11 Feb Writing an E-Book for Passive Income
Writing an ebook for passive income is one of two paths I recommend to create passive income for yourself.
I LOVE the idea of multiple streams of passive income! I’m sure you do to or you wouldn’t be reading this post.
I want to share with you how to create passive income, not only from writing an ebook, but from also having an online course that is related and connected to your ebook that you can sell as a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) program and potentially generate hundreds and thousands of dollars in passive income.
I want to be completely transparent here…
Chances are slim that you will write one ebook and generate thousands of dollars in passive income. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a handful of clients from my Done-For-You Bestseller program that earn $1,000 to $3,000+ from one ebook on Amazon. However, the majority of my clients earn money on the backend of their book through sales of their courses, coaching and consulting.
If you just want to make money SOLELY from writing ebooks and do not want to have an online course, then I recommend that you write a book a month like I did in 2020. After 12 months of writing a book a month, I created $3,300 a month in passive income. This is one way to generate passive income writing ebooks and if this appeals to you, then you should check out my DIY online course, 28 Books to $100K, which is based on my bestselling book by the same title.
I think you are leaving money on the table if you don’t have a course to go along with your book.
I love the idea of having something to sell on the backend of a book because if someone takes the time to read your ebook, then a certain percentage of those readers will want to take your online program and go deeper.
Let’s say you write a book that sells 200 copies per month on Amazon and 10% of those readers purchase your online course. That would be 20 sales a month of an additional stream of passive income.
A great example of this would be Jen Sincero, NY Times bestselling author of the book, “You are a Badass”. This book generates hundreds of thousands of dollars for Jen; she was smart to also create a DIY program that she sells on her website for $297. You can check it out here: https://jensincero.com/coaching/
I’ve done the same thing with my book, 28 Books to $100K, which leads to a DIY course for $297. I generated an extra $20K without doing any marketing for the course.
I now have an 8 week group coaching program called Digital Retirement Academy, which you can sign up for the waiting list as I launch this 4x per year.
Let’s look at the numbers. Last month my book, Digital Retirement, sold 403 copies on Amazon. I have it discounted for .99 cents currently because I consider it a lead magnet for people to join my private Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/28BooksTo100K
Note: These two books are related (28 Books to $100K and Digital Retirement) so people who read the books can then join the private Facebook group.
In that group I have a pinned post that gives the link to my course. Just by doing that I generated an extra $20k with zero marketing costs.
Here are the steps you can take to do this:
- Write an ebook on something you are an expert in
- In the front of your book offer a free gift so you can get people to raise their hand who are interested. The free gift can be a download PDF, a training or a free module for your online course.
- Start a private FB group that you give the link to in the front of your ebook and have people join. Right now, I have close to 1000 members in my private FB group.
- Create a DIY course. It’s easy to set up the course since I did most of my course set up in just one week.
- Pin your links to your online course on the top of the Facebook group.
- Engage with your group; and
- Make passive income.
This year I plan on marketing my course more and doing a DWY program that is at a higher price point of $997. If I have 20 people sign up, that is $20K! 30 people would be $30K in passive income. The coaching program would probably be for 8-10 weeks with a tangible outcome.
What topics could you write a book on?
I like to “write to market” which means I use the software Publisher Rocket and then I see what keywords people are searching for that high demand and good monthly earnings, then I write a book on that topic. Of course it has to be something I am also interested in and am expert in.
Here are 40 top niches to write ebooks on:
- Off grid living
- Photography
- Drawing
- Gardening
- Guitar
- Piano
- Chess
- Writing
- Book Publishing
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Make Money Online
- Stock Market Investment
- Real Estate Investment
- Cryptocurrency
- Sales Training
- Financial Management
- Entrepreneurship
- Tax Planning
- Cooking, Food, & Wine
- Crafts, Hobbies & Home
- Health, Fitness & Dieting
- Parenting
- Dating
- Narcissism
- Self Help
- Productivity
- Public Speaking
- Communication
- Meditation
- Mindfulness
- NLP
- Mental Health
- Mindset
- Habits
- Brain Training
- Chakras
- Law of attraction
- Affirmations
- Sports
Before you select your niche, you want to make sure you are passionate, excited and energized by the topic and also do your keyword research using Publisher Rocket.
I would say the biggest mistake authors make is writing what they want to write, rather than finding a demand for a topic using keywords and then writing to that market.
After doing keyword research and discovering that “How to Find Your Passion” was a highly searched keyword phrase, I wrote a book on that topic using those exact keywords and to date I’ve sold 4010 copies of that book.
The question you must ask yourself is do you want to have one signature book and sell courses, consulting or coaching on the back end?
OR
Do you want to write a book a month and generate passive income solely from your writing?
I think both of these paths to passive income are viable and good; it’s more about knowing yourself and what you want to create.
If you LOVE writing and just want to write books, then I would pick the path of writing a book a month to generate passive income that way.
If you LOVE teaching, then I would write one (or maybe two or three) on a topic and then sell a course or some coaching on the back end.
Either way, my DIY online course, 28 Books to $100K, can help you with both of these paths as well as Digital Retirement Academy (the group coaching program).
Passive income is great because when life happens and you can’t do work that involves your time and energy, you have passive income coming in to help support you!
It’s one of the best things I ever did and I’m focusing on passive income even more this year and I hope you do the same.