How to publish an ebook (revised June 2017)

Interested in self-publishing an ebook? Now is a great time to get started! More than eighteen million self-published titles are bought by readers every year. In this guide, the SendOwl team covers everything you need to know about publishing your own ebook, right from researching your initial idea through to formatting your ebook, working out a pre-launch strategy and selling your ebook from your own website.

Part I: Research and begin writing

1. Realise that the idea that's been bugging you is the perfect starting point for an ebook!

You don't need to wait until you think you're the number one expert in the world on a certain subject to write an ebook.  If you have been digging into a subject that bugs you and want to share what you've learnt with other people then you're in a great position to share your knowledge and make some money.

Joel Runyon, founder of Impossible, had his first hit with an online fitness programme called Impossible Abs. For one of his blog posts, he did a case study on himself about getting six-pack abs:

"It turns out there's a lot of interest in that. I basically reverse engineered the process I'd followed and then shared it with people in a product. That was one of the first successful products we had."

Sally Jenkinson also started off writing a blog post before realising that she had quite a lot more to say on the subject:

Having started thinking about the concept of documentation more and more due to the work I was doing and the people I was working with, I decided to finally put fingers to keyboard and set out to write a draft blog post whilst on a train one day towards the end of the year. As the content grew, I hesitated every time I referred to “this post” within the text, eventually optimistically changing it to “this article” before I later finally caved and wrote “this book”. It was defined. I was writing a book. The writing continued in a somewhat fragmented way, depending on whether I had space to get my laptop out on trains, and how grumpy I was.

Ann Kullberg, who started off as a struggling portrait artist, discovered that by sharing her knowledge about coloured pencil artwork she could forge a new career as a seller of digital products:

Instead of just thinking of it as art and people liking it, I started thinking about sharing my talent, my techniques and other people's techniques, teaching – and that there's all kinds of ways to make money with art. You just have to have that switch turned on.

So, you don't need to be an expert when you start researching and writing your ebook – just enthusiastic about your subject and able to make it accessible to your readers.

2. Start writing to make sure that you actually like the idea

Don't choose a topic that you think might sell, but which bores you senseless. You'll actively hate the subject within a month and you won't communicate the subject well. Also, most readers will spot if you're just going through the motions.

Work out why you're writing this book and not someone else. If you're writing a factual book, what experience do you have? Or want to share? Aim to become the most accessible authority on a topic rather then the greatest authority, as Sonia Simone suggests in her Copyblogger post: How to Become an Expert on Nearly Any Subject.

Don't choose a topic that you think might sell, but which bores you senseless. You'll actively hate the subject within a month and you won't communicate the subject well.

Drew Neil started writing Practical Vim when he was still learning about the text editor – which has a famously steep learning curve. It was to be the book he wanted to read when he was starting out with Vim. Although other people have written about Vim, Drew combined a strong desire to communicate the subject with an ability to explain difficult concepts in an accessible way. That was his unique selling point. He's now got over 50 five star reviews on Amazon and sales to match.

3. Research your market

Make sure your author name and prospective title are not already taken. If they are, this could lead to confusion further down the line.

If you're writing a factual book, choose a title that shows your readers how they will benefit from reading your ebook. Subtitles can be particularly helpful in clarifying what you can offer a reader. A good example is Tim Ferris's The Four Hour Work Week: escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich. The main title hooks your interest. Work weeks are usually longer than four hours! The subtitle then clarifies the benefit to a reader: not only will the book show a reader how they can work fewer hours but it will also show them how they can make a lot of money and live where they want. Result!

At this stage, you'll also want to check there is actually a market for your ebook. Do some general searching for the problem your ebook solves to see what comes up. If there are a lot of frustrated people discussing the problem on Quora, Stack Exchange or a forum you're a member of, then you're probably onto a good thing. If your free resources on the subject have gained traction then that's a promising sign that people want information on that subject.

The Internet makes doing research easier than ever, although you can still find inspiration (and information) in some epic libraries [George Peabody Library in Baltimore, USA]

If you already have a following and you can't quite decide what angle to take for your ebook, you could run a survey to ask potential readers what they would prefer, giving them a couple of choices.

If you don't have a following, then a $100 Adwords campaign to test out an idea would be a good investment. This is a great way to test the market, and it's much better to discover there is very little demand for your product at this stage. It's also a useful way to start collecting emails or even pre-orders.

