How to Sell eBooks Online For Passive Income

Gentlemen, today we’re going to be talking about how to make passive income by selling eBooks online. I’ve done it, and I had to learn most of this stuff for myself, so I figure that if you have a decent brain between your ears, you’ll be able to do it too.

Writing an eBook will take a lot of time, and a lot of persistence.

You’ll have to perfect the craft of writing. You’ll have to find a graphic designer to create an eBook cover. You’ll have to figure out a way to market your book to a niche audience.

…but, with some effort, these things can be done. And besides, you don’t want it to be easy—otherwise everyone would be making $100/day in passive income from eBooks.

1. Find a Topic

First things first, you need to find a niche topic to write about. It MUST be something that you’re knowledgeable about—otherwise, you won’t be able to come up with an entire book, and cover all of the possible angles and chapters that you need to write about. I recommend you choose something that you’ve been doing for 5-10 years.

For example, maybe you’re knowledgeable about one of the following things:

• Psychology and self-help
• Fishing and hunting
• Technology and internet business
• Health and Fitness

It can literally be anything. It doesn’t even have to be a “how to” book. Grant Cardone has made MILLIONS just by talking about a simple principle known as the 10x rule.

It can be you commenting on the current state of the Western world, talking about your experiences traveling abroad, or whatever—the point is, it has to be something you know a lot about. Otherwise you’ll run out of stuff to say, or won’t have anything worthwhile to say in the first place.

2. Find a Niche Within That Topic

A niche is basically a fancy word for a specific topic. For example, self-improvement, isn’t really a niche. Self-improvement specifically for manosphere men, is a niche. That’s why generic self-improvement websites suck, and why Masculine Development doesn’t. It’s because I cater to a specific group of people.

Rather than trying to give generic self-improvement advice that like nobody can use, I give very specific advice to men who are starting to wake up and unplug from the Matrix.

This is the type of niche you need to find—something that caters to a very specific group of people, who are looking for a specific result or answer.

Find something more specific than you think it has to be. For example, don’t just write about “health and fitness,” write about how to lose fat as fast as possible, or a guide on how to get a six pack, or how to build lean muscle, or a book on dieting strategies. For my eBook, Body of an Alpha, it’s not just on how to build muscle—it’s on how to build the body that women find incredibly sexy.

Do you see the point? The more specific your book is, the better. Why is this? Because every other idiot is selling some generic eBook on vague topics. Buyers want to know exactly what they’re getting.

For example, let’s take my other eBook—the 7 Strategies to Develop Your Masculinity. What you get in this eBook is very clear: you get 7 strategies to develop your masculinity.

Readers of my blog know that masculinity is, in essence, your badass characteristics, such as: decisiveness, assertiveness, confidence, sexual attractiveness, and courage. It’s very clear what you’re getting when you buy the 7 Strategies eBook—that’s why it sells so well, and it’s why I’m earning a big chunk of passive income right now as I’m typing this. Men know what they’re buying. They’re buying strategies that will help them become more masculine; more decisive, assertive, aggressive, and confident.

They’re buying a better life (like this guy). That’s why it sells, and it’s why I get so much passive income; it’s very clear what you’re getting when you buy it. It’s also a very specific niche. There aren’t that many men out there who want to develop their masculinity, but the ones who do are willing to pay to know how.

I suggest you learn to find a specific niche like I have. If you want to make passive income from eBooks, you MUST be specific in what you’re offering. You must understand who you’re offering it to; what age are they? Men or women? Rich or poor? Knowing your audience will help you custom tailor your eBook to their needs.

3. Solve a Problem Within That Niche

In general, the best way to generate a lot of passive income from an eBook is by solving a problem that a lot of people face—not too many, though. Remember: you need to find a balance between “niche” and “enough people to make money.”

For example, say that you’re writing an eBook in the field of health and fitness. What are some problems that people have?

• They want a 6 pack
• They aren’t losing fat fast enough
• They can’t put on muscle
• They don’t know which workout routine to do

The point is to find a problem that a lot of people have, and to offer them a solution so good, that they’re willing to pay for it.

If you’re in the niche of fishing, maybe you can write a book on specific lures that are best for a certain type of fishing; this is probably an issue that many men have.

They don’t know what lures to use in what environments. Or maybe if you’re in the niche of technology, you can solve the problem of search engine optimization. How do I get my website to rank on the first page of google?

The Tai Lopez 67 steps program solves a very common issue that most people have. They want to live “the good life,” but they don’t know how. They want to make millions of dollars, but don’t know how.

Do you see the point? It doesn’t have to be a problem that like millions of men have; it just has to be a problem that enough people have that you can make some good passive income from it. You’d be surprised at how many people have some seemingly rare problems, and you can bet that if you have it, thousands of others do, too.

4. Brainstorm a Title

The title is, perhaps, one of the most important elements of the eBook. Why? If your customer can’t tell what he’s getting based off of the title, it will not sell.

