Let’s say you’re a freelance writer working for a mill where you earn $15 per article on average. You need to earn at least $3000 per month for a modest full-time freelance income, so you churn out 200 of these articles each month (assuming you can find that many available topics to write about on a consistent basis). Before you assume $3000 per month is too grand of a goal, and you can get by full-time for much less, read this and use our freelance writing rate calculator to find out what you really need to earn.

Two hundred articles is a lot of writing each month just to earn a relatively modest full-time income. And the time involved in writing that much content doesn’t leave you with much left over to pursue higher paying freelance writing jobs within better markets. Let’s talk about how writing even just one or two e-books can bring in enough income to help you dig out of that low pay rut by replacing some of your low paying work while also freeing up some of your time to pursue better markets for future freelance writing work.

E-book Pricing Strategies for Success

There are many different ways to price your e-book. And in the end, it all comes down to your e-book’s specific market. For example, if it’s a massive market (like weight loss) you could probably get away with a very low pricing strategy, knowing that you could sell a boatload of copies. But if your market is much smaller (let’s say freelance writers), that strategy doesn’t work as well. You’ll never sell to everyone in the niche so to make a decent profit you need to price higher, knowing that you’ll sell fewer copies. At the same time that means you’ll have to create an e-book that justifies the higher price (why I treat my own as mini-courses or extremely in-depth tutorials, and load them with tools and worksheets).

Let’s look at a couple of different examples using different e-book lengths and prices to find out how much you would have to write and sell in order to replace all or part of your content mill work.

Strategy 1: Short E-book and Low Price

In this example let’s say you write a short, 25-page e-book. You price it at a low $10 price point — a relatively easy price point to find buyers for. Now in many cases a “page” in an e-book is actually much less content than an individual article because of spacing, images, and font choices. But let’s assume a worst-case scenario where each page equals a flat 400 words, comparable to an article you might write. How many of these $10 e-books would you have to sell to earn $3000? Three hundred of them.

If you’re new to writing and selling e-books, 300 sales in your first month might be a bit ambitious (although doable, again depending on your niche). But I’d say 100 sales is a pretty reasonable goal to set if you take the time to plan out your launch marketing strategy effectively. And keep in mind, any marketing you do for your e-book is also marketing you do for your personal brand, meaning it also has the potential to attract clients in the better markets you want to target. Just keep your e-books relevant to the markets you’re interested in.

So if you can sell 100 copies, you’ll earn $1000 from 25 pages of content. That’s in comparison to the more than 65 pages of content you would have to write for the mill in that same month for that same $1000, plus any marketing you do also has the potential to help you grow your career rather than pulling time away from marketing your services.

As you can see, an e-book doesn’t have to replace your full monthly earnings in a low pay rut to have a benefit.

Strategy 2: Middle-of-the-road Length and Pricing

Now let’s look at another example where you create a more in-depth e-book and you charge a bit more for it. Let’s shoot for that same 100 sales goal in your launch month. In this case we’ll say you wrote a 50 page e-book (including a few value-added resources to make the content more interactive) and you decided to charge $27.

In this example, 100 sales would earn you $2700. That almost completely replaces your earnings from the low pay gig. Better yet, you almost completely replace that income with only a quarter of the content being written and published. That clears up even more time for you to pursue better markets that month (and really a month is plenty of time to get your foot in the door with better paying clients if you’re even remotely aggressive about it).

Strategy 3: High Value, Higher Price

Now let’s look at a third strategy — creating a much longer and more detailed e-book and charging a premium price for it (this is what I did with my first Web Writer’s Guide e-book). Let’s use my own e-book’s price as an example here — $37. And let’s choose the similar length of 100 pages. If you sell those 100 copies during your launch month you earn $3700 and more than account for your content mill pay. You earned more money while writing only half the amount of content. if you have a small niche, and a big enough topic for the e-book where you can write 100 pages and keep it valuable to your readers, this can be a good way to go.

