Let's say you write an interesting e-book which you want to give away free, to help you build a list of people to whom you can offer other e-books for sale later. I know that if you use something like "e-book pro 6.0" you can have a set-up where you collect the name and email address of everyone who reads the e-book, by including in the e-book a "pass this e-book on to your friends" thing where they have to go to a website and fill in a capture to download it. The problem with this system, as far as I understand, is that it delivers the e-books in a ".exe"-file format, which isn't popular or convenient for everyone. Is there any convenient way to do this with a PDF file instead, so that people can't just send it out to their friends without you knowing about it and being able to collect their email addresses?
You can lock a PDF ebook with a password. The best way to do it is make the information so compelling that people who read the book go to your website and get on your list to get more stuff. PDFs, if they don't suck, will get shared. Just face up to this and plan for it with the way you structure the ebook. People go mad for software. Offer free software that relates to the ebook at the end for example.
Yeah you're always going to have people share stuff, say person A purchases some items, they then give this to person B, C and D, then person B purchases some other stuff, gives it to A, C and D etc. it cannot be prevented unless you can use a unique key thing like when installing a game but have it have to verify online and each code is one-time use it's really not worth the time and effort and really inconvenient for everyone. As for locking ebooks, I'd say go for this so majority of people can't copy your work, though even then there is software that will remove the protection. Basically and unfortunately, anything you're going to put online can be stolen by someone else. The only way to be sure is to not put it online, but, obviously, that's not what you're wanting to do. Scot
Thanks for these answers, guys. Hi Loren, please excuse me "grilling" you but why is this better than using something like "e-book pro 6.0" which prevents anyone from reading it without supplying their email address so I can build a list? Here's my situation: I'm planning to do a big, juicy (free) e-book which will be of real value to people in a particular niche to which I have some access, and I'm thinking it will be recommended by people. I've seen this ".exe" file software advertised which appears to do absolutely everything I can possibly want, but people are telling me that it's not the way to go, and I don't really understand why. How do passwords for PDF files work? Can people not just share the password together with the e-book, thus undermining my list-building attempts? (I can't really offer software. It's not that sort of niche and that's way outside my capabilities.)
The lock is used to prevent people to change the content of your ebook without your permission. And the lock is no use in your case,coz the people can easily sent your ebook to anyone he want.
No there isn't. If the content is so much desired you could give some reason on your ebook for readers to visit the website or contact you via email.
OK here's the reality : One: you want to stop people sharing on the net? Impossible. Two: why would you want to? Promote you site throughout the book by embedding links Three: .exe files suck because they "could" be malicious. I shy away from them myself. Google loves PDFs Good Luck
Use PDF, no matter what, it is the best. The best way is to place your sites hyperlink on the top and/or bottom of each of your pages. There is a tool that many people that spread viruses use, It binds any 2 files together to make one. That means you could have a PDF file that has an exe attached to it that pops-up a window with the name and email form on it. I dont know how to do it exactly though.
The tool is iexpress.exe and is included in windows. The output file is in .EXE format though, so it defeats the purpose (no pdf ).
thats not the one, its on terabit.uni.cc (Beware, your virus protection will go off on some of the tools they use!)
U can use tat kinda of script web 2.0 that pops up on ur screen whenever someone wans to dl your free ebook. I guess somehow theres a way to "cancel" the pop up. so it really depends. I hv an ebook and a music site that provides "some" free info to others, and i hv been getting ppl to opt-in on my site So instead of giving free ebooks, I intend to sell my ebook for now.
Hey Alexa, why don't you build a landing page or a sales letter kind of page promoting your free e-book? Tell the story about your book, have some bullets that will grab more eyeballs and then have a subscription form which will provide you with the e-mails of those who'd like to get the book mailed to them. This will help you create a continuity aspect to your sales if the case is you have a product for sale that will compliment the free e-book. Hope this helps!
Yes, indeed: I'll certainly have to do that anyway, whichever format I use, but honestly these things don't address the issue here, which was simply how to stop people from sending copies of the book to other people without my being able to collect the other people's email addresses to build my list. The only solution to that issue that I'm aware of is to use the e-book pro 6.0 software or a close equivalent (which certainly answers it). I was hoping possibly to find other potential answers, but it appears not. Still, I have apparently confirmed that, as well as learning a couple of things I didn't know about PDF files, and am grateful for the information.
If the links at the bottom of the page said "Get more free content like this - www.whatever.com" that would want even the people who got the website from friends want to sugn up
As was said before..you want to do PDF. I know somewhere around 20% of my readers don't even run on windows, they might have a problem with some of these executables. In addition, when some folks think E-Book...they think PDF...whether you sell it or give it away... Another problematic aspect is that folks will share your ebook. Keep that in mind. Because of that, don't make it a pain for your loyal customers...I would suggest you give the thing away and have links inside of your ebook... However doing that you can do one of the following to get an email address... 1. Why not give the ebook away totally free...and then create an ecourse or something for the "readers" of your book. Then anyone who wants the course will come to your site and give you their email address. 2. You might give the book away and then in the book tell them "this may or may not be the latest version...coem to yourdomain.com to get the latest book. 3. You also might send emails to keep people aware of updates to the book. Have them "register their copy" so that they can keep up to date on the latest versions... Giving away an ebook is for the purposes of building an email list. Have some strategy on how you will do that before you give it away. I gave an ebook away once without the links to my site, I know...I know....and put it up on archive.org. Today I now require an email address before you download the book. I think in the future I am going to try one of the above approaches...
If I download a free "book" and then find that its an .exe, straight away it goes into the recycle bin. Even if its a topic I was particularly interested in. Since there is absolutely no need for a legitimate actual book to contain executable code, I assume it must be at best some kind of scam and at worst a horrible virus that will suck out all my netbank passwords, etc... But then i never click on ads either. If your niche is made up of people with almost no computer literacy you might get away with it, but i think most people consider a book is a document and an .exe is not a document, its software. So immediately there is the perception of "this is a scam".
Thanks for your input, Owl. There would be no possibility of that scenario arising in this case, because everyone would know before downloading it that it's an ".exe" file. No need for its readers, I appreciate. But possibly a need for its author, if that's the only way of preventing people from passing it on to others without those others going on my list. And if the author is making something of real value available free of charge, people will perhaps not be too well-placed to complain about that, anyway. Let's hope your assumptions are not too widely shared, then. For the most part, I think it is; and that's what I'm hoping, anyway.
i paid for an online item today via a https PDF form. it was a pdf document containing form elements like input fields, and buttons which when clicked refreshed parts of the form from an online databse. the credit card details went into the form and the pay button was there too, then the response came back and appended itself to the same pdf file without having to reopen it (like ajax). i havent seen that much functionality in a pdf before - maybe you could do it that way?
Thanks very much for the thought. I must admit I don't understand the details, but I'll try to find out more from an up-to-date PDF expert. I'd far prefer to find a way to do this with a PDF if it's possible, for the reason you've alluded to and for other reasons too (such as production expenses), but my "basic question" is unchanged, and is simply whether there's a way to do it that makes it impossible for people to share the PDF behind my back, avoiding my list. I'm not just being a "primadonna" about it: I genuinely have very specific reasons for suspecting, in this instance, because of the information in the e-book and the very strong associations/connections already existing between its probable readers, that that's what will happen almost universally if I don't specifically protect against it! Again, thank you for your input here.