How To Self Publish And Earn Passive Income In Return

Today, we have one of the most solid and easily accessible passive income streams around and it costs zero to get started…Self Publishing.

TL;DR

• Truly Passive – once written, eBooks can make the author passive income for years to come
• Low barrier to entry – low cost and relatively easy to get started
• Piggyback on Amazon – who account for 80% of all eBook sales and you can list for free
• 50 Shades Of Grey – started as a self-published book before going on to publishing and movie stardom
• Low to Moderate effort – you do not need to write a novel to be successful in self publishing. Can be written in a week, 24 hours even!
• Work from home – very work from home friendly. You can literally get started today

How Do I Make A Passive Income Stream Writing eBooks?

Historically, if you wanted to publish a book it was a much harder and more convoluted process. You’d need to write your manuscript, you’d then need to try and get an agent, who would then try to get you signed on with a publisher.

Many traditional publishing houses would not even open a manuscript unless it came through an agent. And even then, they’d likely only work with a select group of chosen agents. It was incredibly difficult, incredibly competitive and your chances of getting published and a book on a shelf in store was slim at best…

Enter Self Publishing…

According to Wikipedia, Self Publishing is…

…the publication of media by its author without the need of an established publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an eBook or physical copy through the use of POD (print on demand) technology…

The leading platform when it comes to writing an eBook and Self Publishing is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon through their Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

An eBook is one of the easiest methods to creating your first, real, source of passive income stream.

Writing an eBook was where I personally started and earned my first income online, way back in 2006, with a eBook guide about laying betting on Betfair (a betting exchange). I’ve naturally moved on since then, but it provided a nice side income for several years.

All it takes is time and a computer to start composing your first eBook.

Once you have written your eBook you’ll be surprised at the many avenues available to earn money from your writing.

There are three main ways to generating passive income from your eBook:

1. Submitting the eBook to a major publishing platform such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

2. Self hosting and Selling your own eBook (E.g. on your website)

3. Utilising services that convert eBooks to physical books (E.g. CrateSpace)

In all three scenarios, what is key to generating passive income is the fact that you can create and upload a digital version of your book once, and then you receive ongoing payments or royalties for a copy of your work. You do not have to market the book, or process the transactions.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing has around 80% of global sales in the eBook market and is the natural place to focus your initial efforts.

“…perhaps the most famous self publishing success story is 50 Shades Of Grey author, E.L. James, whose erotic series started life as a self published work before being snapped up by a traditional publisher, and going on to be made into a movie”

How To Get Started with Self Publishing and eBooks

There are four steps that you need to go through when creating your first eBook.

• Research – research your intended eBook’s niche
• Creating – writing the content for your eBook
• Publishing – publish your eBook on your chosen market place (E.g. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing)
• Launch – launching and marketing your eBook

– Research

A good place to start when considering a topic or niche for your eBook is Amazon.com.

Click on ALL DEPARTMENTS and select the Kindle Store

Click on KINDLE EBOOKS

On the left sidebar Click on NON FICTION

Then simply start browsing to see what is popular, what is selling and what is getting positive reviews.

You can filter this further by targeting topics or using keywords related to your idea.

Pro Tip – another great resource for ideation is the ExplodingTopics.com website which details topics and searches which are exploding in popularity and can get you ahead of the curve in terms of topics that people are interested in and want to write about

– Right now we can see that an exploding topic is Influencer Marketing and a growing category within that is Micro Influencers. You could write a guide on how best to identify, recruit and use influencer marketers. Think of all those offline businesses who are now trying to market online (Restaurants and Food Services who are restricted to online deliveries and want to advertise the fact they are still open to the local community etc), that could use your expertise.

Podcasts has been a growing niche for sometime now. What we can see here is that Spotify Podcasts in particular are exploding in popularity. You could write a guide on how to start a Podcast with a particular focus on Spotify. Or what about the older generation who are stuck at home, many in isolation, that need the learn the process of how to use and listen to podcasts in an easy to follow way for the technology inexperienced.

– Writing and Creating

Now you have chosen your idea, it’s time to start writing.

It is possible to outsource this side of things to a Ghost Writer and we’ll cover Ghost Writers in future, but for now we’ll assume that you are going to write the book yourself – and this would be our recommendation, particularly for your first attempt.

To get started, I advise that you initially create a plan and structure for your book.