Again, let’s use my eBook as an example. The title is: “7 Strategies to Develop Your Masculinity.” Based off of this title, do you know what you’re getting? Of course you do. You’re getting 7 strategies to develop your masculinity. 7 Strategies that will make you a better man.

If your title doesn’t answer this one simple question, then throw it in the trash: “What am I getting?”

Most of the time, your audience will just glance casually at your title. If it’s unclear or unspecific, there’s no way in hell they’re going to spend the time to say: “Hmm, even though I have no clue what this eBook is about, let’s spend the next 5 minutes reading into it!” Give me a fucking break. If you don’t captivate your audience with just the title, you will not sell a single eBook.

Here are some examples of bad titles:

• Building a Better Body
• All About The Gym
• Getting What You Want
• On Music Production

Do you see why they’re bad? Nobody knows what the fuck they’re buying when they read those titles. Sure there’s some titles like this that have sold really well, but that’s only because the authors probably spent millions of dollars on advertising. Contrast these with good titles, that market themselves, like these:

• Body of an Alpha: How to Build the Lean, Shredded Physique That Women Go Crazy For
• How to Get What You Want: A Guide to Verbal Persuasion
• Art of Seduction: How to Approach and Sleep With Gorgeous Women
• A Veteran Music Producer’s Guide to Making it Big in the Music Industry

Do you see why those are good titles? They tell you what you’re getting from the eBook. You don’t have to spend more than literally 3 seconds before you realize what they’re about. What’s Body of an Alpha about? Obviously it’s about how you can build a body that women drool over. Art of Seduction? Obviously it’s about how to seduce girls, duh. This is what you want—the goal of a title is to communicate what the book is about.

5. Create an Outline

Okay, so now that you’ve got your title, it’s time to write an outline. “But Jon, isn’t that more work?” I can hear someone ask. Well, yes—in a sense, it is. Writing an outline is more work upfront, but over the course of the next few weeks as you’re writing your eBook, it’s actually less work. Why? Because you have a clear cut plan on how to write it.

Following an outline will make your eBook far more clear and concise than if you just started writing a bunch of unorganized, loosely related bullshit—this is why I recommend you outline the entire book before you write a single page. Your outline should look something like this:

1. Title
2. Table of Contents
3. Introduction
   1. Talk about A
   2. Talk about B
   3. Talk about C
4. Chapter 1
   1. Discuss X Y and Z
      1. X
         1. Details on X
         2. Even more details on X
      2. Y
         1. Details on Y
            1. Specific Detail on Y
         2. More details on Y
      3. Z
         1. Details on Z
         2. More details on Z
   2. How X Y and Z are related

And so on and so forth. Outline SPECIFICALLY what you’re going to be talking about in each chapter—you don’t have to be extremely specific down to the little details, but if you’re writing a chapter on a certain diet, make sure you have the points you want to cover in your outline (benefits, side effects, what it’s good for, etc.).

The more work you put into the outline, the easier it will be to write your eBook.

I cannot emphasize this enough. The more work you put into your outline, the easier it will be to write your eBook. Some guys skip the outline, or only write a half-ass outline. This is a huge mistake. Writing an outline allows you to lay out a specific, clear-cut path that is easy to convey and even easier to understand.

6. Write Your Book

Okay, so you’ve got your outline and your title ready. It’s time to put on the big boy pants—it’s time to write. There’s generally two different schools of thought when it comes to writing your book:

1. Set a goal
2. Just write it naturally

Setting a goal would be something like: “Each chapter will be 3,000 words.” Just writing it naturally would entail just writing it and however many words each chapter is, that’s what it’s gonna be.

Personally, I prefer a combination of goal setting and natural writing.

For example, when I wrote the 7 Strategies eBook, I was aiming to have a dense book without any filler. I thought about setting a goal amount of words for each strategy, but I decided against that. Why? Because I didn’t want to waste your time with bullshit and fluff. I just wanted to give you the damn strategies so that you could start using them TODAY.

So I just wrote it naturally. I still had a “rough goal,” that was around 5-6 pages per strategy. Some strategies were brief; only 3-4 pages. Some were longer, from 6-8 pages. But in general, my goal was to make them about the same length; I didn’t want to spend 30 pages on one strategy, and then 2 on every other one. That would be ridiculous.

Depending on your eBook, you may want to set more specific goals, however.

Because the 7 Strategies eBook is specifically 7 strategies, I didn’t bother writing an unnecessary 10,000 words per strategy or something like that. I just focused on getting my message across and explaining what the strategies were, how to use them, and what they’ll do for you.

I eliminated all unnecessary bullshit. I was very concise and precise. But maybe you want to sell more of an entertaining book, than a factual book. Do you guys know what I’m talking about? Those books that you buy about “How to Get Ripped,” or something, and they end up being like 85% fluff about the guy’s story and how he was skinny for most of his life. Personally I don’t like that, but depending on your audience, it may work.

