The Power of eBooks for Monetization
If you’re looking to monetize your brand or business in 2025 and beyond, and it will still work for the next century. What I’m talking about are digital products, but not just any digital product. The types of digital products that I like to create are eBooks. And I’m going to explain to you why and how to go about creating one yourself and start selling one.
Since 2006, I’ve dabbled with all types of side hustles from eBay, buying things in bulk and then reselling them for profit. Things like buying and selling websites. I was even freelancing, designing websites and even doing content marketing for other companies as an agency, all sorts of things. So I’ve been in the game for quite a number of years to say that eBooks are pretty much the easiest thing that you can create.
Benefits of Digital Products
One of the things that you can do to turn your knowledge and your skills and your, perhaps your hobbies and something that is rather tangible. We can’t see it, but we are wanting to sell it virtually and online. And the reason why is because really it’s low barrier of entry. You don’t need a lot to start with pretty much with a few free tools that you can find online, ones that you are probably using already.
You can get started and create that and build that ebook of yours and start selling. Another reason why is because of their inventory, you don’t need to hold any stock such as physical products. And that’s something I did try, but never had any success because really profit margins are very tight and you need to calculate your expenses, try to lower your costs, so many other variables.
Global Reach and Scalability
So this is why the digital products route is the way to go. Another great reason why is because that e-book can be sold worldwide globally 24 seven as long as you have a place to obviously sell it on your website. This could be on your socials or wherever it may be.
So there’s no limitation. There’s no ceiling in terms of how many copies can you actually sell rather than selling physical books where there are limited copies. You have to get them reprinted by the publisher, so on and so forth. Creating an ebook really is simple. And it starts with an idea, brainstorming what things you want to talk about in that ebook and then using tools that will assist you in writing your ebook and don’t feel daunted in any way about writing.
The Creation Process
Value Over Length
The mistake that new beginners make is that they think that they need a 200 to 300 page ebook to make it valuable. It doesn’t mean that the more pages does not equate to more value, but instead if you can actually condense what you know and what the transformation is in less pages, then so be it.
If it means that it’s only going to be 10 pages to get the nuggets of what your audience really did come for, then that’s all you need. So don’t feel overwhelmed. Before you actually go ahead and start creating your ebook. Now, once you have an idea, what I suggest you do is come up with some titles for your ebook.
Titling and Outlining Your Content
Don’t be too fancy. Don’t be too cute with your name. Tell it as it is like, what is your ebook about? What’s the transformation? What’s the benefit? And that should be the emphasis of the title. And also don’t forget a subtitle to kind of elaborate more on that title. So it supports it.
The next thing you’re going to want to do is create a skeleton or a rough outline of the chapters that you want to talk about in your ebook. And this will give you a starting ground at least to then fill in those blanks, whatever it is that you know. It doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect. And this is the thing with creating any type of product, any kind of product, you can talk about your subject in any order as you want, and then you polish it later on.
Refining the Draft
And that’s the iterations. That’s where it all comes together. And once you’ve done that, you want to clean it up. Clean up the grammar. It’s always going to be a lot more authentic, a lot more organic coming up with the content yourself from scratch. But we don’t want to stress too much about getting our ebook or at least our first one done right or perfect.
The whole aim is to get a digital product out there so that you can start monetizing your brand or business. One of my favorite tools is by simply using Google docs. You can very well just use Word, but Google docs is free to start with a blank canvas and you can type away, but don’t worry too much about formatting at this stage.
Tools for Design and Production
Leveraging Google Docs and Canva
Another alternative is to simply use Canva. Canva has got a ton of templates ready for you to choose from. You can start by searching for A4 or ebook. And that will at least get you that typical format or that orientation of an ebook. And then with that, you can then choose a design. A useful tip here is by simply searching for workbook and you’ll find quite a number of aesthetic looking ebook layouts.
