In order to achieve success with his newest e-book project, any writer must think about the business side of things before he starts creating. For finishing a quality ebook is not an easy or uncomplicated job. And assuming that he is not just into writing for the thrill of it, he must carefully take into account different royalty models before he goes on.

The general idea behind the concept of “royalties” is of course that it is a measure of the amount of money you might make from the sales of a certain product. However, when you are evaluating a royalties contract you should also weigh in other factors — factors that could be even more important for you to ponder. Such factors could be, for instance, your ability to end the contract prematurely, or the question of the exact time of the payments.

Here in this article, however, I will limit myself to an account of the total amount of royalties a writer can expect to generate when using different types of royalty deals. For brevity’s sake, I shall only list four royalties models, although there are other types of arrangements as well.

1. Publisher’s “List Price Percentage” Royalties

The first model that is seen at major publishing houses is the “List Price Percentage” model. This is probably the easiest one to calculate, since it only involves two factors: the list price and the author’s percentage. In such a model, the author typically gets between 10 and 20 percent of the e-book list price.

An illustration: An e-book sells for $20 and the contract says that the author will make 15 percent of the list price from the sale of every e-book. So the author can expect to be paid a royalty of $3 per ebook (0.15 x 20).

Big publishing houses such as Random House and Simon & Schuster have previously used this type of arrangement for contracts with ebook authors. Nowadays, however, these and other publishers are moving on to the second model, the “Net Receipts” model.

2. Publisher’s “Net Receipts Percentage” Royalties

Another type of arrangement is the “Net Receipts Percentage” model. Just like the previous one, this model is (or has been) used at many major publishing houses. This model is increasingly popular among publishers, and probably will be even more so in the future. As of now, Macmillan, Random House, and Simon & Schuster are using it.

In this royalties scenario, the net sales of the ebook is the chief number around which the calculation of the royalty amount revolves. The percentage number most frequently used in this type of arrangement is between 10 and 25 percent.

For example, assume that an ebook sells for a list price of $18. Also assume that the publisher arrives at the net sales figure as 60 percent of the net proceeds. If now the author has an arrangement where he gets 15 percent of the net sales, then he would, in this example, look at something like $1.62 per ebook (18 x 0.60 x 0.15).

3. Self-Publisher’s “Flex-Price Net Receipts Percentage” Royalties

The third option would be to publish your ebook all on your own, but nevertheless use one or several retailers and distributors to promote and sell it. For example, you could use distribution channels such as Lulu.com.

Here, the author should receive a certain percent of the net sale of the ebook, and in that way it is pretty similar to the second model. However, with the “Flex-Price Net Receipts Percentage” royalties system, the author’s percentage per book will be noticeably higher.

Another benefit for the author when comparing it to the second model, is that he might get more control over the product development. Not only will he be able to have more power of the editing and design, but he will also, most importantly, be able to set the list price himself.

4. Self-Publisher’s “Full List Price” Royalties

The fourth model is built on the idea that the author not only publishes the book himself, but also markets it himself. So in this particular model there are no external distribution channels or external retailers to worry about.

Even though there may be no distributors or external retailers to be concerned with, the author may here need more technology to set up some kind of e-business solution. Note, however, that the technical aspects of selling products online may not be as overwhelming as many think. Relatively simple-to-integrate payment processing solutions such as PayPal.com work well.

At any rate, the amount of royalties to be projected from this fourth arrangement is fairly easy to estimate, as you will keep all the proceeds for yourself. Naturally, though, depending on the particular solution you are using, you may wish to adjust the figures, in order to properly account for costs related to services such as the site or blog hosting or your payment processing, etc.

Conclusion

It may not be entirely easy to determine which scenario suits you the best. One issue is, for example, how interested you are in marketing. If you are very interested in promoting your own ebook or ebooks online, then royalty scenarios 3 and 4 may very well be good for you.

However, if you are mainly a writer, and not so keen on internet marketing, it might not be a bad idea to aim at the first and second royalty models. The downside with these two models is, unfortunately, that it is not so easy to get published; but if you don’t get lucky, you can always try models three and four as your plan B.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Johnny Jones is currently a contributor to the EbookBrothers.com website, where he shares his thoughts about ebook marketing, and on individual topics such as ebook royalty etc. For a free subscription to the EbookBrothers.com Newsletter (with free tips and articles on how you can succeed with your own e-book marketing), visit Ebook Brothers immediately, before the free offer expires.

Are you looking for ways to improve your online sales without spending a lot of cash to accomplish it? Do you wish to find ways how to make money with e-books? Perhaps it is then time for you to read this article about how to make your own ebooks using PLR (Private Label Rights) products.

An ebook is an electronic book that can be immediately downloaded and read on your computer. The subject of an ebook may vary, just as the subject of ordinary (printed) books may vary.

One thing that you have to dwell on before doing any creative work on your planned ebook is this: who would be interested in such an e book? What I am trying to say here is that you have to find out whether or not there is a substantial market for that new e-book of yours. And in order to find that out, you have to do some appropriate keyword analysis. For if there is no market, you will never be able to make any real money.

If we assume now that you have come up with a great (tentative) title for your e-book, and confirmed that this new e book has a considerable market for it, how shall you put it together? Anyone who has produced e-books knows that putting one together one is not easy, and that it takes considerable time. Not only is there a lot of text to be written, but there is almost certainly a lot of research that you have to do before you can prepare the text so that it becomes correct and useful.

