Once upon a time, there was a straightforward solution to “monetizing” your website when you got tired of trying to make AdSense work:
Write an ebook!
Having something of your own to offer, even a simple $7 ebook, virtually always beats trying to monetize your traffic with advertising.
And that’s still true. (In fact, sales of ebooks hit $9 billion in 2015.)
But as more and more people have taken that advice, we need to get a little more strategic to build strong businesses around ebooks.
It can still be done, and I’ll be talking about folks who are doing it. But you can also let ebooks become part of a bigger game, within a larger digital business strategy.
The straight ebooks-for-sale play
We all know that some fiction authors are making a killing selling digital-only books on Amazon.
In fact, a few of those authors are dear friends of ours.
But that’s not what we’ll be talking about today. The world of fiction is a fascinating one in its own right, but the other type of ebook — the somewhat traditional “information product” designed to teach something valuable — is one we have a lot of experience with.
Two powerhouse ebook publishers
It’s getting trickier to build a business around ebooks alone, but if you look at Darren Rowse’s Digital Photography School, that site grew to an ecommerce powerhouse on the strength of ebooks.
(In recent years, DPS has expanded to offer courses as well — a natural evolution that can be remarkably profitable.)
The DPS ebooks