Blogger Yaro Starak released a great 2-part podcast on his Small Business Branding site. It’s an interview with Internet Entrepreneur Daryl Grant entitled ‘How To Make $250,000 A Year Selling E-Books.’

They discuss how she sets up her sites, how the books are produced (she doesn’t write them herself), how she generates traffic, and how she writes the sales page copy to convert visits to sales. Her website also gives a thorough breakdown of her process: www.AndrewandDaryl.com. The site includes links to sample survey pages, a spreadsheet for calculating the profitability of an idea, and active e-book sales pages (surprise - not one of them is about online marketing!)

Even if your best friend owns a top publishing company, giving you an immediate “in,” this does not guarantee publishing success.

First, you have to write a quality book that has a clear target audience. And your book must answer a common problem or need that audience shares. Then you have to develop a marketing plan, and stick to it for at least two years.

It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an E-Book. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today – innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. E-Books are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

E-Books are a revolutionary way to publish your book without incurring the costs of print production. All you need is a relevant and targeted subject and some inexpensive software, and you can transform your manuscript into a book.

The problem, in terms of actually seeing any profits from your E-Book, is that the market is overwhelmed with E-Books, and many of them are not worth the time it takes to download them. Just because the ability exists to easily produce an E-Book, doesn’t make it good writing.