• Research your initial book idea (above)
• Plan out the content sections you intend to cover
• Allocate time each day to writing when you won’t be disturb
• Do your writing in bite sized chunks – if you write just 1,000 words a day, in two weeks time you’ll likely have a 15,000 book ready to go

>>> Looking for a helping hand? This a great training course on how to make money on Amazon

– Publish

As mentioned earlier, there are a number of ways to publish your book but we’ll focus on the largest platform – Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

There are actually a lot of small steps to go though, which I won’t outline here but Publisher Rocket has helped 22,000 authors make a profit through their writing on Amazing – you check out Publisher Rocket here

– Marketing & Promotion

This next part is very important and will directly influence how successful your book is and how much passive income you will earn. Not all eBooks are created equal.

Amazon has in fact 25 key ranking factors, more than we can list here. However, two great guides that explore this topic in-depth is this post, while Publisher Rocket also cover this topic at length in one of their training modules.

Things To Consider When Starting Your First eBook

It can feel daunting at first to attempt to write your first eBook but it’s worth bearing a few things in mind.

You do not need to write war and peace for your first eBook. Nor does it have to be fictional – it just needs to be a topic that you are comfortable and familiar with, that is good quality writing and that you are creating value and interest for the reader.

In fact, an eBook could be as short as 5-10 pages long IF it provides a wealth of information or insight in those pages.

I always advise that when first getting started, that create an initial plan and structure for your book:

• Research your initial book idea
• Plan out the content sections you intend to cover
• Allocate time each day for writing when you won’t be disturbed
• Do your writing in bite sized chunks – if you write just 1,000 words a day, in two weeks time you’ll likely have a 15,000 book ready to go

Feel a little shy? The why not write your first books under a pen name and should you become successful you can then decide whether to change the author to your real name or continue operating under the pen name that you have chosen.

Other things that you should consider

If writing non-fiction try to focus on a specific topic or niche for your book. Writing a book broadly about Marketing you may then find it hard to achieve reach and traction in a crowded and competitive market. However, if you wrote a how to guide for creating and using ChatBots specifically for Dentist Websites then you may be able to dominate that niche a lot easier. (Extreme example but hopefully you get my point)

Despite the flood of low quality eBooks into a lot of categories and niche’s (think eBooks written cheaply by ‘ghost writers), in the most popular niches there is still a huge demand for fresh, quality content.

Steve Scott is a great example of targeting and dominating a particular niche in Self Publishing, with his website – Developing Good Habits – who is making an average of $30,000-50,000 per month from his books. This is an extreme example and something that was built up over many years – but it does represent what is possible in Self Publishing, and there is no reason that with a bit of effort, patience and talent that you could not be make a couple of thousand a month from your books given time.

How Much Does It Cost To Get Started Self Publishing And Writing eBooks?

To begin with, the only thing it will cost to create an eBook is time. Your time spent researching and writing about your chosen topic.

Once the book is ready you will likely need to spend some time on designing a cover and formatting the layout into a nicely looking PDF. Although there are many tools online that can help you do this either for free or a relatively small cost.

After that you are dependent on the commission charged by the publisher or marketplace where you will host your eBook. Commission rates can vary, with Amazon usually the highest at 30%. This may sound a lot but when you consider that they will do everything for you including hosting, marketing and process transactions AND you get access to their huge marketplace and audience – it’s really not such a bad deal at all.

Learn more about Self Publishing and Writing eBooks

If you are interested in learning more about Self Publishing or start your Self Publishing Career you may find these links useful:

Amazon KDP – 80% of the global market sales for eBooks

Top 25 Ranking Factors for Amazon KDP – give yourself the best chance of success

CrateSpace – another Amazon company, which helps you turn your eBook into physical books

Publisher Rocket – learn from one of the leading Amazon publishes – 22,000 authors already supported

Good Habits – a free resource from an amazon publisher generating six figure income from their books

Kindle Direct Publishing – one of the best books I’ve read on how to start a self publishing career. Including all the steps you need to launch your first book in 14 days or less

BONUS IDEA – if you’re planning to create more online than eBooks for Amazon, then we highly recommend checking out Podia.com. It provides everything you need to sell online courses, digital downloads, eBooks, webinars and memberships – all in one place, rather than five platforms or tools that you might otherwise need.

Can’t recommend Podia highly enough >>> Discover Podia here