I started my writing career as a blogger in June 2020. I thought my content would draw the masses within six months of starting my online presence.
If you ever started anything online, you’ll know this was wishful thinking. It takes a good while to carve out a nice piece of real estate on the internet.
In January 2021, I took a book publishing course that gave me the idea to convert my articles into ebooks and upload them to Amazon. The rest is history.
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Today, I have over 1,300 articles on my blog and 940 ebooks on Amazon. Of those 940 books, I host 386 on my website as pdfs and distribute them widely to other bookstores.
Why turn your articles into ebooks? The main purpose of converting your articles into ebooks is to create passive income.
Articles can create passive income, but books have a longer time horizon. Let me explain. When you publish an article, you depend on an algorithm to present your work to someone else.
If you have a blog, the algorithm is Google or Bing search. You can make a decent amount of money by ranking on these search sites. However, hitting the top results as a personal blog is extremely challenging.
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When you read about what bloggers are doing to hit the top results, you’ll probably change your mind about the direction you want for your blog.
You can publish your articles on sites like LinkedIn, Medium, and SeekingAlpha. They are great ways to drop your content all over the internet.
Remember, just because you create ebooks doesn’t mean your articles disappear; you can still utilize them in the same ways.
Ebooks give you more options. Once you bundle together ten of your articles, you now have an eBook. It takes less than ten minutes to upload your ebook (just a Word doc) to Amazon.
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If you add your eBook to Kindle Unlimited, you can give it away for free for five days every three months. This is a good way to get your article top of mind every three months.
That was one of my driving forces in creating so many ebooks. I now have 555 books under the Kindle Unlimited banner, so I have a free ebook for every day of the year.
Sure enough, even my first ebook from January 2021 still gets a read or purchase occasionally. Amazon gives new books a boost in exposure for the first 30 days, which is something to understand and leverage.
If you already have a following, driving traffic to Amazon and hitting the top charts is even easier. Once you tell your email list about a “free book promotion,” they can drive your numbers up so high that others will follow.
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Getting your books out to the world. A book is an asset like rental properties, a business, or dividend-paying stocks; books produce income for you 24 hours a day.
If you don’t enter a book into Kindle Unlimited, you can “go wide” by uploading it to Draft2Digital (D2D). It takes ten minutes to upload your cover and manuscript to D2D, which will be live in less than a day.
D2D is the definition of passive income. You can sit back and let the pennies trickle in or actively promote your book through your online presence.
My D2D books upload directly to Barnes & Nobles, Tolino, Vivlio, Smashwords, Gardners, Scribd, Overdrive, Odilo, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla, and Palace.
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Of these, I have had the most success with Hoopla and Scribd. I don’t upload to Apple or Google Books because adjusting my manuscript would take longer.
Your books are your advertising platform. The true reason to create ebooks is for the advertising space inside your books.
Books are a “loss leader” for your higher ticket products and services; books can serve as the top of your sales funnel. As I said, I have 940+ books sitting on Amazon shelves, all sending traffic to my website.
I don’t offer any higher other products or services than my $20 paperbacks ($6-7 profit margin). However, if you provide coaching services, consulting, online courses, mentoring, or masterminds, your books can give you the real estate to push these.
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I am a shameless promoter of my books and website, so my ebooks help to drive even more traffic. If you have merchandise on Redbubble, Etsy, or Shopify, your books can also drive traffic there.
You can create your own book covers. Yes, you can create your own book covers. If you have a Canva account, they already have tons of covers for your use. The ebook dimensions I use are 1638 X 2457 pixels.
Ebook covers are easy, but paperbacks are much tougher. However, I wouldn’t worry about those yet. Remember that your book covers only need “not suck.” As long as they are passable, they will serve their purpose.
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You can keep it simple by releasing your books as part of a series. That way, all you need to change is the color or the volume numbers.
The long-term passive income plan. Books hold massive value over time. Very rarely do we look at the publication date of a book.
If anything, a book becomes more valuable over time if the author predicts something that will come true.
Keeping your older articles relevant on someone else’s platform is tough. You will want to diversify your writing by releasing ebooks.
Don’t get me wrong; Amazon is a dog-eat-dog world as well. However, the Kindle Unlimited program can keep your work top of mind because of free book promotions.
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Plus, if you release a series, every new book advertises an older book. My Financial Independence Magazine (now #109) combines my articles straight from the first to 1,300.
My Amazon numbers slowly trend higher year over year, plus my Google Search numbers double yearly. I started releasing articles on Medium and LinkedIn this year as well.
The goal is to have the same words in multiple places at once. I am online, on my blog, and in libraries. It’s not about becoming big; it’s about consistent income.
Conclusion. It may seem daunting to build a book, but I can assure you it’s not a big deal. Amazon requires a few things to finish your eBook.
You’ll need a book description (four sentences), a cover, and a Word document. You’ll choose your categories and type in keywords, and that’s it.
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Once you get proficient with eBooks, you can easily create paperbacks. There is nothing quite like holding a paperback you created all by yourself.
My Publishing Chronicles series will give you more details on my overall strategy and workflow.
- The Publishing Chronicles 1: Write a Book in a Week
- The Publishing Chronicles 2: Design Your Own Book Covers
- The Publishing Chronicles 3: Publish to the Widest Possible Audience
- The Publishing Chronicles 4: Advertise Your Book for Free
- The Publishing Chronicles 5: My Lightweight, Browser-Only Workflow
If you have questions, you can email me at kingmarine@militaryfamiliyinvesting.com. I love passive income, and that’s why I love books.
Receiving passive income from book sales is addictive. It is a great way to diversify your writing income with Google search, Medium, and affiliate marketing. Good Luck!
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing
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