Blogger Daniel Hall recommends doing some quick research on Amazon. He suggests typing in your chosen subject and seeing how the top four books on the subject rank on the best seller list. In his view, under 100,000 is optimal, and less than 500,000 is acceptable. You could also check the reviews to see what people are saying on the subject and whether there are any hints that your approach would be particularly welcomed.

Ryan Buckley, guest posting on the Four Hour Work Week, also offers a detailed overview of how to research the Amazon market in his post: How to (Really) Make $1,000,000 Selling E-Books – Real-World Case Studies.

Effectively researching your market at an early stage will save you heartache later on when there is no demand for your ebook. Equally, it can be very inspiring at this stage to see how many people are looking for exactly the kind of book you intend to write.

4. Plan your ebook

Planning your ebook will save you time because you'll be able to concentrate on what matters and resist digressions. If you're writing a factual book you'll need to work out what you want to include in this ebook, and what you'll save for your next one. If you're writing fiction you'll need to make sure than your narrative has a compelling story arc that keeps a reader hooked.

Experiment with a few techniques to help you work out what to include and what to leave out. You could write a big list, although don't worry at this point about putting it in order. Or if you're a more visual person, construct a mindmap, either on paper or using a tool like bubbl.us. Or you could get really creative like novelist Emma Healey, who came up with an impressive idea to picture the world of her novel:

I drew plans of my protagonist’s house, her daughter’s house, her brother in law’s, and her friends' houses. I also printed out, cut up and glued together images from Google maps to create my own picture of her local area.

Once you've done as much brain storming as you can stomach (or when your friends plead with you to just get on with it), write a content outline. This is where you take your ideas and put them in some kind of order.

A content outline by J.K.Rowling for one of her Harry Potter books

When it comes to writing though, don't feel you need to write your introduction first and then your first chapter. Start with what you're most excited about. This will give you the momentum to write more. The introduction will almost certainly be written last because the scope and content of your book probably will change slightly as you write.

Don't get hung up on the length of your ebook either. There's no hard and fast rule as to how long an ebook should be, although book coach Judy Cullins offers some advice.

Just make sure that your ebook is tightly written. Just because you could write 80,000 words doesn't mean you should!

5. Keep writing

Aim to write little and often rather than waiting until your writing conditions are 'perfect' (coffee, quiet, entire day off, hand-made quill...) which rarely happens.

There are plenty of options out there to help you keep writing. A good one is 75O words, which encourages you to write – yep, you guessed it – 750 words a day.

I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way.

You get points for keeping on track and a score card at the end of the month.

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. E.L. Doctorow

If you're more time-oriented, then a pomodoro timer might be a good choice. An amusing take on this is the Write or Die app, sold through SendOwl, which offers consequences (or rewards) for writing so many words in a set amount of time. So, for example, if you fail to write 500 words in 40 minutes you might find yourself assaulted by a horrible sound and a picture of a grumpy cat.

If you respond well to peer support, consider joining a writing community like write-track, a 'goal-setting community for writers'. As well as the community aspect, their blog also has some useful posts like How to Build a Regular Writing Habit.

If you have grave concerns about your ability to concentrate when there's so much happening in your inbox or on Twitter, close them all down. And if you can't trust yourself even then, use an app than blocks them and doesn't let you change your mind like SelfControl, which is free and open source. This is a useful round up of other apps that help you maintain focus.

If you still get stuck, try reading the highly commended Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott.  As the title suggests this has some great tips for life too.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our  family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

Avoid getting too hung up on editing. At this stage, George Orwell's six rules for writing are a great reference point in terms of how to write:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous

Part II: Keep writing and marketing your ebook

6. Start building - or expanding – your online community

Many ebook authors make the mistake of thinking that marketing happens after they've written their book – it doesn't. If you want to sell your ebook online it starts now!

If you haven't already, start building a website or blog. Even if you think you'll mainly sell through Amazon, this is still a really good plan. You'll make a substantial amount more on each sale if you sell through your own website rather than through a middleman who takes a 30%+ cut. You'll also be able to directly connect with your readers, making life much easier when you launch your next ebook or digital product.

With options like WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix and Weebly around you no longer have to employ a design agency (or your overworked brother or sister) to help you out if you're not technical. However, if you can afford to employ professionals to help you with design and copywriting then do. Good design and content will turn more site visitors into customers.