If your audience is retarded, sometimes it’s better to write a book filled with fluff; this is very common with a lot of scammy, well-marketed books on Amazon.  Because it sounds better to have 250 pages instead of 50 pages, they just fill a 25 page eBook up with 225 pages of complete garbage. It works for them, but if you want to build trust with your audience (which is the key to being able to come out with more eBooks and generate more passive income) then don’t do this.

6. Make The Graphics

There’s two main graphic components to every eBook: the pictures in the actual eBook itself, and the eBook cover. For the actual graphics within the eBook, I recommend using Open Office. Basically just copy and paste some different pictures in there to make it look good—maybe have a diagram or two, depending on the context, but you don’t need to have that many pictures.

For the eBook cover, use either Fiverr or 99Designs. Fiverr is the cheaper of the two; it costs anywhere from $5 to $30 to have an eBook cover designed, custom made. 99Designs is WAY more professional, but it’ll also set you back quite a bit (anywhere from $300 to $1300).

If it’s your first eBook, and you’re short on money, I recommend you use Fiverr. Then, once you start to get some success, consider re-branding your eBook by using 99Designs. Now, once you’re done editing your eBook, turn it into a PDF and we’re ready to go.

7. Proofread and Edit

Be sure to go back and check your eBook for any typos. Make sure that the pictures don’t block any of the words, or anything stupid like that. Although this may seem like a minor step, it’s integral to customer satisfaction. I know that whenever I buy a book that has a ton of typos in it, I’m pretty pissed off.

I mean like really? You’re selling a fucking book, and you can’t even just re-read it a couple of times to remove the typos? That shit always pisses me off, and I’m sure that a lot of you feel the same way. So be sure to proofread your book before you put it on the market. I personally proofread the 7 Strategies eBook 3 times before I put it on the market.

I wanted it to be the best damn eBook possible, so I removed awkward phrasings, unnecessary elaboration, and grammatical errors. You should do the same if you want your eBook to sell. Proofread your eBook at least once, and make sure that the grammar isn’t choppy. Remove unnecessary sentences and words so that your writing is concise and clear-cut.

8. Profit!

There’s basically two ways to sell your eBook: through your own means, or through another distributor. Many people opt for selling their eBook through Amazon, even though they have a blog. Why? Because it has a far broader reach. You’ll likely sell WAY more eBooks on Amazon than if you tried to sell them through your own blog.

This has its advantages. If you don’t have an audience on your blog to sell your eBook to, selling your eBook via Amazon can help draw people to your blog (by putting links inside of the eBook). But, there’s disadvantages—Amazon takes a very large royalty (I think it’s like 40%) and they set limits on how much you can charge for the eBook.

If you sell the eBook through your own blog, however, you keep 100% of the profit and there’s no limit to how much you can charge.

I chose to sell my eBook through Masculine Development, because at this point I’ve already got a significant following of men. If, however, you don’t have a blog, or you do, but it doesn’t get many views, you’d probably get more passive income if you chose to sell through Amazon.

Selling your eBook through a blog will require two things: a payment processor, and a sales page. For the payment processor, I recommend you use eJunkie. It’s super quick and easy; every time a man buys my eBook, it takes care of emailing him a copy and transferring me the money. It truly puts the “passive” into passive income.

A sales page is just a fancy name for the page that explains the benefits of your products. Mine is here—personally, I use Click Funnels for my sales page templates, but there’s plenty of other services that you can use. The goal is to just make a clean, professional looking sales page that entices your readers to buy your eBook.

“I’m not making $100 per day yet!”

That’s fine. It might take some time to make $100/day in passive income, especially if you’re selling your eBook through a blog. If you’ve had the eBook out for at least a year, and you aren’t making AT LEAST $100/day, then you need to hit the grindstone again.

Either your title wasn’t specific enough (this is common in watered down industries, like the fitness industry), you didn’t solve a problem that enough people have to want to buy it, your cover isn’t appealing, or you aren’t getting enough traffic.

It will take some time to reach $100/day and beyond, so don’t worry if you don’t hit it right away. Just keep grinding, and keep trying. Imagine how nice it will feel to earn $100/day in passive income. That feeling should keep you going.

Conclusion

eBooks are one of the easiest and quickest ways to reach $100 per day in passive income. Anybody can write an eBook and self-publish it, either through Amazon or through your own blog. It really isn’t that hard; in fact, it’s incredibly simple. Most men just don’t do it, because it’d take work. They’d rather watch 3 hours of Netflix after work, instead of hustling now for a better tomorrow.

And that’s why most men are dirt poor and have shitty lives.

But that isn’t you. If it is, then it won’t be for long, because you’re going to do something about it. So go out there and write a damn eBook. It can be on literally anything, if the problem is common enough. The clock is ticking. Get to it.

If you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave a remark down below. As always, I hope you guys enjoyed the article, and I’ll see you next time.