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Free eBook vs cheap Amazon eBook

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by Aussie Tim, Nov 5, 2013.

  1. #1
    Hi all, I hope this is the best place for this question.

    My main site is on moving to Australia. It is mainly a blog but with other article content and some relevant affiliate links. I am planning on writing a book soon - hopefully finished by Christmas - and selling it on Amazon.

    I have written a short (~20 page) eBook about specific tips on moving to Aus and I'm wondering what to do with it. As I see it I have 2 main choices:
    1. Give the book away for free on my site and use AWeber or similar to email my new list

    2. Sell the book for cheap (say 99c) on Amazon

    I am heavily leaning towards (1) but there are a couple of things that make me question whether this is the right thing to do. Namely:
    - Mine isn't a niche with a lot of products in it so I think it's hard to monetize my list effectively
    - AWeber costs $20 per month and due to the above I doubt I'd make more than $20 a month using it.
    - I don't yet have any content for my auto-emails. Writing this would both detract from my time writing my book (I'm hoping the book will actually earn money) as well as being content that would probably be in the book anyway.

    On the other hand; building my list and providing good content for free is obviously a good thing. I've gone round in circles with this in my mind and I'm hoping I can get a few thoughts on this from more experienced Internet Marketers.

    Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any thoughts!

    Tim
     
    Aussie Tim, Nov 5, 2013 IP
  2. Rishit Shah

    Rishit Shah Active Member

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    #2
    Hey Tim,
    If you are selling your book on Amazon you need have ISBN which will cost you more than $20 for Aweber. I think it is about a $100.
    It is totally okay if you use the excerpts of your book for auto-emailing your list.

    As per my opinion you should give away your book on your website for free if this is your first product. If this is your second product you can sell it between a price range of $1-$5. Making it $0.99 looks cheap. You know what I mean.
     
    Rishit Shah, Nov 5, 2013 IP
  3. jamescastle

    jamescastle Active Member

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    #3
    I would go for selling it. However, not for just 0.99. I used to write a alot of e-books before and I always sold them for 3.99 or 4.99. It makes the customer think "Hey this is cheap!" but without the "Why is he selling it so cheap" coming after.

    Remember that there are other sites to publish books aswell. I can for example recommend Lulu.com which generated me a lot of sales. Then there is Smashwords aswell.

    However, i recommend selling it.
     
    jamescastle, Nov 5, 2013 IP
  4. web3k

    web3k Member

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    #4
    Hey Tim,

    Great to see another Aussie on the DP forums!

    If you've put a lot of effort in to your eBook, which I'm sure you would have, it's almost criminal to give it away. I've got some ideas, albeit not well thought through but I thought I would still throw them at you in case you could use them.

    - You could create a 'teaser' version of the eBook and give it away to people who provide their email address on your landing page. You could still sell it via Amazon, however you're doing a number of things; 1) builindg a list of potential customers, even if they don't buy first time around which gives you the ability to keep going back to them.

    - As jamescastle mentioned, don't sell it for 0.99 - you should try and position your book as the 'thing to have', which includes positioning the price correctly.

    - Why not create a blog around the book? Give away snippets of information in the book in each post, with a call to action at the end of each post to purchase the book? You may even get recurring visits out of this.

    Love your idea man, keep up the good work!
     
    web3k, Nov 5, 2013 IP
  5. Aussie Tim

    Aussie Tim Member

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    #5
    Thanks very much for the replies - much appreciated. I don't think I distinguished properly between the two books I was talking about though. I'm talking about book 1 below

    Book 1. The book that I'm talking about is only around 20 pages long though - that puts me off selling it. I do have some affiliate links in there - completely contextual and helpful (I hope!) so that also puts me off selling it a bit. Although if everyone thinks it's a better idea to sell it...

    Book 2. I'm just starting work on a longer (200-300+ pages probably) book that I will certainly be selling and for more than 99c too!

    I do have a site/blog already http://liveandworkaustralia.com (hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting the link) so the idea about snippets of the book in some posts is one I can certainly use.

    Thanks again for your suggestions. Very much appreciated.
     
    Aussie Tim, Nov 5, 2013 IP
  6. Rishit Shah

    Rishit Shah Active Member

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    #6
    You can give away 20 pages ebook or you can give away like Aweber for $1 and sell 200-300 pages ebook.
     
    Rishit Shah, Nov 6, 2013 IP