Another option to consider is finding out what theme or template another website is using and just install the same one. For example you can use WhatSquare.space to find out what Squarespace template a website you like is using and just use it yourself.

Many ebook authors make the mistake of thinking that marketing happens after they've written their book – it doesn't. It starts now!

If you've not done much marketing before then there are some useful resources online. KISSmetrics offers an accessible free guide to content marketing – although you'll need to part with your email address. We've also put together a Beginners' Guide to Marketing to start you off.

Start talking about subjects that relate to your ebook on social media. Keep an eye out for any news articles, or interesting opinion pieces to share in tweets and posts and don't be afraid to join relevant conversations. This is a great way of getting yourself seen by wider audiences, who are likely to read your biography and see that you're writing an ebook on a subject they are interested in.

You could also sign up with Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which hooks up journalists with experts. As the HARO website says, "Sharing your expertise may land you that big media opportunity you’ve been looking for."

If this all sounds like a lot of work, that's because it is! A good rule of thumb is that you should be spending at least 50% of your ebook schedule on marketing if you want your ebook to sell.

7. Keep writing

If you're getting stuck, or would like a second opinion, consider asking friends or people in your field for advice. You might be surprised how helpful people can be in exchange for a nice thank you, a sneak preview or a free copy.

Andrea Goulet Ford had got her book Culture of Content to beta stage and wanted feedback. She asked on the content strategy LinkedIn group for early-stage reviewers, whose contribution would then be listed in the acknowledgements section. She got 22 replies, which not only secured her valuable peer feedback but also encouraged her to see that there was an enthusiastic audience for her book.

Write wherever works for you [photo credit]

If you want advice on how your book is written, and are willing to pay for it, you might consider approaching a literary consultant. They can provide professional feedback on all aspects of a manuscript, so you can see what's already working and where improvements can be made.

8. Keep marketing

If you've not already, consider whether you can swap content for a reader's email address so you can build up your contact list for when you launch.

Literary consultant Claire Wingfield offers a free 21-day novel writing course as well as a sample of her writing guide in return for a reader's email address.  Entrepreneur Sean Fioritto offered an interactive video course all about Flexbox.

Readers might be scared you'll spam them so pay attention to your microcopy. Web developer and blogger Guy Routledge writes:

Spam sucks, so there'll be none of that. I'll never share your details, and you'll never get more than one email per week.

Also, consider how you design your signup form. Karen McGrane and Ethan Marcotte go for a friendly approach which we think works really well:

It's a good idea at this stage to make a list of influencers around your subject so they can help to spread the word about or endorse your ebook. To do this, search for keywords in Twitter that relate to your ebook and switch the search filter to 'People'. Look for anyone with a good amount of followers (over 500) and add them to a list. Over time, start conversations with them and retweet their content. This will help you to form relationships with them, and perhaps you might suggest meeting face to face for a coffee if you have a good rapport with someone.

Guest posting is another good option for building an audience. Dip into The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging if you're new to the concept. Make sure you're contributing high quality content to reputable sites though. Search engines penalise people who use spammy guest posts to (try to) improve their SEO.

Asking colleagues and potential readers for their feedback on your work in progress is also a great idea. Not only does their feedback help you improve your work, but you'll be pleasantly surprised by how many of them will go on to act as cheerleaders, offering to promote your ebook when it's finished.

If this all sounds like a lot of work, that's because it is! A good rule of thumb is that you should be spending at least 50% of your ebook schedule on marketing if you want your ebook to sell.

9. Finish the first draft!

Hang on, hadn't you better just... no! You want your ebook to be great but be wary of wanting it to be 'perfect'. Michael Hyatt writes in a blog post on The Paradigm Shift That Helped Me Defeat Perfectionism Once and for All that:

Perfection doesn’t take into consideration of the cost, time, or significance of something. It’s just an illusive, unreal, unattainable goal. It’s better to do good work really well. That way you’re contributing to people’s lives, instead of locked in your own head about whether your work measures up to an impossible standard.

Although you won't have an old-school publisher breathing down your neck, you will upset your marketing plan if you keep you readers waiting for too long. Set yourself a deadline and stick to it. Done is better than perfect.

Rachel Andrew was one day off launching her Profitable Side Project Handbook when she realised that the PDF that was being generated was 180MB. Instead of putting off her launch, she got her head down and found a solution.

