How I wrote an e-book and started earning $6,000/mo.
I have the perfect job.
I don't work at all, at least according to my friends. When I do
work, I work at home. I get paid every day. And I get paid more
than just about anyone I know.
I write and sell e-books on the Internet. I'm writing this
little article to inspire people that are looking for the same
things I was looking for just a couple of years ago: financial
independence, a work-at-home option, some prestige, and oh yeah,
that little thing we need called a creative outlet.
When I go to parties and tell people that I write and sell
e-books they almost always say "what's that"? But that's OK,
that's just part of being an "e-book publisher".
My story started out in 1996, when I was a Microsoft Certified
Trainer and Network Engineer, flying around the world in a
"monkey suit". I dreamed of a way that I could sell some study
guides to some of the guys I was training and other people on
the Internet, and so I wrote six documents in Microsoft Word
that I began to sell at $24.95 each. I started a web site, and
eventually I had a 140 links to it and a nice search engine
ranking (a luxury today). I sold my study guides on my web site,
even producing an income of up to $1,500 a month. I didn't know
it but I was selling e-books.
At that time I didn't have the freewheeling "semi retired"
lifestyle that I have now because e-books at that time took a
little bit more work: I had to get a merchant credit card
account. Trusting engineers would send me their credit card info
in the e-mail and I would process each order by hand every
night. If people wrote checks, I processed those too. I handled
customer service and "order fulfillment" for my orders: I would
e-mail each engineer their study guide and sometimes make
printed out copies of them, selling the printouts and processing
those orders too.
I dreamed of a day when I would be able to sell e-books
automatically on my site, charging the credit cards and
e-mailing the books all in one seamless process. At the time
there were some electronic services that would do this for $1500
a month or more. I deemed this too expensive but eventually my
vision came true: Paypal was born.
Paypal was a dream--I was able to sign up with no money down and
Paypal would accept and process all credit cards and checks
automatically. A couple of years later Google Adwords was born,
and I was able to market online to all the users of the Google
search engine, a huge audience with a good income. Now, my
significant other with two jobs laments to friends: "she gets up
at 10am, logs on, makes a bank deposit, then gets back into bed
at 10:45". More than a few people in my life have noticed that I
seem to be doing well and have loads of time for leisure
activity. I am and I do. And it's all because of that phenomenal
invention called the e-book.
I've written 10 e-books and I am coming up with more titles all
the time. My one piece of wisdom to impart: coming up with a
winning ebook is kind of like playing "Berry Gordy"--you learn
to recognize the "hits". When you get an idea and it gives you
gooseflesh, that's the one. Copyright it, write it and market it
online. If you want any advice on how to do that, I wrote an
e-book "Paycheck in 30 Minutes " that talks about the steps to
getting your e-book sold.
Sure I plug my e-books from time to time, but mostly I'm out
with my boxer dog in the dog park, or riding down the freeway in
the RV to visit an out-of-state friend. If you see a woman with
a boxer dog in an RV with Oregon plates, wave. It's probably me.