How to sell your ebooks online (plus common misconceptions debunked)

Perhaps you're part way through writing your ebook. You might even have finished it. And now you want to sell it online. But you're not sure of your next steps. You have lots of questions. Publishing sites warn you of all the challenges. Well, we're here to help. In this blog post, we'll take some common misconceptions about selling your ebook online and show how you can stop worrying and start selling.

Aren't customers more comfortable buying ebooks through major platforms like Amazon?

Not necessarily. In fact, many customers are getting fed up of how these major companies are tracking them and using their private data for commercial ends.

If you present yourself as a credible authority that won't spam your customers, sell their data, or chase them around the internet for ever after, then you'll be surprised at how much good will you can generate.

Not everyone is a fan of huge third party platforms and the way they track our lives

However, you do need your customers to feel comfortable buying from you. Here are some tips:

• Make sure your blog, website or social media content is credible, well thought out and professional. You can't expect someone to buy your ebook if you have spelling mistakes on your blog, a website that looks terrible on mobile, or just a load of sales spiel that is as boring as it is unpersuasive.
• Customise your checkout so customers have a seamless buying experience. Customers may bail on you if they are sent to a checkout that looks completely unrelated to your site. At least make sure your checkout includes your logo and brand colours. At best use a digital delivery company, like SendOwl, that allows you to fully customise your checkout.
• Prepare your customer for checkout and what to expect. If you're using PayPal many customers won't know that they can pay using a credit or debit card rather than having to sign up for an account. So it's up to you to tell them before they press 'Buy Now' and arrive at a slightly confusing Paypal screen.
• Reassure customers about security. So make sure you include contact details on your website or blog, consider using trust icons on your checkout, and work with a payment provider your customers trust (like PayPal, ApplePay or Stripe)
• Offer different checkout options. Your customers are more likely to give you money if they can pay using their favourite payment method, whether that is ApplePay, Bitcoin, a debit or credit card, PayPal, or various European payment methods.

If I want to buy an ebook on Vehicle-2-Grid Communication (ISO 15118) then the content on this website is very persuasive – more so than the short description they'd be allowed on third party platforms

But don't I need to sell through a third party or publisher to make any money at all?

Nope. Say you decide to sell through Amazon, then what happens? Well, one book is added about every 5 minutes so you have a lot of competition to start with. Then someone searches for a book in your field: 'dog training' say. Maybe your book comes up, maybe it doesn't. It depends on your ranking. And whether you have bribed people to give you good reviews. A customer sees a bit of book blurb. There's not much else for them to go on. Is that enough for them to buy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Instead, you sell direct. What happens. Well, someone googles 'dog training' and your site comes up, particularly if you have quality content. Or you spark their interest through social media or a blog post that is interesting enough to be shared. A potential customers reads your free content. Tries out your advice. Comes back to your site and thinks: this person really knows what they are talking about. I'm in. Let's make a purchase.

And this is before we've got to the really big point: YOU MAKE A LOT MORE ON EVERY SALE SELLING DIRECT RATHER THAN THROUGH A THIRD PARTY. Typically, you'll be able to keep 90-95% of the cover price as opposed to barely 50-60% with a third party. That soon mounts up.

Keep more of your profits by selling direct from your website

However, you need to successfully market your ebook to stand a chance of selling your ebook. Here's some tips:

• Create content that helps establish you as an authority on your subject. Jump in to discussions and offer helpful advice (on closed Facebook groups, on Quora, on a forum, wherever). Become known as someone who knows what they are doing. Even if you're selling fiction, you can establish yourself as an authority: on Regency London, or on vampires (I'd be up for this one – top 10 tips to slay a vampire without getting your hands bloody), or on what the future will look like in 100 years. Give away this content.
• Share some of your ebook for free: preferably some of your best stuff. If you can get someone hooked then they'll have to buy the rest. Just be a little diplomatic. Share content that is self-contained. Don't stop mid sentence or mid-cliff hanger otherwise you'll just annoy your readers!
• Ask colleagues and potential customers for feedback: this is a win-win situation. Share your work with your writing group, an online forum, a historical society or your colleagues, and ask them to help you improve your book. Some of them might like it so much they act as your cheerleader and encourage other people to buy it. They might even buy it themselves (unless you give them a free copy for their help).
• Try your luck. It can be a bit dispiriting trying to get 'traditional' PR from newspapers and so on, but have a go. Identify an angle that is interesting or relevant to a current news event. Then contact journos through email, phone or social media. Think outside the box. At SendOwl, we got a very positive reaction when we approached the World Economic Forum blog because they loved our angle about how micro-entrepreneurs are the new multi-nationals.