Other Considerations in E-book Writing

There are a few other things you’ll want to consider if you want to use e-books to help you work your way out of a low pay rut as a freelance writer. Here are some things to think about:

• You won’t get paid for the e-book until it’s complete. So you might want to use off-hours time to work on your first one until income is directly coming in rather than cutting the existing paying work while you write it. This doesn’t have to take long though. I wrote my first e-book during a single weekend (wrote it all Saturday morning and edited it that Sunday and had it up for sale for $17 on Monday — it sold very well and was in a niche where it attracted new paying clients at the time as well). If you start off with a long e-book, that kind of writing time probably isn’t possible.
• You can always write more than one e-book. If one short e-book won’t bring in enough income to satisfy you, go ahead and write two (or three, or however many you think you can write and sell within your market). I suggest spacing them out a little bit if they’re all targeting the same buyers though. You don’t want to give them e-book fatigue with an onslaught of new titles all in the same month.
• E-books earn residually. You don’t get just a one-time payment for writing your e-book like you might if you wrote one for a client. You’ll earn money as long as the e-book continues to sell. For example, the one I released in 2008 and do pretty much no marketing for anymore still can bring in a few hundred dollars each month without me even trying. And that’s all income beyond my initial goal.

Whether you aren’t being paid enough to make ends meet and live a comfortable life or you simply know you can earn more than you are while stuck in a low pay rut, e-books are just one of many options you have to help you dig your way out. Have you used e-books to help you grow your freelance writing career? Have you implemented one of these pricing strategies? Did you remember to plan out your launch marketing to take advantage of an initial push in sales? Tell us how they worked out for you and what you’d do differently if you could do it again in the comments below.

Website: www.writesyntax.com

Specialty: Web content, blog posts, ebooks, ad copy, press releases

Rates: .20 cents – 1.00 per word based on type of project.

I offer a variety of web content services, ranging from ghostblogging, ghosting ebooks and articles, to drafting press releases and sales letters for clients.

Pricing can vary based on the type of project and the estimated time invested to complete it successfully.

Further examples of my writing can be seen on BigGirlBranding.com, including several guest posts I’ve written in the past. Please note the humorous and slightly irreverent tone of the content there does not always reflect the type of content provided to my clients.

I have a very versatile “voice” and am able to adapt style of writing to suit most needs.

Examples of ebooks written can be emailed upon request, as well as past sales letters and press releases.

Thanks so much for reading and I look forward to potentially working with you in the future!

Warm regards,
Cori Padgett

Website: http://savvy-writer.com/

Specialty: Blogs and articles

Rates: .50 to 1.00 per word

Rebecca Sebek counts among her passions the arts, communication, and travel. She makes her living as a writer. She enjoys coaching and teaching others, and sharing her knowledge of writing skills.

Rebecca’s also a prolific freelance writer and blogger who posts regularly on several websites, writing on topics such as travel destination articles, general writing tips, and personal advice.

Website: http://www.digitalartistu.com

Specialty: Tutorial writing on computer graphics, 3D, 2D and photography and video tutorials

Rates: 500 per article for a 1000 word article.

Hi, my name is Nathan Segal. If you’ve been reading computer graphics magazines or ezines you’ve probably seen my name. I’ve spent the last 12 years working as an artist, photographer and Writer.

I’ve been active as a Digital Artist for 22 years and way back in 1988 I worked as a Camera Operator in what was known as the Multi-Image industry (a precursor to multimedia as it’s known today).

Over the years I’ve published 400+ articles and 5 books on the subject of computer graphics and photography.

I was the main contributing Writer to Streaming Media World, where I wrote over 111 articles over a 16 month period. My most recent posting was as an Associate Editor at WebReference.com, where I worked for 5 years.

My specialties are how-to articles, video tutorials and ebooks on the subject of computer graphics (both 2D and 3D) and photography.

These days I’ve mostly been working on joint venture projects. While I can (and do) write articles, my preference is to work as a joint venture partner.

A sampling of my clients are: The Corel Corporation, Visual Convergence, Web Developer, Photo Techniques, Mac Design, Layers Magazine, Photoshop User, Streaming Media World, WebReference.com and Rangefinder.

Here are some of my book titles: “The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3/X4 Insider,” “How to Speed Up Your Computer: In 30 Minutes Or Less,” “The Photoshop Companion,” and “Professional Photographic MS Word Templates.”

I am also breaking into the world of copywriting. I’ve written several sales letters, all for my own products.

Web sites:

http://www.digitalartistu.com

http://www.natsegal.com

Website: http://sharonhh.com

Specialty: web content writing, blogging

Rates: 60 per hour

When it comes to writing your content I tick all the boxes. I have 22 years of experience, I am fanatical about deadlines, a polymath who can get to grips with almost any topic quickly, an excellent researcher, and an engaging writer. In the past few years, I have written hundreds of ghostwritten articles on credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance, banking and much more.

I can write search engine optimized (SEO) web copy with the best of them. I also do a lot of ghostwriting and ghost blogging. If you want your blog maintained and don’t have time to do it yourself, then I’m your woman.

Please visit my site for my full resume and examples of my work.

