The Story of a Downsized Manager and His Ebook Business

If you've been following the business and economic news around the globe, you should know about how unemployment rates have hit year lows. The recent economic downturn was one of the worse in history and has affected loads of people. In fact, companies were cutting cost for any small reason and retrenched numbers hit more than 1 million worldwide.

My best friend of 10 years, Mark, was a manager with a listed company. About a year ago, he got retrenched and suffered from depression. Just recently, we met up for some drinks and he has started his new career with much success, earning a hefty 5 digit figures monthly. I got him to write the below article which describes his career path.

*** *** *** ***

It was 4th of April 2002, and after having a light breakfast, headed for work as usual. While I was driving along the busy streets, my eyes kept twitching, and deep inside I knew something was going to happen, I drove real careful that rainy morning.

Upon reaching my office, I was told to make a stop over at my superior's room. The moment I stepped into her office, I knew instantly that something was wrong. She went on and told me about the company's difficult moments, how I have performed during recent years and finally came the final stab, "Mark, I'm sorry, our company no longer needs your service and feel you can crave your own career somewhere else." Even though I was kind of prepared, my heart sunk.

I was making almost $10000 per month, and suddenly I'm left with nothing, the only relief was that I'm alone in my family, no one else had to suffer with me. For the next few days, I was trying to drown my sorrows with drinks. That was my life for the next few weeks, until one day, I flipped through the morning papers and saw a seminar which caught my attention: "Quit Your Job, Make Money At Home!" Okay, I thought to myself, "It was a free preview and I had nothing to lose, why not."

I attended the seminar and my life took a 360 degree turn. Although the seminar only briefly introduce about the concept of Ebook Businesses, I had made up my mind to start my first Ebook Business. I couldn't spend on boot camps, expensive workshops with my current situation. That didn't stop me though, with a little savings, I cooped myself at home learning all about building an ebook business. I spent tons of time, in fact almost five months before I came up with my first Ebook business. Unknowingly, I had spent thousands on learning to build my ebook business. My savings were seriously depleting to a point that I might not be able to feed myself any further. Fortunately, that point didn't never came and I'm hoping it won't.

After I successfully created my first Ebook Business, I made some money and went on to build a couple more businesses. I'm proud to say that I can build my ebook business with much ease now. In fact the following 5 steps is all anyone really needed to build an ebook business.

Every time I plan to start another ebook business, I follow my 5 step formula:

  • Choosing a Topic

  • Creating the Ebook

  • Creating the Site

  • Accepting Payments

  • Marketing my Site

    Choosing a Topic:

    Most people back off when they try to come up with a topic for their ebook. For me though, it's one of the simpler steps. I ask myself a few questions:

    "What is my Passion?"

    "What do I know about, my knowledge?"

    "What am I interested in at this instant?"

    These three questions usually immediately give me a topic that I would love to write on. I have written on a few subjects I was totally alien to, but my interest in the subjects allowed me to write about the subject and at the same time learn more about it.

    Creating the Ebook:

    This is also real simple, once I've decided on a topic, I simply elaborate on the points I wish to put across. I write my ebook in Ms Word and then convert it into a PDF format, because I want more people to be able to read my book. There's some common logic to writing an ebook. For example: Its much more difficult to read from a screen compared to a printed copy, for this reason, I always format my sentences to be of 1.5 spacing and try to use larger fonts.

    Creating the Site:

    I was a total computer idiot when I first put my mind to starting an ebook business, in fact I still am one right now. When I first started, I didn't want to use professional web designers (they cost too much!). SoI approached a few web designer friends and asked them to come up with templates that I can just edit and use. Of course, I didn't know anything about loading the site and all, and til today, I'm still grateful to my friends who created those templates with detailed instructions to using the templates. Now, whenever I plan to launch another ebook site, I simply use an HTML editor and edit the templates according to their documentation. I spent nothing on creating my sites, my friends only requested dinner for their work and I truly appreciate that. Technically speaking, I haven't spent a dime creating my sites.

    Accepting Payments:

    This is the whole point; I wanted to start my ebook business for one simple reason, to make a living. I was downsized, I had no money, and I needed money!! I didn't have particularly good credit history and couldn't get myself a 1st party merchant account, (I didn't want to spend thousands on those anyway!). Still I am able to accept credit cards in all my sites, and I spent a one time fee of less than $50.

