Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Any eBook Success Stories From Fellow Forum Members?

Rebecca800 · 10-30-2009, 05:18 AM

Hey EasyBlue

I have written an e-book on lucid dreaming. I wouldn't call it a success yet - by my own personal definition I'd need to sell at least 500 copies to call it that!

But in terms of production and customer feedback, I am delighted with the results.

My e-book is called Lucid Fiction, and it's actually a collection of short stories (about lucid dreaming, altered states of awareness, and paranormal themes). I wrote 5 of the stories myself, and the other 7 were written by authors I found networking online. This added the complication of agreeing and calculating author royalties, and while I'm glad this fictional book was a collaboration, my future books will be factual, and so I'll write them all myself and collect 100% of the profits.

The process of writing and designing the e-book was a lot of fun. I guess this has to do with enjoying your subject matter. In the back of my mind I knew it would make money because as Curtis says, I already have the marketing platform which is a proven income generator (my website). Setting up payment and affiliate plans through PayPal, ClickBank and e-Junkie were all very easy and I still get email notifications every time I make a sale. It is very rewarding.

The only thing I wasn't prepared for was marketing it! For every hour I spent writing my e-book, I spent another hour marketing it afterwards. This included:

- writing my sales page
- writing a press release
- getting reviews from industry experts
- getting customer testimonials
- getting other sites to review it
- creating buzz around the internet through forums, blogs, etc

All in all, it was definitely worth it and now the sales slowly tick up every week without me doing any additional work. Even at $7 per sale (minus author royalties and PayPal fees) the number of sales soon adds up to make a meaningful difference, and this will grow as my website grows.

Incidentally, Curtis also mentioned converting blog posts into an e-book and selling that. This is exactly what I did with The Art of Lucid Dreaming, which is a collection of all my favorite articles from my website. It's a 173-page guide to lucid dreaming, tightly focused and ideal for beginners to take away and read at their leisure. I give this e-book away in return for a $5 donation. This is incredibly useful and just as impressive as Lucid Fiction as a standalone product. The only thing holding me back from marketing it properly is that it's not original content, being available in a broken down form on my website. I wonder how other people feel about this? Would you rather keep returning to my site for free or pay $5 for an e-book?

I hope that helps. In my opinion, if you are thinking about it -- go for it!

10-30-2009, 05:18 AM	#6 (permalink)
Rebecca800 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 636	Hey EasyBlue I have written an e-book on lucid dreaming. I wouldn't call it a success yet - by my own personal definition I'd need to sell at least 500 copies to call it that! But in terms of production and customer feedback, I am delighted with the results. My e-book is called Lucid Fiction, and it's actually a collection of short stories (about lucid dreaming, altered states of awareness, and paranormal themes). I wrote 5 of the stories myself, and the other 7 were written by authors I found networking online. This added the complication of agreeing and calculating author royalties, and while I'm glad this fictional book was a collaboration, my future books will be factual, and so I'll write them all myself and collect 100% of the profits. The process of writing and designing the e-book was a lot of fun. I guess this has to do with enjoying your subject matter. In the back of my mind I knew it would make money because as Curtis says, I already have the marketing platform which is a proven income generator (my website). Setting up payment and affiliate plans through PayPal, ClickBank and e-Junkie were all very easy and I still get email notifications every time I make a sale. It is very rewarding. The only thing I wasn't prepared for was marketing it! For every hour I spent writing my e-book, I spent another hour marketing it afterwards. This included: - writing my sales page - writing a press release - getting reviews from industry experts - getting customer testimonials - getting other sites to review it - creating buzz around the internet through forums, blogs, etc All in all, it was definitely worth it and now the sales slowly tick up every week without me doing any additional work. Even at $7 per sale (minus author royalties and PayPal fees) the number of sales soon adds up to make a meaningful difference, and this will grow as my website grows. Incidentally, Curtis also mentioned converting blog posts into an e-book and selling that. This is exactly what I did with The Art of Lucid Dreaming, which is a collection of all my favorite articles from my website. It's a 173-page guide to lucid dreaming, tightly focused and ideal for beginners to take away and read at their leisure. I give this e-book away in return for a $5 donation. This is incredibly useful and just as impressive as Lucid Fiction as a standalone product. The only thing holding me back from marketing it properly is that it's not original content, being available in a broken down form on my website. I wonder how other people feel about this? Would you rather keep returning to my site for free or pay $5 for an e-book? I hope that helps. In my opinion, if you are thinking about it -- go for it!