Why I Wrote My Own eBook

In front of my house in winter!

I wrote my eBook, My Homesteading Journey, back in 2007, and started selling it on my website. At that time, I was selling it for $14.99 and had pretty decent sales. Then they kind of slowed down and I lowered the price to $7.99. Most of the people who purchase it are people interested in being homesteaders. Not urban homesteaders, as that is a whole other ball game. People who may be planning on moving outside of the city they are in right now. Or people who have done that and are trying to figure out what to do first.

On CD

In the fall, I put it up for sale on eBay. Selling it in a CD disc format according to eBay rules. I sold a few there also. I never did as good with it until I put it in the Kindle store on Amazon. It sells good there and I have some good feedback. That makes me feel good, especially if the people who buy it are wanting to change their life and become self-reliant. I have been selling it for $0.99 now. So it is very affordable for people without a lot resources.

Growing Your Food Is A Must!

Selling it to other homesteaders was easy. Now on Amazon other people are buying it. People who worry about whether my sentences are structured according to the grammar rules. I don't need someone buying it to grade it. This is my life and the way I do things. That is all. Not a work of literature or a book that will be on the NY Times bestseller list. I wrote it for real people who are searching for a way of life that frees them from people like that.

Having a cup of coffee with me!

If our life changed from the way it is right now, to something much different. I'd be willing to bet a lot of people would be wishing they were living this way. I feel though, that some of those people are trying to put eBooks and especially self-published authors down. So they are posting bad reviews of authors on Amazon. My book is written exactly how my blog is written.....from my heart, like you are sitting at my table with me! Hope that is good enough.

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

Making Your Own eBook

Today I sold a copy of my eBook, My Homesteading Journey, on eBay. This was a test for me when I first put it up there. I wanted to see if anyone would buy it. I sold a copy of it, and a few of my Breads And More Cookbook eBooks. Haven't sold much since. It sells more on my website, Larry Gene Music.

One of the beauties of selling an eBook is that it sells over and over. Once you write it, edit it, upload it to your website, you can sell it forever. My husband designed the covers for the books. He used his graphic program in his computer. Nothing fancy. It sells even if you are not at home, and even if you don't check your computer daily. Once the buyer has paid for it, they receive a download link in their account. That's it. The link will be a zip file that they will have to unzip to view it on their computer.

Selling it on eBay is a bit different. I can sell it that way on eBay. But as a downloadable product only, it wouldn't be able to be listed under the book category. Just under the "Everything Else" category. To be able to sell the Breads & More Cookbook in the cookbook category, and My Homesteading Journey in the nonfiction category, they had to be a physical product. A product to be sent through the mail.

I had to put them on a disc to be viewed on a computer in a document software program. I had used Open Office to write my books, which is an "open source" writing software program. What is "open source" software? Why, FREE, of course! We have used all open source software for our websites as well. Once I had it all edited I converted it to a PDF file in Adobe. Most people have that on their computers and if not, they can get it free.

But wait! That's not all. If you are selling it as a digital product, you have to zip the file using a compression software program like WinZip or CoffeeCup. Then you upload that file to your FTP program, like CoreFTP Lite, which is the one I use. Then list it on your website. That is all there is to it. Once it sold, I saw how easy it was. My buyers would purchase and automatically get the link to download it. Occasionally the link didn't work correctly, and I had to send them the link in their email. But it works that way too.

It is a little different selling it as a physical product. I had to copy the book from Open Office and burn it on a cd disc. My husband made a label with our label maker. Some sellers don't include a nice label, but we thought it made the disc look more professional. I send it First Class mail in a bubble mailer, with the cd in a paper sleeve.

It was fun creating a book to sell and doing it myself, instead of paying someone else to do it for me. Puts more profit in my pocket. But it also made it my own design. I am working on some others now every chance I get. It is not as hard as you think, and especially if you are already writing a blog. Good luck with writing one of your own!

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole