When most people consider writing an ebook or packaging knowledge into an information product such as a book, home study course or other delivery format, there are 3 common issues that come up:

1. They wonder how well it will sell, is it really worth the effort?

2. It seems like too much work, I can’t take it on right now.

3. It costs too much money to write an ebook and get it to market.

We have 12 ebooks on the market – one of which has been selling steadily now for almost 10-years (launched in 2000) – the system we use is fully outlined along with an in-depth training program inside Information Marketer’sZone, let’s try and answer these 3 questions here though.

IS IT REALLY WORTH WRITING YOUR OWN EBOOK?

When I put together my very first ebook back in 2000 I had no idea that it would sell beyond a year or so…for the 6-8 weeks of effort I put in and a few days each year to update, this is largely passive income.  I still see daily sales of that ebook package which now sells for $47 with an upsell to $65 that nearly 70% of my customers take.

The key is to center in on a topic that is really intriguing to the readers you serve – a deeply held, emotional topic where they have big dreams or desires to be, have, do or become something they are not today. That could be overcoming limitations or getting ahead.

You may have a goal of $500, $1000 or $3000/month for your ebook – assuming you have chosen a topic with high desire all of these are possible…but what really makes it worthwhile is that you can still make this kind of money with your ebook 2, 5, or even 10-years out – now that makes it very worthwhile putting a few weeks work into writing an ebook.

WRITING AN EBOOK SEEMS TOO HARD AND TAKES TOO MUCH TIME!

The process of writing the ebook doesn’t have to be that onerous – start with collecting questions around your topic, then organizing them in an order that makes sense for the ultimate outcome you are helping your reader achieve.

Once you have that outline done, it is just a matter of answering each question – adding in some case studies or personal experience and there you have Edition 1.

If you think about it – information products such as “how to” ebooks, reports, training systems and home study courses are all guidebooks that answer questions, outline systems for how to achieve  a desired outcome.

We work on this allot within Information Marketer’s Zone – making sure your topic is targeted at a highly desired outcome is 90% of the secret behind writing an ebook that is both simple, but extremely HOT in terms of selling power.

DOESN’T IT COST TOO MUCH TO WRITE AN EBOOK?

Many people have the conception that writing, publishing and releasing an ebook will cost thousands of dollars — that is just not the case.

Here are the main cost items associated with writing and marketing ebooks:

1. Writing the ebook – we write all of our ebooks in either MS Word or OpenOffice and use tools such as the one bundled with OpenOffice to render the final ebook into Adobe PDF format – that really costs you nothing.  You may decide to outsource part of the writing of your ebook – that may cost you a few hundred dollars, but this is completely optional.

2. Web hosting, html editor and autoresponder.  Factor in $50/month to cover your webhosting (account that allows you to host your own website) and autoresponder (which allows you to build a list of followers and manage that list automatically).  We use this webhost and this autoresponder which have terrific reputations and great services and low prices.

3. Advertising.  I am a big fan in using some initial advertising to drive “test” traffic to your website as you lead up to launching your ebook and for the first few weeks after it has launched.  Why?  You want to quickly begin to build a list and you want to test your webpages, sales pages, and list building “opt-in” pages – these sometimes need to be tweaked, but you need to know how they convert first.  I would factor in $200 for advertising – I like to use Google Adwords where you send traffic to your site within hours of setting up your account.  Again, this is subject to budget – if you can only afford $50, then that is what you do.

4. You will need a payment processor.  Payment processors allow you to take payment, handle any returns, and give you access to the money you make from selling your ebook.  You can use Clickbank (benefit is built-in affiliate management program so other people can promote your products too), eJunkie, 2Checkout.com, etc… Factor in a $50 one-time sign-up fee for these payment systems.  After that, they take a small commission (between 5-8%) of your selling price with no additional up-front costs.

5. Copyright review.  Lets face it, most of us are not expert sales letter writers.  The bottom line of how well your ebook will sell has to do with how well your sales letter is written.  You may try initial versions, but it is always good to have a professional copywriter review your work and suggest improvements – this can get expensive – $500-$1000 or more…but the return you will see is usually always MORE than worth it.

6. Ebook cover.  Most of us are not experts at developing graphical ebook covers – so we want a professional to do that for us.  The good news is that you can have a very professional ebook cover for under $100 – let’s factor $80

So, what is the grand total?

You can easily produce and release your own ebook for $250 up-front and $50/recurring per month.  We’re talking about selling between 5-10 ebooks to recover costs – that can happen within the first month.

Yes, you could go more aggressive and up the advertising and outsource more of your development and marketing and still come in under $1000 up-front with $150/month recurring – the benefit being that you get your ebook released and earning more profit faster.

Either way – you can typically begin to show a profit within 1-3 month of releasing your ebook, not a bad business decision.

To get a proven system for going from idea to launch, expert interviews, templates and tools and a full private mentor’s support forum for ebook writing and publishing, visit us at Information Marketer’s Zone now.