• By Yuwanda Black
• Published 09/27/2011
• Writing

I’ve been writing and selling ebooks online since 2004. But, it was only in the last couple of years that sales dramatically increased (eg, recently I earned $1,078.65 in three days in ebook sales). You may be wondering, what took me so long to find success selling ebooks online? Following are three keys I nailed down that can earn any aspiring ebook writer a steadily increasing four figures per month writing and publishing their own titles. I. Learn about search engine optimization (SEO): Specifically study what keyword research is all about. Why? Because this will teach you not only how to figure out what sells online and what doesn’t, but how to market so you can make money online. My ebook sales (and internet marketing career in general) literally took off once I learned the intricacies of SEO. If you don’t know at least the basics of SEO, it’s like marketing online in the dark. As I discuss in the ebook, “How to Make Money Online: A Simple Tutorial for New Internet Marketers,: you’ll needlessly struggle to make money on the internet for years – and perhaps even give up – all because you didn’t take the time to learn HOW to market on the web. There’s a lot – and I do mean a lot – of money to be made online. And learning SEO can help you to achieve success that much quicker.

II. Niche It: I was doing some research for the aforementioned ebook recently, and was simply astounded to learn that almost 750,000 new web presences are registered and/or go live –

every day. That’s not a typo. When I did a report for a client back in 2008, it was just 100,000. My point? The web is a very crowded place – and is getting more so every day. But, this is a good thing – if you carve out a niche for yourself. So if you want to make money selling ebooks online, carve out a niche for yourself – and market the heck out of it! III. Don’t Do It Just for the Money: I don’t care how much money you think you can make selling ebooks, if you don’t love the subject matter (the niche), you won’t stick with it long enough to be successful at it. And that’s just the plain truth of it. Case in point, I publish a few minisites to earn money via Google AdSense. One of them is about weddings. But, I don’t update the site very often because I don’t like the subject matter. The site still earns about $30/month, even though I rarely update it. If I loved the subject matter, this is a site I could easily see earning four figures a month within six months or so. But, because I have other projects that are labors of love, I don’t bother with this site much. To make money online as an ebook writer and self-publisher, you have to market, learn new technology, answer customer inquiries, update your blog/website, etc. In short, you marry your ebook business. And if you don’t like who you’re married to . . . well, we know how that eventually ends now don’t we?

There’s much more to making money online selling ebooks. But, in my opinion – and experience – these are three of the biggest factors that must be in place to ensure success.