Part III: Get your book ready for publication

10. Ask a professional or an editor friend to edit and proofread your book

Your book is much less likely to sell well or get good reviews if your structure sags, you've repeated yourself or you've gone off on a diversion when you should have stuck to the point. No matter how many times you edit your book, you will miss problems that will be obvious to someone else. Find these problems now otherwise someone else will point them out in a review.

“Self editing is the path to the dark side. Self editing leads to self delusion, self delusion leads to missed mistakes, missed mistakes lead to bad reviews. Bad reviews are the tools of the dark side.” Eric T. Benoit on Goodreads

There are two types of editing that a professional can help you with:

• Substantive or developmental editors may:
• suggest how you can reorder or rewrite sentences to improve clarity and accuracy
• alert you to inconsistencies, repetition and boring bits
• help you adjust your language so it appeals to your target market
• Copy-editors may:
• fix errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, grammar and word usage
• rewrite tangles sentences
• check over captions, tables and footnotes
• make sure your ebook conforms to a style guide, if you're using one

Online grammar checking tools like Grammarly are useful, but hardly foolpoof. You could also ask an editor to look at the copy on your website and sales page.

Any errors caught at this stage are a lot easier to change than this rather embarrassing road sign

Proofreading should be done after your ebook has been edited, because mistakes creep in during the editing process. You'll want to look out for typos, spelling mistakes (e.g. 'they're' instead of 'their', 'your' instead of 'you're'), layout issues and incorrect fonts. Also, double check the spelling of any names in your ebook.

'Grammar Girl' Mignon Fogarty's primary advice on avoiding typos is to have someone else proofread your work.  She also offers some useful proofreading tips if you're doing it yourself:

1. Read your work backwards
2. Read your work out loud
3. Always proofread a printed version of your work
4. Give yourself some time

11. Design your cover

You've got a few options here. You can have a go yourself if you've some design talent or want to improve your design skills. Sally Jenkinson took this route:

Just like I know barely anything about typography, I also know extremely little about design. I do however like to try. I have a sense of ownership over things that I make, and I like to use these things as an opportunity to try to get better. I therefore designed the cover and the interior of the book, which is why it probably looks a bit off to anyone who actually does this kind of stuff for a living.

If you're not sure where to find a suitable image for your book cover, check out our post A Beginners' Guide to Finding Images.

Platform 99 designs combines the idea of crowd sourcing and payment: you write a design brief complete with budget, which is then posted in the 99 designs marketplace. Designers will then submit their ideas and you can pick your winner. Other more general freelance marketplaces include UpWork. Search for people with exact skills, such as ebook cover designer, and then check out their previous work.

Alternatively you can pay a professional designer. How do you find a designer though? Smashwords maintains a list of formatters and cover designers.

Or you could try companies that provide ebook authors with design and typesetting support, including damonza.com and authorsupport.com.

12. Format your book

Okay, there are a lot of options here and they are changing all the time! Thankfully, there are some great articles on the subject.

Jonathan Snook offers a good introduction to formatting your ebook in his blog post How to Write a Book. His summary of the pros and cons of the three main formats, epub, mobi and pdf, is particularly useful if you're new to the subject. To quote:

PDFs are supported on almost every device (Windows, Mac, Kindle, iPad, Android, etc.) and can even be a stepping stone to creating a print version of your book. PDFs allow for full typographic and design control, but at the cost of needing to fit things into a predefined page layout.

EPUB is a more fluid format that is supported by the Apple iPad, iPhone, and now on the desktop with OS X Mavericks. It’s also supported by Google Play for Android devices. While EPUB is supported on other devices, you’re likely to choose EPUB because you’re targeting your book at the Apple audience.

MOBI is a format originally developed for the Mobipocket Reader but more popularly supported by the Amazon Kindle. If you’re looking to attract the Kindle audience or publish to Amazon via the Kindle Direct Publishing platform then the HTML-based MOBI format is the format you’ll want to go with.

There's a large variety of devices in today's world.  Try and support as many as possible [photo credit]

You can't program

There are plenty of platforms that make it easy for you to make your draft into a fully-fledged ebook without getting too technical.

Sean Brady chose marketplace LeanPub, which generates epub, mobi and pdf versions that you can publish on the site as well as elsewhere. He describes his experiences in Why I Chose Self-publishing with Leanpub.

