Logging my eBook sales journey

Life on the Road Money/Financial Freedom
1

I’m interested in making money online. The whole eBook thing has gotten me very interested so I’ll give it a go. Hopefully I’ll make something, if not, it’s a fun rabbit hole to dig down into.

I thought I’d log my process so more people can not just wonder about the details. Of course I’m not going to write down all of the websites and books and whatever details, because if everyone copies my strategy it’ll hurt my earnings.

So… here we go.

The learning resources

Everything I know is basically from this thread: Making Money FAQ

The plan

  • Buy resale rights for cheap, like a $10 package.
  • Pick out a few books. Christmas is coming and I can’t think of any general topic to try other than cookbooks and children related stuff. So Christmas cookbook will be one and we’ll see what else speaks to me.
  • Make a store front. I think I’ll use Gumroad for a start. Because it’s fast to set up and handles everything.
  • Google around for different free local classifields and put up a few books whereever it makes sense.

Later

If I make any dollars I can upgrade:

  • More expensive books
  • My own website with offers
  • Make my own book with compilations
  • Write a book from scratch

Questions

  • Is $10 enough for a book resale package?
  • Perhaps the christmas cookbook category is so over filled already?
  • How do I make sure I don’t sell the same ebook somewhere that is already sold?
  • I already tried looking for classifields and I must say it’s not easy to find them. How can I tell if it’s popular at all?

Let’s see what happens. I’ll be back.

1 Like
2

okay the first problem i’ve arrived is this.

there are very few christmas recipe PLR ebooks and they’ve already covered the internet! so i understand that’s why you post them on local classifields - that book may not exist there yet.

the other option being touted about online is to edit the books and make it your own. but then i’m tempted to just find recipes somewhere and put the book together myself. but i’d love to see any proof this works before i put that much time into it. hmm…

overall it’s got a spammy feel to it. but i think i’ll spend the bucks and still try this out anyway.

the PLR websites make me think though. aren’t there people writing books everywhere anyway that don’t have a publisher and want to make money? surely there are websites where you can get original content PLR style? can’t find any…

3

Greetings!

Doing just a quick google search, check these out to get you started.

• https://digitalgrowthtools.com/best-plr-websites/
• https://www.buyqualityplr.com/plr-store/products/free-plr/
• https://www.idplr.com/
• https://www.plrdatabase.net/
• 8 Top Free PLR eBooks Sites 2023 (With Giveaway Rights)
• 18 Best PLR Websites to Get Free & Paid PLR Articles - H-educate
• Download FREE PLR Products: Best Sources Covered [2023]
• 15+ Sites to Get Free PLR Downloads (Start Downloading Now!)
• https://freeplrdownloads.com/

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


1 Like
4

Greetings!

For free classified sites try:

• free classified sites in usa 2022 - Google Search

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


1 Like
5

@Van_Dweller thanks, I’ve found the same websites by Googling.

I bought an article pack for $29 from a specialized website. So now I have to compile the book. Just feels better having a better quality product than that same ugly design that everyone’s used from 2006 or whatever. Not sure if this will help with sales or not, but I’m happier doing it this way :slight_smile:

6

@Van_Dweller actually that second google search for classifields was helpful. good keywords.

so here’s what i did today:

  1. put the book together from articles into PDF and epub format
  2. make a store page on gumroad: link
  3. put up 8 listings on freeadstime.org under Classifield Ads → Books.

Should I see any results from this small amount of ads? The cities vary from 10k to 100k to 2million population, wasn’t sure which to choose so tried many.

anyway time will tell. done for today.

7

all of my ads have been deleted from FreeAdsTime.org. turns out a lot of these websites have mods reviewing posts and ebooks are generally frowned upon.

instead of making 10 posts on one site i went to make 1 post on 10 websites. but going through the list i only managed to make 4 posts out of 10 websites, because they’re all either paid now or there’s a technical problem with the website.

i’m curious @Van_Dweller when did you last earn from ebooks successfully? Perhaps the times have changed?

8

Greetings!

I’m not familiar with freeadstimes.org, but when searching for your ads, which I couldn’t find, I saw other ebook listings. So ???

I also checked out your website… Ummm… I think people would expect 100’s if not 1,000’s of recipes for the price. “Christmas Recipe’s” is also a little bland & generic for my tastes, maybe something like “Grandma Kate’s Favorite Christmas Recipe’s”, or “Uncle Joe’s Fantastic BBQ Recipe’s” etc. That makes them stand out of the crowd as unique & special, and not something they can just download for free.