Today I’m releasing a workbook-only version of the first e-book in that series, consisting of the 13 worksheets and templates I created to accompany the e-book content. (If you already own the full e-book, do not order this workbook – you already have everything included!

Here’s why I chose to offer the new version:

• The main content of the e-book is specifically for beginners, but I realized the worksheets and templates could be equally useful for more established freelancers. I wanted to give you a way to get those without having to pay the full price of the complete e-book.
• I know not all new writers need or want hand-holding through the early process. This gives them the opportunity to take advantage of only the most interactive elements of the e-book.
• Even though just one gig will more than pay for the cost of the full e-book, I know some writers currently writing for very low rates have been hesitant to invest in the full product. This gives them an abbreviated option consisting of the workable tools without the more thorough advice and guidance.

The full e-book sells for $37 and comes with three bonuses.

This workbook version will sell for just $17, and will come with only one of the original three bonuses. Here’s what you’ll get:

• A specialty selection chart
• A goal-setting worksheet
• A rate-setting worksheet
• A one-page business plan template
• A one-page marketing plan template
• A target market worksheet
• A prospect list template
• A client brief template
• An email query letter template
• A proposal template
• A casual proposal / email response template
• A professional website planning worksheet
• An invoice template

You’ll also get the 12-month marketing calendar I created as a BONUS! You get it all for just $17.

Better yet, to give you an even bigger reason to check out the series (and especially the workbook, as it’s only a small taste of the much bigger marketing workbook for freelance writers to come), if you order soon, I’ll even give you an extra $5 off!

That means you can get the new workbook version of my Web Writer’s Guide e-book for just $12 for a limited time!!!

To get the discount, you have to enter discount code “launch” (without the quotes) in the order form. You can order below or order at any time from WebWritersGuide.com.

We’ll be chatting about writing and marketing e-books. I’m always telling you to consider “writing for yourself.” Tune in tomorrow to find out how you can get started with an e-book of your own, earning residual income from your writing!

If you’re unable to tune in live, you’ll be able to access an archived version of the show at the link above.

Challenge Details

The 14-Day E-book Writing Challenge will begin on Friday, January 18, 2008, and run through January 31st.

You don’t have to have experience writing e-books to take part in the challenge. It’s meant to be a (hopefully enjoyable) networking opportunity, where e-book writers (old and new) can offer their advice, encouragement, and support to each other.

There aren’t any prizes. This is a challenge; not a competition. By completing the challenge, your reward is the fact that you’ve created either a new income stream or a new marketing tool in just two weeks, and hopefully made a few new friends or professional contacts along the way.

During the 14 days of the challenge, I’ll be offering tips to guide you through the e-book writing, publishing, and marketing process step-by-step.

Pre-Challenge Reading

Prior to the challenge, I’m publishing several articles aimed at e-book publishers (especially first-time e-book writers). You can find the running list below (I’ll add to it as more articles are published). These articles are designed to get you thinking about various aspects of the e-book writing and publishing process.

1. Is E-book Publishing Right for You?
2. Should You Write a Free E-book?
3. Finding E-book Ideas: Choosing a Niche for Your E-book
4. Planning and Outlining an E-book
5. Choosing the Best E-book Format
6. Benefits of PDF E-books
7. The Best E-book Software for the First Time Author
8. How Long Should an E-book Be?
9. Should You Offer E-book Resell Rights?
10. 5 Factors to Consider in Pricing Your E-book
11. E-book Delivery Options
12. E-book Marketing Basics
13. Should You Use Affiliate Marketing to Sell Your E-book?
14. How to Design an E-book Cover
15. Using Testimonials to Sell an E-book

Join the 14-Day E-book Writing Challenge

If you think you have it in you to write an e-book in just 14 days (or if you’d like to simply give it a try), leave a comment on this post. Let us know why you want to write an e-book during the challenge (are you hoping to sell it, create a free e-book to give away, etc.?), and whether or not you’ve written e-books in the past.

I hope at least a few of the regular readers here will jump on board and help each other out in writing our next e-books.

I’ll be taking part in the challenge myself… not only writing here about the e-book writing process, but putting together a new e-book of my own! :)

Challenge Post Archive

Here you can find links to all of the 14 days in the e-book writing challenge (they’ll be added as they occur). These are being listed to help you better follow along with the challenge, or to refer back to later if you plan to challenge yourself independently at a later time:

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen

If you would like a more compact version of the 14 day e-book challenge material, you can download a free copy of How to Write an E-book in Just 14 Days – based on these posts.