A few months ago, I was asked the following question on Facebook:

Here is my response:

Publishing an e-book is actually a really simple process if one doesn’t over-complicate matters.  I’ve seen some clients whip through an e-book in a few hours while others take weeks and even months to produce an e-book.  Let’s first look at what an e-book really is.  An e-book is an electronic book that is generally delivered via e-mail and is usually a PDF file.  An example of a free, simplistic e-book can be found here:http://www.slideshare.net/erinblaskie/delegation-workbook.

Now, the process that we use to publish e-books goes like this:

1. Choose a topic. Choose something that is broad enough in scope but narrow enough in focus that it will attract a niche audience.
2. Lay out the content in a Word document. Most e-books start as Word documents while others start in Publisher or another fancy desktop publishing program.  However, Word works just fine!  Begin writing your content or copying / pasting your content into the order you would like it to appear.
3. Format and proof the content. Once you have your document laid out, it’s now time to proof it and apply first round formatting.  First round formatting includes things like header titles, bold and italics as well as bullets and other content items.  If you do not want to proof it or format it yourself, you can hire a virtual assistant to do this for you.
4. Add images where applicable. This is a good stage to go through your content and choose applicable images.  You can also have a graphic designer create and add custom photos or custom graphics if you need to illustrate something like a process or stats.  Stock photo sites have fantastic images to support the content you are discussing though and can usually be found for free or purchased fairly inexpensively.
5. Add a table of contents. At the beginning of your e-book, add a table of contents that links to the various heading sections located throughout your e-book.  If linked properly, when your document is PDFed, people can click the links inside of the PDF and be taken to those specific areas of content.
6. Add a cover page. Your first page of the e-book should be a cover or title page.  This should be designed by a graphic designer in a good print resolution.  Keep in mind that people will be printing it out so using all black or heavy colors could be intensive to print.
7. Add an about the author page and a call to action to the end. Publish your bio and photo at the end of the e-book and if it makes sense to do so, add a call to action.  This could be, “Contact us to get one-on-one coaching support with the material in this e-book” or, “Purchase additional books on our website at www.yourdomainhere.com.”
8. Proof and review the content one last time. Make sure to have a fresh set of eyes review the document if previously, you did the proofing.  This will ensure that all errors are caught and that the formatting looks pleasing to someone else.
9. PDF the document and save. You can choose whether or not you want to add security to your PDF (which would require people to have a password to open it) but otherwise, simply PDF the document and save it to your local computer.
10. Upload the document to your server in an unlisted directory or use a digital delivery program like 1ShoppingCart to host the e-book. This will allow you to provide download links to your purchasers.
11. Add the product to your e-commerce system. You can use something as simplistic as PayPal or you can go the route of a full e-commerce system like 1ShoppingCart.  You can then generate buy now buttons for your website.
12. Start selling and promoting the e-book! Utilize social media channels, your website and any e-mail marketing lists you have to spread the word about your book.

If you have clarifying questions, please post as a comment and we’d be happy to expand on this post!

As someone who owns and operates a service-based business, I know all to well what it’s like to have to trade time for money.

Since we are all capped at the same 24 hours in a day, providing services, one-on-one coaching or any other time intensive service can be difficult.

Passive revenue is defined as the revenue your business generates that you aren’t trading your time for money for. This can come in many different forms, as you’ll see throughout this blog series.

Passive revenue also allows you to earn revenue when you aren’t active in your business. For example, selling e-books when you are sleeping, selling a self-study program while you are on vacation or even selling an on-going membership while you focus on other things.

Passive revenue does require some setup and each of the various areas I am going to cover require different time investments. However, once you’ve put some time into setting up the passive revenue stream, you can benefit for a long time afterward.

It’s extremely important for entrepreneurs to give heavy consideration to setting up multiple streams of income. As I’ve mentioned, we all have the same 24 hours in a day and the same 7 days in a week. Realistically, we can only work about 15 hours per day while still fitting in sleeping and eating. That’s not even touching on maintaining downtime and a social life.

So, most of us cap out around 8-10 hours per day. Since we do have that cap, our earning potential is limited. If we have an hourly rate of $50/hour, our daily maximum is $500. However, most of us can not maintain a solid 5 days in a row of 8-10 hour days. Life happens and things come up that we weren’t planning for. Plus, there are so many areas of our business that we aren’t paid for. New product development, bookkeeping, marketing, sales calls, etc. If you do not outsource these items, it begins to dip into your daily earnings.

By having passive revenue setup and in place, you are ensuring that even if you only work your 6-8 billable hours, you will have other places where you can earn revenue. It begins to alleviate some of the pressure and it changes how you work inside of your business.

The other benefit is that not every entrepreneur learns in the same way or consumes products from us in the same way. Some of our clients and customers will want an e-book whereas some of them might decide that they want an audio program. Others learn better in a one-to-one format and some prefer a group.

Understanding what your clients want and need and then offering a plethora of options means that you can cater to more clients. Catering to more clients expands your reach which means more sales all around.

Without multiple streams of income, your business stays flatlined and uninteresting to some prospects.

There are many options when it comes to setting up and creating multiple streams of income and we’ll look at a few of those today. The most common passive revenue sources that our clients are setting up include info-products, group coaching programs, affiliate programs, ad revenue and membership programs.

Let me break each of those down for you.

Info-products include things like e-books, audio programs, teleseminars and e-courses. Basically, they involve any medium where you are delivering information to your consumer electronically. Most info-products are short in length and they do one thing: solve a customer’s problem or frustration.

Group coaching programs are generally training or mentoring type programs that are delivered over the course of time. They are offered in a group setting to take advantage of the one-to-many approach. This way, you can share one set of information with a group of people at one time versus sharing the information one person at a time. This increases your revenue and what your time is worth.

Affiliate programs are programs that you can join to earn commissions when you make referrals to certain products, services, people or companies. Most affiliate programs are free to join and once you’ve joined, you can use your special link to share, promote and talk about the topic at hand. If people click through your link and sign up, you will then receive credit for that sale.

Ad revenue can show up in a few different formats. You can earn ad revenue by selling ad space on your website yourself or you can earn ad revenue by utilizing a tool like Google AdSense on your website or blog. Ad revenue can also appear in things like video and audio as well as you can sell media spots on both of those mediums.

Membership programs are one of the more popular forms of passive revenue and are also known as continuity programs. This means that a group of people are opting in for your material and content and in return, you receive a monthly membership fee. Sometimes the fee is also collected annually versus once a month. In a membership, you have to provide a lot of on-going support and content so it is not truly a passive revenue source unless you can automate the entire process of your membership program.