I like “How To” books better, especially those about either making money, or saving money. Imagine how many people would buy a book titled “How to make $1,000 a day part time, with an under $20 investment, and need only 20 minutes of included training”. Many people would pay $40 for that, and I’ll even tell you what it is in a private message if you’d like.

A unique title can set you apart from the others.

After killing myself posting ads, I found a guy on Fiverr which would create & post my ads per my specifications for only $20/month. Money very well spent. Another fellow, also from Fiverr, would create ebooks on any topic of my choosing for $20. I would supply him a copy of other ebooks on whatever topic to get him started. Outsourcing really made things easier.

I know a number of people whose only income is selling ebooks, and they’re all making the big bucks. Since everyone makes different titles, and perhaps advertises in different places, there is actually very little competition out there. The biggest secret is getting your ad in front of as many as people as possible.

Before the internet, I would sell hard copy manuals from ads in national magazines. It was expensive, and intensive, all the advertising, printing, & shipping thousands of manuals a month. It took a dozen people to handle it all, but the payout was good. Today, it’s easier than ever before, and the profits are even larger.

I was lucky, I was born in the USA, the land of opportunity, but I grew up dirt poor. Luckily I was able to find the opportunities to live a great life. Today, with the internet, the whole world can be the land of opportunity. We just need to seek them out, because the odds aren’t good that they’ll come hunting for us.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


1 Like
9

Greetings!

Advertising, a catchy title, and good ad copy is the key. If we’re offering a good product, and get our ads in front of enough people, the sales will follow.

On Amazon, Ebay, or the search engines, our websites might be buried on page 999+, and might take months to even show up at all. In contrast, if we can get our ads out there today, we can start making money today.

On many classified sites, you can’t post an ebook about making money under the jobs or gigs categories, but of we add certain keywords in our ads, they’ll come up for someone searching for jobs, even if they’re posted under a different category. We can manipulate the odds into our favor without breaking anybody’s rules.

Some sites will have better categories than others too, for instance some might have a “Business Opportunities” category, while others might not. Hopefully you get the idea…

Anyway, in the USA there are 300+ major metro areas with 100k+ population. I concentrated on those areas, to get the ads in front of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. With each ad only making 4-5 sales, that came out to 1,000+ sales. When you multiply that times your price, it can really add up fast, and being downloadable ebooks, it eliminates the printing, assembly, and shipping costs of yesteryear. Today, we don’t even need a single physical copy of our publications.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


1 Like
10

okay this is good info, i can understand where i went wrong. thanks for the thorough reply.

one more question: if i make a better title, how much should i charge for these few recipes? or is this book a waste of time?

11

Greetings!

Wouldn’t hurt to try $1.95, who knows, you might sell a couple thousand of them at that price if they tempt people’s tastebuds.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller


12

progress update.

i updated the title and posted on multiple sites in the Chicago region. I figured one ad per website is better than 10 ads on one, since it will more easily be taken down if it’s duplicate info on the same website.

after spending many hours listing my book places only 6 have stayed online after a few days:

All in all I’ve gotten exactly 1 view and I’m sure it’s out very own @Van_Dweller from here :slight_smile:

Soo… understandably I’m kind of demotivated atm. My question is - can it really be that the book is so bad that not a single person even view’s my storefront or perhaps I’m using the wrong classifieds sites? or maybe classified sites worked a decade ago but not anymore?

13

still 0 sales, 0 views… many of the ads are still live now. even graigslist. which leads me to thinking it has to be the product. it’s not like graigslist is not an active website.

yet i’m still not sure which path to take:

  1. go buy another low quality book and try luck with it
    • hard to believe in this
    • likely wasted effort
  2. write my own book on cryptocurrency trading
    • i spent the last 6 months building an automated trading bot
    • it could save people months of wasted time and thousands of dollars of saved money
  3. write my own book titled “first aid for anxiety”.
    • this is something i want to do anyway and would like to print an actual book one day too. i’ve been collecting (and drawing) ideas for years.
    • i probably have most motivation to do this, but it’s also the largest endevour to get right.

it’s unfortunate my first go has returned such a concrete zero, kind of don’t feel confident in doing anything at all. if only i got 10 sales or something to prove ebooks sell online at all. letting this sink in for a while longer. any helpful thoughts welcome.

1 Like