Don't I need to activate DRM – and isn't this really difficult selling direct?

Well it is difficult, but also unnecessary. DRM is controversial because it tends to make things difficult for your loyal customers. They might struggle to read your ebook on a different device, for example. And given that people increasingly have a number of different devices, that seems rather unfair as well as short-sighted.

However, you've spent a lot of time on your ebook and you don't want to make it easy for people to share it without your permission. So, here are some security tips:

• For PDFs, make sure you use PDF stamping. PDF stamping acts as a deterrent so people think twice about sharing your ebook because you'll know that they are responsible. At SendOwl we're also aware that ePub stamping would be very popular with out sellers (so watch this space!).
• Make sure your digital delivery software is security conscious: so your customers are sent a secure link and have a set number of times they can download your product. That way rogue customers can't simply take a download link and use it to share copies of your book.
• Make sure people have access to your ebook (if people can't buy your ebook in one country then you can't really blame them for trying to get a copy anyhow). Some major third parties make it easy for you to sell in Europe, say, but not so easy in other countries further afield.
• Consider offering occasional discounts (like on Black Friday) so people who can't usually afford your ebook can grab a copy, if they're paying attention.
• Make sure people want to buy from you rather than grab an illegal copy (because they love your content, or your story, or the way you post cool stuff on social media). If someone feels they know you and likes what you do, they are less likely to try and get hold of a ripped copy of your ebook.

PDF stamping can deter would-be copiers without penalising your loyal readers

Isn't selling ebooks direct from my website really difficult?

Well, it can be, but only if you want to do everything yourself. Personally, the thought of building my own checkout brings me out in a rash. However, there are some great companies who do all the hard work for you and charge a fairly modest fee (so you still get to keep 90-95% of your cover price).

These companies market themselves as ecommerce or digital delivery solutions. Ecommerce solutions can be a bit of an overkill (for example, Shopify are fab but you don't need them to sell ebooks – in fact, SendOwl works with Shopify to help them do this). Digital delivery companies (like SendOwl) concentrate on three main jobs:

1. Integrating with your payment gateway of choice (like Stripe or Shopify)
2. Providing a checkout (some like SendOwl offer a fully customisable checkout)
3. Automatically delivering your ebook to your customer

A few (like SendOwl) also help you with various marketing options like trying out one-click upsells, cart abandonment, discounts, Pay What You Want Pricing, Cart Abandonment, and more.

Mainly though, these service providers should be REALLY EASY TO USE. You should be able to get up and selling in a few minutes, as in:

• Sign up
• Upload your ebook
• Get link to product page/checkout or embed button code on your website
• Sell

Make sure you take a digital delivery or commerce solution for a test drive, so you can check that it is genuinely easy to use rather than just having a very good marketing site.

SendOwl gives you a free 30 day trial so you can see if you like us

I'm still worried about marketing. And design. And do I need to employ a proofreader?

All good questions, so we published an exhaustive blog post (well, exhausting for us, certainly) about how to publish an ebook in 23 simple steps to help.

We cover everything from your first idea for a book, through to writing, editing, proofreading, creating an ebook, marketing it, publishing it, marketing it some more, and deciding what to do next.

Good luck with your ebook – and do take us for a trial spin

Good luck with creating, marketing and selling your ebook. It can be tough, finding the motivation to keep going, and wondering how you can boost sales, but the rewards are considerable.

We've got many sellers here at SendOwl who make a living from selling ebooks. In fact, in total, our sellers have made more than a quarter of a billion dollars, and ebooks make up a good chunk of that. So that's a lot of money made from selling ebooks direct to readers!

Why not come join us at SendOwl and realise your authorial ambitions? We'd love to have you.

SendOwl makes it easy for you to sell ebooks online



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