PLR Content

It is at this point in time that you may want to start thinking about PLR products: PLR articles, PLR ebooks, PLR videos, etc. The acronym “PLR” is short for Private Label Rights and it practically means a legal permission to convert a given product (text, picture, video, etc.) into a final product that you can put your own name on, as an author.

If you have never used PLR material to create new content, you should give it a try. Once you do, you will understand why so many writers like it so much for their online businesses. Many writers not only make their ebooks this way, but also use PLR materials to create impressive websites with many well-written articles. Using high-quality PLR material is a great way to establish you as an expert in your niche market.

So how can you then make money with modified PLR ebooks? There are, of course, many ways to do that. But here are three methods that may be of interest: (1) Sell the ebook on your website; (2) Give the ebook away for free when visitors opt-in to your newsletter emailing list. (3) Give the e-book away as a bonus when visitors buy other products from you.

1. Sell the Ebook and Make Money

One idea is simply to use your edited e book as an ordinary product to sell. You can, for example, put it up on your website and sell it for a certain price. If it is only 20 pages, maybe $10 is a fair price; if it is 100 pages maybe $63 is a fair price. But there are of course various factors that you should ponder when putting on that price tag. One factor is quality: how great is the product compared to your competitors? Another factor is uniqueness: Is a comparable product offered by your competitors, or is your product unique?

Besides quality and uniqueness there is also customer psychology to reflect on. By that I mean that certain prices “sound better” than others. Also, a higher price tag communicates more quality; so you may not want to price your ebook too low.

2. Give the Ebook Away for Free

Another idea of making money with your ebooks would be to give out your ebook for free. Although this at first glance perhaps could sound contradictory, it is not. One may give it out the ebook for free under certain conditions. One condition being, for example, that a visitor opts in to your email list first.

After having read your free ebook, and after having read your free information that you are sending your subscribers regularly as being members of the newsletter list, they will gradually acquire respect for you as an expert. You can now start selling your other (more comprehensive, more expensive) ebooks and ecourses that are in the same niche.

3. Give Your PLR Ebook Away as a Bonus

Some Private Label Rights material include the right to give the material away as a bonus when you are selling some other product. If that is the type of PLR product you have used to create your ebook with, then you can give it away as a bonus when you sell some other product.

The other product that you are promoting may be, for example, another e book, yours or someone else’s. Or it might be an ecourse, or some software program. Whatever the product may be, bonuses are a very important incentive to the prospective customers; so your bonus ebook may be the difference between them buying or not buying your product.

Conclusion

It is safe to say that even if you buy a Private Label Rights product, you still have to put in a fair amount of work to make it unique. Your objective should be to make it suit your customers’ needs as well as possible, while still making it fit in with your own product line.

This practically means that editing a PLR ebook is not just a matter of swapping some synonyms here and there in the text. You may, for instance, need to revise or add, or both, many details in the text, including facts, figures, illustrations, reasons, arguments, questions, links, etc. This will make sure that your final product with be both unique and up to date, and a product that both you and the customer will be happy with.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Johnny Jones currently appears at the EbookBrothers.com website, where he writes about ebook marketing, and on particular topics such as making money with e-books etc. For a free subscription to the EbookBrothers.com Newsletter (with free articles and tips on how to succeed with your own e-book plans), visit the Ebook Brothers website now, before the free offer expires.

So, you have a hobby that you know a bit about and a flair for writing about it. Don’t you think that would be of interest to other online users? You could make money on the side by writing and publishing your own niche ebooks. Here is how:

1. Sell ad spaces. You can augment your earnings from this endeavor if you can sell ad spaces to marketers who are selling products that compliment your book topic.

Depending on the size of the ad and the projected sales of your ebook, you can charge up to $500 per ad. You can also use some of your book space to promote your own products and services.

In doing this, you may increase your sales and revenue without your pockets suffering from advertising costs. You just have to make sure that your creations will not look like yellow pages so you can avoid annoying your readers.

2. You can sell your own niche ebooks. This is the fastest way to make money on the side from ebooks of your own creation.

Feel free to write about topics that are of interest to your potential clients and promote your niche ebooks online using the most effective advertising tools that are available on the Internet today.

You need to make sure you properly build-up your offerings by highlighting their features and benefits so you can make them more valuable in the eyes of your potential clients.

3. Use them as your traffic-generating tool. If you are a marketer, you must understand the importance of driving high quality traffic to your website.

You can attract interested people to give you a visit by using your niche ebooks. How? You can send your niche ebooks for free to your potential clients. Load them up with valuable information that these people will find interesting.

When you are able to impress your readers and make them see that you are really good at what you do, you can be assured that they will flock to your website in no time. Be sure that you post your site’s URL on every page of your creations to make it much easier for these people to give you a visit and for you to make money on the side from your work.

4. Use these ebooks on your list building campaigns. You’ll stand great chances of growing your ebusiness if you can effectively capture the email addresses of any potential clients.

You can boost your sign-up rate if you can reward these people with free niche ebooks that contain information that are relevant to their needs and demands. This is just one way to make money on the side, there are of course others and a quick search on the Internet will likely yield other ideas.