Layout and Cover Design
You can check out what a template looks like. It’s got different pages and it’s quite dynamic, different layouts and styles. So you can pick and choose what you want, delete what you don’t want. But this is a great starting ground if you don’t have any design skills.
By clicking on apply all, you can simply replace the text and then put in your own words. Alternatively, what you can use Canva for is by simply creating a cover for it. Then once you’ve done that, save it as an image and then go back to Google docs and then put that on the first page of your Google Doc so that you’ve got something at least that looks like an ebook.
Finalizing Your File
We’ve got a front page or title page, and then we’ve got the rest of the content. Next, once you have your ebook ready, make sure you actually export it as a PDF doc. That’s the easiest, most universal way to distribute your ebook because PDFs can be read by everyone and any device, but avoid giving out the actual Word doc or the Google doc to your audience or your customers.
Then it becomes editable. Once you have your ebook ready, what you’re going to need is a digital product selling system, a place where you can sell your ebook. And I’m not talking about a place where you can just simply upload it, where you’ve got customers coming in and seeing it and buying it.
Choosing a Selling Platform
Automating Delivery
What I’m talking about instead is a place where you can simply house it and it will automatically deliver your ebook for you. There’s one particular one that I recommend and the one that I’m talking about isn’t Gumroad because their pricing is just ridiculous. In my opinion, it’s like 10% transaction fee plus 50 cents for every sale that you make.
Now this won’t mean much if you’re just selling one or two products a month, but if you do sell dozens and dozens each and every month, it adds up. But to be fair, Gumroad does have its own marketplace, kind of like an Amazon KDP sort of thing where they will somewhat feature your product.
Comparing Gumroad and Payhip
It’s kind of vague in that way, but because you need to meet eligible sales and once it gets enough reviews and stuff, they will kind of push it up a bit more. There’s a 30% fee if your product does get sold through the marketplace. So that’s just something to note. The platform that I actually recommend is Payhip because their pricing is great for starters and beginners. $0 per month.
Gumroad also has a $0 per month plan, but Payhip is only a 5% transaction fee plus any PayPal or Stripe fees. But if you do come to a point where you’re selling a lot, which is a great thing, then you are going to want to look at one of the other plans.
Reliability and Service Options
I am not sponsored in any way by Payhip. I’ve just been talking about them because it’s one of the OGs, one of the platforms that is just simply reliable and one that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to start selling products. But yeah, take a look at some of the other plans if you are considering selling a larger volume.
Just to give a little overview of what you can sell, you can start selling your digital downloads, online courses, even coaching services to memberships if you want to start collecting recurring income and physical products.
Marketing and Audience Building
Expanding Sales Channels
The last step is probably the hardest and that is to actually start selling it. And that’s where audience building comes in. You could perhaps format your ebook into an Amazon Kindle format so that you can start selling it on the KDP market. I’ve heard people who have done tremendously well on that platform. But on the other hand, they’ve said that it’s quite saturated. You can give it a try. You’re not limited to just selling it through Payhip, but the way that I’ve been selling my digital products is from a direct audience.
Email Marketing with Omnisend
Building an audience since 2006 and beyond, building an email list, a newsletter, and I recommend Omnisend for building your email lists and following up and sending your newsletters. Perhaps the most powerful marketing channel in terms of return on investment.
If you haven’t started building a list yet, it’s highly recommended. The second way, of course, is socials. Don’t dismiss socials, but make sure you focus on one platform such as YouTube. If it’s YouTube, make sure you focus on that. But if you do have the time and the effort and energy to put in and to make the content, then yes, diversify a little.
Social Media and Establishing Trust
Otherwise, go on socials, Instagram, TikTok and whatever other platforms that you want to share your knowledge on or your hobbies and your skills. All of those platforms, really, there’s no limitation with where you can market your products, but some will work, some will not.
But the best way is to build your own audience because that there’s instant credibility, instant trust. They’ve followed you for a reason. And if you want to then sell something, they have more trust in you as opposed to someone else who they’ve never engaged with.
