How To Write, Launch, And Make Money From Your First Ebook As A Medium Writer
This is exactly how I did it
Selling ebooks is a great way to make money as a writer on Medium.
I make most of my income from ebook selling. The best thing about selling an ebook is that it’s easy to set up, can work for you 24/7, and costs you almost zero dollars to write and build.
So, in this story, I’m gonna teach you and share how I created my first ebook and made money from it. Or said differently, if I had to create my first ebook, here’s how I’d do it.
The 3 simple steps process:
1. Archive A Milestone
This is the first but most important step.
I distinctly remember I created my first ebook when I hit my first 1,000-follower milestone. And this is what you’ve to do too. Achieve a milestone like the first 500 or 1,000 followers.
The reason you should create your ebook this way is because it’s important to have some sort of following to download or read your ebook. So it does make sense to launch an ebook because your audience can buy the ebook.
Now imagine launching an ebook when you have 47 followers. What do you think, who will buy the ebook? No one. And that’s the point.
So your first actionable step is to achieve a milestone.
2. Build Your Ebook
I gave my first ebook for free. Yup, you heard it right.
It was free. Why did I do that? Because I wanted to provide value to my audience — since they were the reason that led me to my first milestone — 1,000 followers. And, you know the best part? Even though the ebook was free, I earned $40–50 from that ebook.
The simple fact: Your audience will happily pay you, if you’re genuinely providing value and solving their problem.
So how to write and build your ebook?
Listen, the ebook creation shouldn’t take more than a week. It’s better if you have already written or made the ebook before the milestone — so once you achieve the milestone you can launch it the next day. Reason? The stacks are high.
But if you want to write your ebook in one week, here’s the game plan:
- Day #1: Brainstorm ideas
- Day #2: Outline the ebook
- Day #3: Write the ebook
- Day #4: Edit the ebook
- Day #5: Create and build the ebook
- Day #6: Create the ebook cover and write a “Milestone Story.”
The ebook shouldn’t be too long. Anything between 20-40 pages is perfect.
Tools You May Need
- Notion: You can write your ebook on Notion before you make it as an ebook.
- Canva/Google Slide: You can create your ebook on these two platforms — both are free.
Now where should you host your ebook?
It’s pretty simple though.
You can use Gumroad for it. Or even if you don’t want to use Gumroad you can use Google Drive if you want to keep your ebook free. But the one benefit of using Gumroad, even if the ebook is free, is that you’ll get their email ID.
What’s the benefit of doing it?
So whenever you want to launch another product (new ebook) you’ll have these emails that you can send emails to promote your new ebook. Win-win. So go with Gumroad.
That’s all you need to do to create your ebook.
3. Celebrate The Milestone
So you’ve completed the milestone (500 or 1,000 followers) you also have written the ebook (and finally, ready to launch it) now it’s time to write a story about it — the marketing.
So head over to Medium and click on “Write.” The story headline should go like this: Thank You So Much For 1,000 Followers: Here’s Your Gift.
Write the story. Show your gratitude. Tell them what you’ve created. And, Let your audience know what’s the ebook about and how they can access it.
Doesn’t matter whether your ebook is free or paid, you’re going to make money (at least a small amount) from it — Only if you’ve done a good job building your audience the right way.
To make sure you make money from your free ebook, you should use Gumroad because it’ll allow you to receive payments also for a free ebook. (if someone wants to pay — happily.)
This is all about creating your first ebook. I hope you learned something from this story. If you want to check my ebook, you can click here.
Thank you!
