it earns quite good money for low amount of effort required

So, how do you go about selling ebooks?? There are mainly 3 ways: eBay, ClickBank, or your own website. The route I chose was eBay + personal website, because they are sinergic (they help each other): having a site makes it so much easier to upload your images, to have a professional look etc; plus you get webspace and you can just send out emails with a link for downloading your product (instead of attaching your product with mail, which incurs in many problems with spam filters or filled email boxes!!). eBay on other hand brings good free, relevant traffic on your site and gives you some extra exposure which may never hurt. It's common to offer a product for 1.50$ on ebay, but selling it for 1.30$ on your site. This is a legal and intelligent way to "redirect" eBay watchers to your own site without spending a dime!!

Bear in mind however that eBay and PayPal (your everyday staple when selling ebooks) charge pretty high "default" fees that will quickly cut your revenues on low-cost ebooks (for instance, if you sell a 1.50$ ebook on ebay with paypal, you might only get 0.50 revenue, which sucks big time!!) so you're better off selling products with a higher cost, in range of 5-10$ (so even if you lose that 1$ in fees, you'll still keep a good % of your money)!

What are tools you will need for your activity?? The ones I feel a MUST are:

• an autoresponder (if you keep your pc on 24/7 you just really need Outlook Express with an autoreply filter set up, if you wish to turn off you pc then you need a cgi quality autoresponder: you find out more about both of them here), this is ESSENTIAL for automation of your activity
• a domain and a host, I use godaddy for it's cheapness (3.96$ a month with 500mb space and 20gb bandwidth, enough for a small business)
• an html editor (there are many free ones, just check on google!)
• a free image editor (for design of your site), i recommend GIMP, an open source (free) software that rivals photoshop!
• a shopping cart system (i use osCommerce, but i've heard good rumors about zencart too!)

If you'd like to find out some software or information about internet businesses, drop by my site , I'll be glad to help!! Also if you're interested in exchanging opinions or partnering, I am always very friendly ;)

I hope this article was useful for you, have a nice day!!

6. Offer Co-Branding or Re-Branding.

To encourage other webmasters to distribute your eBook to their guests, you can offer to 'brand' book with their URL and logo. Some eBook compilers include this as one of their features. One of them is Activ E-Book Compiler, a solid affordable option available at http://buildyourhomebiz.com/ebookcompiler.html .

7. Promote, Promote, Promote.

There are plenty of ways to promote your eBook. These include:

= Listing it in eBook directories.

= Promoting it in your email (or message board) sig file.

= Posting to appropriate 'announcement' groups or lists.

= Creating a special page just for eBook and submit that page to search engines.

= Offer book to your list of business contacts and let them know that they're welcome to distribute it to their own guests.

There are many other ways to distribute your eBook; be creative!

8. Consider Selling Advertising.

If you have a heavily trafficked site and stats to prove it, you may be able to sell advertising within your eBook. Naturally you won't want too many ads ... but a banner at top and bottom of each page is fairly common.

You can also choose to use that space for your own ads ... or offer them to select webmasters in exchange for some additional promotion.

9. Build Your File of Testimonials.

Chances are, if people love your eBook you'll start to receive unsolicited testimonials. Ask person for permission to use his or her testimonial within your marketing materials. It will show that you have a lot of happy customers - and help to persuade visitors to make a purchase.

10. Consider Using an Autoresponder for Follow-Up.

You may want to offer your free eBook in exchange for an email address. This gives you opportunity to repeatedly market to reader. Instead of giving him a free eBook and then never contacting him again, you 'grab' him while his interest is at a peak and continue to offer more free information through your follow-up autoresponder. At end of your message, encourage reader to take a look at what else you have to offer.