For more of an overview of ebook marketplaces, many of which will help you with formatting, you could try David Carnoy's post on How to self-publish an ebook and Publishers Weekly's post on DIY: How to self-publish an e-book.

Just make sure you work out what cut all these middle-men take – some are more transparent than others.

Also, remember that if no one is searching for your ebook in one of these marketplaces, then it won't come up. This doesn't mean there isn't demand for it – just that readers aren't always 100% sure what ebook they need.

You can program

If you have some programming skills and want full control of the output then consider doing everything yourself with the help of some useful tools.

Jonathan Snook decided to write in HTML:

By writing in HTML, I already had something that I could post on my website, use for the EPUB and use for the MOBI format. All without having to change a thing.

He used Prince XML to generate a PDF via a command line interface, and created an epub by running two commands once he'd got the right files in place. He then used Calibre to create a Mobi.

Prince XML comes with a hefty price tag however. Mathias Meyer writes about how he uses DocRaptor to generate the final result instead:

You can use Prince locally to generate infinite test PDFs, and then use DocRaptor to generate the final result. Which is what I do. Before generating the PDF through DocRaptor I upload the generated HTML, which includes all the CSS, to S3, to avoid some issues I've had with Unicode characters in the HTML, and tell DocRaptor to fetch it from a URL instead.

Sally Jenkinson used a step-by-step guide produced by Five Simple Steps to create an ebook.

Around this time, Five Simple Steps very sadly (temporarily) closed its doors, but not without leaving the world with a great resource in the form of creating-ebooks.com. This was invaluable for helping me learn about the process of making ebooks. I grabbed the files and immediately created an initial prototype, and proceeded to populate it with my work in progress HTML.

13. Test and validate your ebook formats

Sally Jenkinson found that reader software would overrule some of her programming decisions so that testing was vital:

Test on as many devices as you can, and see how belligerent some of them are vs how desperate you are to make your book look beautiful. Many will refuse to acknowledge your commands because they place greater emphasis on user preferences, so accept that there will be some battles you do not win.

14. Sign up to a platform like SendOwl to sell your ebook from your own website

Selling your ebook direct from your website or blog allows for the workings of serendipity (someone landing on your website and realising, in that moment, that your ebook is just what they need) and for you to stimulate demand. It also allows you to establish a much stronger connection with your customers.

Handling your own distribution allows you to create a deeper one-on-one connection with your customers, something that is impossible with other distribution channels since you don’t get customer information through other services—even though you are giving them a huge chunk of your sales! Jonathan Snook

Once you upload an ebook (or several) to SendOwl, which takes about a minute, you can start selling on social media immediately using a short url. Then you just need to add a Buy Now or Add to Cart button to your website or blog and you can sell direct to readers.

A few digital delivery companies – like SendOwl – also include useful marketing features that can help you make money with no extra marketing spend. After analysing millions of orders we found that one-click upsells can increase your total revenue between 4-20%. Used as a marketing strategy, Pay what you want pricing can also be surprisingly effective. Discounts are also a tried and tested way of encouraging customers to make a purchase, often in conjunction with a known sales period like Christmas or Black Friday where we saw our customers' sales increase by an average of 337%.

Interested in how SendOwl works? Try our free 30 day trial and start selling to a global audience (customers can even pay you in Bitcoins!).

This is all that's required to buy an ebook on SendOwl

Of course, selling from your own website or blog is probably only going to be part of your marketing strategy. Amazon still dominates the ebook market with 67% of the market, while Nook has 11.8% and Apple 8.2% (BISG report, 2013).

There are also plenty of smaller players, including some that also allow you to distribute though the major marketplaces as well. Options include: Kobo, Lulu, Smashworlds, Bookbaby, Booktango and Vock.

Keep your mind open to fresh opportunities though – epublishing is still a developing market; tomorrow’s players may be entirely different and it’s the early adopters who will benefit from keeping abreast of new routes to market.

Part IV: Work on a launch strategy

15. Make sure your website and sales page look good

Not another thing to think about! However, you've already got a functioning website or blog, so this shouldn't be too time consuming. But why do you need a separate sales page? Can't you just put an advert on your homepage or blog pages? You could, but it makes sense to send interested readers straight to a dedicated landing page for your ebook. That way they can learn more about your ebook (and you) and decide whether to buy, without getting distracted by other content.

