If you don’t already have a product to sell, you can either create one, buy rights to sell someone else’s product, or join affiliate programs and sell for many companies.  Let’s look at each of these in order.

Creating a product is not as hard as it may seem.  Writing an ebook on a subject you are familiar with means you don’t have to deal with inventory and shipping — customers simply download the product after making payment. 

If you don’t have an idea for your ebook subject, surf the Internet for existing ones that might trigger you to think: “That’s a good idea, but this would be better….” There are numerous subjects to write about — you just have to have some passion for the subject.  If you try one that doesn’t work, write about something else. 

You could get a group of friends or colleagues together to write an ebook and split the profits.  For example, a group of teachers might get together to write about teaching difficult topics for a particular subject.  The book could consist of lesson plans from each teacher for each grade level or subject. Even though there are many lesson plan websites, if yours is unique, it will sell.  You could write about how to deal with difficult or shy kids in the classroom, or gather several different topics to make a “survival guide for new teachers.” 

Another idea is to compile information about a topic.  If you take information from one person, it is plagiarism; if you compile from many, it is research. You just need to approach the topic from a slightly different angle.  New ideas are really 90% old material and 10% new.  This holds true for books, TV, movies, inventions, and products. 

Look at your hobbies and see if there is something there to write about.  It could end up being fun and make you money.

If you have created a successful ebook, you are very close having a completed book.  The Internet has made publishing a book easier and cheaper:
* Self-publish and find an editor online to proofread it for you
* Find a company online to print your book on demand 
* Get an ISBN number and sell the book on Amazon.com

You should be sure you have a good topic, and testing it by writing an ebook first is a good idea.  You can ask your ebook customers for feedback, then revise as needed. 

When you have a book published, you gain credentials as an author.  Using the phrase “Author of the book …” when trying to sell future books or ebooks will help your sales.

Buying the rights to resell an ebook or other product saves time, but your product will not be unique.  It is far better to join affiliate programs and sell products indirectly than to try to resell directly, because then you won’t have to deal with  charge backs or customer service. 

Perhaps the quickest way to make money on the Internet is by becoming an affiliate and using PPC advertisements.  The most popular is Google AdWords.  You don’t even need a website, and the cost of starting up can be as low as you want — you can be making money in literally minutes. 

Most people try to be affiliates for as many sites as possible, but it is better to spend your time analyzing and tweaking a stable of good affiliates than to constantly find new ones.  When an affiliate is not profitable,  I drop their program and start another one.

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