How I Started Selling Ebooks Online for Passive Income

I have the perfect job.

I don't work at all, at least according to my friends. When I do work, I work at home. I get paid every day. And I get paid more than just about anyone I know.

I write and sell e-books on the Internet. I'm writing this little article to inspire people that are looking for the same things I was looking for just a couple of years ago: financial independence, a work-at-home option, some prestige, and oh yeah, that little thing we need called a creative outlet.

When I go to parties and tell people that I write and sell e-books they almost always say "what's that"? But that's OK, that's just part of being an "e-book publisher".

My story started out in 1996, when I was a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Network Engineer, flying around the world in a "monkey suit". I dreamed of a way that I could sell some study guides to some of the guys I was training and other people on the Internet, and so I wrote six documents in Microsoft Word that I began to sell at $24.95 each. I started a web site, and eventually I had a 140 links to it and a nice search engine ranking (a luxury today). I sold my study guides on my web site, even producing an income of up to $1,500 a month. I didn't know it but I was selling e-books.

At that time I didn't have the freewheeling "semi retired" lifestyle that I have now because e-books at that time took a little bit more work: I had to get a merchant credit card account. Trusting engineers would send me their credit card info in the e-mail and I would process each order by hand every night. If people wrote checks, I processed those too. I handled customer service and "order fulfillment" for my orders: I would e-mail each engineer their study guide and sometimes make printed out copies of them, selling the printouts and processing those orders too.

I dreamed of a day when I would be able to sell e-books automatically on my site, charging the credit cards and e-mailing the books all in one seamless process. At the time there were some electronic services that would do this for $1500 a month or more. I deemed this too expensive but eventually my vision came true: Paypal was born.

Paypal was a dream--I was able to sign up with no money down and Paypal would accept and process all credit cards and checks automatically. A couple of years later Google Adwords was born, and I was able to market online to all the users of the Google search engine, a huge audience with a good income. Now, my significant other with two jobs laments to friends: "she gets up at 10am, logs on, makes a bank deposit, then gets back into bed at 10:45". More than a few people in my life have noticed that I seem to be doing well and have loads of time for leisure activity. I am and I do. And it's all because of that phenomenal invention called the e-book.

I've written 10 e-books and I am coming up with more titles all the time. My one piece of wisdom to impart: coming up with a winning ebook is kind of like playing "Berry Gordy"--you learn to recognize the "hits". When you get an idea and it gives you gooseflesh, that's the one. Copyright it, write it and market it online. If you want any advice on how to do that, I wrote an e-book "Paycheck in 30 Minutes " that talks about the steps to getting your e-book sold.

Sure I plug my e-books from time to time, but mostly I'm out with my boxer dog in the dog park, or riding down the freeway in the RV to visit an out-of-state friend. If you see a woman with a boxer dog in an RV with Oregon plates, wave. It's probably me.