If you need some help constructing a landing page then there are plenty of resources on the web. This Beginner's Guide to Landing Pages by KISSmetrics is a good place to start.

Landing pages need to be greatly simplified compared to many other website designs. This is because landing pages have very specific goals and shouldn’t include any extraneous information that might distract your visitors and prevent them from converting.

If you're looking for examples of what not to do, Unbounce also offers advice in their blog post 22 Brutally Honest Landing Page Critiques.  It's best not to include extraneous information on your ebook landing page although do include your email so readers can contact you with any issues or with feedback.

16. Work out who you'll ask for reviews – be ambitious

If anybody emails or tweets you to say something nice about your book, ask them to write an online review. This is particularly important at an early stage, when initial reviews can really influence whether someone buys your book or not. Early reviews can also affect what other reviewers might say.

Build a reviews strategy into your product launch. Make a list of people you want to review your book and consider sending them a (free) copy before your general launch. Don't panic if you get the odd bad review. These can add authenticity and show that it's not just your friends and family reviewing your book!

Patrick Barkham in a Guardian Online article shows how Rachel Abbott, who became an Amazon No 1 bestseller, built a successful reviews strategy:

Abbott took the "high-risk" approach of sending a review request document to bloggers who wrote about thrillers (only choose relevant bloggers). Just like any job application or sales pitch, a personalised request is most persuasive; so is one including details about your book and links to any previous reviews, Twitter feeds and websites to whet the bloggers' appetites. Offers of interviews or guest blogs may also encourage bloggers to publicise your book.

17. Line up talks at book festivals, bookshops, interest groups, your local library, online, or wherever your target audience might turn up

Just because you're publishing an ebook, doesn't mean that you need to exclusively market it using social media. Consider giving a talk or workshop at your local library, meetup group or online.

You don't even have to read from your book. Sometimes you're more likely to be given publicity opportunities if you're willing to talk about the theme of your book or take part in a panel discussion.

So long as you position yourself as someone who is interested and enthusiastic about an area connected to your ebook, and willing to talk about it in an accessible way, people will listen to you. You'll also get a much better conversion rate from people you've met.

You'll get a better conversion rate from people you've met so take part in talks and panel discussions [photo credit]

Be ambitious when lining up talks and workshops. To launch his book The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World Chris Guillebeau embarked on a 63 city book tour. He may have spent a lot of time and effort on promotion, but he was rewarded by excellent sales.

18. Work out pricing and maximise your revenue

How much should you charge for your ebook? This is one of the most tricky questions you're likely to face. The most common ebook prices are $17, $27 and $37, but really you're much better considering how much your competitors are charging, what your readers are willing to pay (are they successful business people or slightly skint teenagers?) and what value you're offering.

You might also want to consider whether you want to maximise sales or revenue. If you charge a cheaper price you might get more exposure as people are willing to take a chance on you.

Certain platforms like Kindle also penalise you for charging less than $2.99 or more than $9.99. The royalty rate plunges from 70% to 35% – although of course if you sell direct from your own website you don't run into this kind of problem.

Once you've decided on a baseline price, you can maximise your revenue from people who have landed on your website and want to buy your ebook. Consider doing some or all of the below:

1. Consider bundling bonus material with your ebook and charging more. So, you could offer your ebook for sale at one price, the ebook plus an extra article or video for a higher price, and the ebook plus some face-time with you, the expert, for an even higher price. This is a good way to get lots of your readers to pay that bit more.
2. Consider introducing constraints – perhaps your highest priced package is only available to 25 readers because you have only so much time to fulfill the consultancy angle? That way, you can introduce a sense of exclusivity and value. This is a good way to get a few big wins. However, tread carefully. If your constraint feels made up you'll put people off.
3. Offer a discount for people who buy a number of books within a set time period – perhaps your first 24 hours – to stimulate demand and create a sense of buzz. Alternatively, offer some kind of a deal. This is a good way to extend your reach. Tim Ferris offered a number of deals to encourage early sales, including this one:

1. Once people have bought your book, consider following up and asking them to become an affiliate, if they enjoyed it and their values align with yours. This is a good way of rewarding people who like your ebook and also prompting them to give your ebook a bit more visibility. Platforms like SendOwl make it easy for you to manage affiliates.
2. If you haven't already, take pre-orders for your ebook. If people come to your site, read about your ebook in progress, and like the sound of it, you want them to take action – not say 'hum, I'll buy this later' and then forget about it because they have a busy life.