    Marketing my Site:

    This is where I had to work really hard on. No wonder they called it Internet "Marketing". Marketing makes or breaks any internet marketing site. I learnt that first hand with my first ebook website. I only made a tiny amount simply because of ineffective marketing. Now, a year later, I"m able to generate targeted traffic, some of them totally free. One important equation I learnt was that Sales was Directly Proportional to Marketing!!

    It has been almost 20 months since I was downsized, and frankly speaking I went through some of the most difficult times of my life. The Internet literally brought me back to life and I"m real grateful. Now, I live comfortably off my ebook businesses and have plans to marry the woman I have loved all my life.

    (C) CreaTeEbookProfits.com. All rights reserved

    About The Author

    See how S.S.Jay uses Mark's style of building Ebook businesses "Hold you by the Hand Style" Get his Free ebook "Tips to Starting An Ebook Business" at http://www.CreateEbookProfits.com

    In The News:

    • pen paper and inkwell


    cat break through


    30 Truisms About eBook Authoring

    The decision to author an eBook is a life-changing decision.... Read More

    Book Publishing for Entrepreneurs

    There was a time when it was relatively easy to... Read More

    Surefire Way To Find Hot Selling eBook Topics

    To become an entrepreneur, you need product ideas.Even more important,YOU... Read More

    Ebooks Are The BEST Form Of Advertising!

    Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace. They... Read More

    Rapid Knowledge Development for Businesses

    When there is little time to go to the local... Read More

    Writing an eBook is Risk-taking Behaviour ? Choose to do it!

    The choice to author a book isn't one that just... Read More

    Using Internet Marketing E-books Helps With Business Issues

    Using an Internet marketing e-book when starting a new home-based... Read More

    How One eBook Author Writes eBooks

    How does this eBook writing process actually work for an... Read More

    7 Secrets to Explode your eBook Sales! Part 2

    Secret #2: Creating your Marketing Timeline for Success!Copyright 2004 Bluedolphin... Read More

    Internet Marketing Online: 15 Smart Quick Ways To Profit From Ebooks

    If you have an ebook, I can show you 15... Read More

    eBooks With Reseller Rights Are Your Ticket To Online Success

    Starting an Online business today is pretty easy and it... Read More

    7 Secrets to Explode your eBook Sales! Part 6

    Secret #6: Creating momentum and identity through Book Sellers!Aho99% of... Read More

    What Comes First - The Cover or The eBook?

    One of biggest trend these days is related to ebooks.... Read More

    20 Questions To Ask Before Creating An eBook

    1. What will be the title of your ebook and... Read More

    Self-Publish Your Ebooks Through ClickBank

    There was a time when ebook publishing was seen as... Read More

    How eBooks Can Be Used As An Online Business

    Times are hard today! Though the economic data would indicate... Read More

    Ebook Marketing: How To Succeed In Your Ebook Marketing Without Trying Too Hard

    If you want to succeed in your ebook marketing, there... Read More

    How eBooks Can Be Very Valuable

    EBooks have a number of benefits over the traditional book.... Read More

    Just One Quick Question

    Ever notice the number of times a client or prospect... Read More

    The True Purpose of a Tips Booklet

    "My topic doesn't fit into a how-to tips format."That comment... Read More

    The Problem With E-Books

    One of the most popular online ventures is selling e-books.... Read More

    Little Known Ways To Make More Money With EBooks

    There are a myriad of free information products on the... Read More

    Electronic Publishing Explained

    An eBook is basically a document in the form of... Read More

    10 Steps to Author 1 eBook

    Authoring a book, specifically an eBook (electronic book), is easy,... Read More

    How To Get Your Article or Ebook Started Fast... Time Saving Tips To Get Your Writing Moving..

    As we have all heard time and again (and it's... Read More

    The Story of a Downsized Manager and His Ebook Business

    If you've been following the business and economic news around... Read More

    More Than An Ebook

    The following in an excerpt from the E-Book of the... Read More

    7 Secrets to Explode your eBook Sales! Part 4

    Secret #4: Creating passionate articles will explode your eBook sales!Copyright... Read More

    5 Tips To Help you start self publishing for profit

    Here's a really simple way... to start your own business... Read More

    Top Ten Tips To Get Started Writing Your Book - Part 1

    You are far more likely to successfully write and publish... Read More

    Youve Got To Be Joking!

    I don't know about you, but I get a lot... Read More

    The Bible of Marketing Ebooks

    The ebook from Michael Cheney really is the bible when... Read More

    Internet Marketing - How to Write Your Own E-book

    I tell you now the first e-book I ever wrote... Read More