although the pay isn't great, if you can knock out say 16 pieces of 300 words each you can earn about £100.

soolin

You are up against 'free' saucy books on the Kindle though, and they are shown to me every single time i log in and I can currently download dozens of them for nothing if I want.

Whilst not everyone has a kindle I assume that if i am targetted because I do, then people on other e readers also get targetted by their own suppliers.