19. Start your pre-launch email sequence

By planning a pre-launch sequence, you can extract the most value from your email list.  During the sequence you build excitement about your ebook so your readers are eager to get their hands on it when it's released.

A pre-launch sequence involves sending out a series of emails over a 7-10 day period about your ebook launch.  Aim for about 5 emails.  Hopefully you've been keeping in contact with your list regularly so they won't be too surprised by your email.

Initially, just let people know you've got an upcoming ebook as part of a more general mail out, and then build anticipation and send out emails more regularly as the launch date approaches.  Focus more on the ebook you're about to launch with your latter emails.

Make sure you write about how your ebook will benefit your readers, rather than listing features or doing a hard sell. Consider offering a sneak-peak or an instant takeaway that offers the reader value.  For tips on how to read emails people actually want to read try this blog post by customer.io. MailChimp also have plenty of resources to help you send better emails.

And make sure you do a quick test with a short email list (you and a friend) in advance to avoid a last minute panic.

20. LAUNCH!

Launch earlier in the day so if there are problems you can deal with them.

Send out your final launch email, making sure it contains an obvious call to action saying that your ebook is now available and reminding your readers of any time or other constraints.

Hurrah! Your ebook is now live and (hopefully) people are buying it.

Launching your book will feel a little like this

Have a launch party or go to the pub. You deserve it.

In the days after your launch, be ready to respond to readers on social media, whether they are saying something nice, asking a question or reporting a problem of some kind.   Check your social media pages every few hours for comments. Also search for your name and ebook title in Twitter Search in case comments haven't come directly to you. Look out for unanswered questions, but also any positive comments that you can share with your community.  It's nice for your readers to feel like they can contact you easily through social media, so show them that you are connected and are using it regularly.

Part V: Assess how the launch has gone & make future plans

21. Keep putting out useful, informative content on social media and engaging with other people's content

Although it's tempting, try not to just talk about your awesome ebook on social media as this can easily turn followers off. Look for opportunities to engage with other people, and share and comment on their content. This will more often than not lead them to finding out a bit more about you and who you are.

When you do bring your ebook into the conversation, experiment with sending readers straight to your sales page by tweeting a short link. The easier you make it for people to buy your ebook the more likely they are to make the purchase.

However, this tactic will only work is readers know enough about your ebook to want to buy it before they click on the link.

22. Analyse

Although it's heartening to see your sales figures ticking up, you'll want to spend time analysing which of your marketing strategies are working and which are not.  Ask yourself: Which marketing avenues are bringing in the most customers? Can you concentrate your marketing efforts on these avenues? For example, if you're getting a stream of engaged readers through targeted guest posting then consider doing more.

Make sure you concentrate on meaningful metrics though. If you're getting a decent number of site visitors from one avenue, but they don't spend much time on your site, and very rarely convert, then this marketing channel isn't really working for you, despite the % increase in site visitors.

If you're not entirely sure what marketing strategy is working, test a specific strategy and assess the results. Then you can either repeat if successful or try something else if not.

By this point, you'll also be able to see which affiliates are working out and which aren't. Consider rewarding the ones who are doing well with a better commission rate.

Although it's heartening to see your sales figures ticking up, you'll want to spend time analysing which of your marketing strategies are working and which are not.

Analyse your readers' feedback. Literary consultant Claire Wingfield found that her readers gave her some great ideas about how to describe and market her book 52 Dates for Writers. They told her what they found useful and what particularly appealed to them – information which she could then use to more effectively promote the book to her target audience.

Don't worry if your sales are a bit slow. You can still make money from your ebook indirectly as Jane Portman explains in her blog post How to Have Zero Sales and Still Make Money.

23. Write your next ebook

You've done it! You've published, promoted and sold your ebook. But don't get too comfortable...

Consider whether you can launch other digital products to complement your ebook. Can you offer a webinar or an online course on a subject that you write about, for example?

Also, start thinking about your next ebook. Don't leave it too long or your readership might forget you! Each new product offers you an opportunity to promote your old ones, provided they don't date too fast.

Infographic

Can't remember all the steps?  Then why not grab our handy infographic below (click for full size version or hover to share)

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