Just wanted to say that eBooks really do work! I do well very well with traditional sites running Adsense, YPN, etc, but wanted to try the whole eBook concept. I had a topic I am well versed in and decided to write about it. I created an eBook with quality content, excellent information and have done very well. I remember when adsense first came out, I thought no one would ever click the ads; I was way off base The same goes for eBooks! So, for those of you wondering if eBooks really work, they do! It’s worth the effort if you’re going to put out quality material. I also want to say thanks to Eric Giguere for his help. Never having heard from me before, he was still kind enough to answer my questions. He pointed me in the right direction in a sea of possibilities. And of course, if it wasn’t for this forum, I wouldn’t have found the information and contacts to begin with! DP is truly a great resource!
The book is less than 100 pages (and has nothing to do with fishing, fast boats, etc). I followed Eric’s plan for creating and marketing the book. I didn’t have the time to research all the possibilities for creating an ebook, so I figured someone that seemed to be heavy into this stuff could point me in the right direction. Eric, want to jump in and lay out the plan as you did for me? I would be happy to do so, but it’s your plan after all. It’s not that the plan is the key to success, but for someone who knew nothing about eBooks, it was a big help. Sometimes, you have to just run with something. Quality is important and I think the great reviews I have received were because I took my time on the content. I’m not here to promote my book, simply to let other members know that there really is something to this ebook thing. I must say though, it does take a lot a initial work! Thanks!
also, how long have you worked on that book? how would you qualify your ROI so far (in term of time use to write / money you got)
Would really like to hear you experiance man. Its much better hearing someone who has just do somthing for the first time, as you could say some details that experianced users miss out, (thinking "too obouis to mention") Cheers man,
Here's a basic rundown of the advice I gave to TooHappy to get him started in the e-book game: -- Create a simple site to promote your e-book. Do this before the e-book's done. Doesn't have to be fancy, but needs to have basic info about the book. Also, you'll need the site later for the selling. -- Start a mailing list and let people interested in your book sign up for it. Put up a subscription form on the site you created. Use a professional mailing list service like AWeber, because $20/month is peanuts once you start selling your book. (Be sure to use a provider that lets you setup multiple, ideally unlimited, lists for one price, because autoresponders are very useful for all kinds of things.) -- The mechanics of writing a book are pretty easy. You can create PDFs for free using OpenOffice (version 2.0 has a very simple "export as pdf" feature that works great). If you prefer to use Word or some other word processor, the PrimoPDF free PDF printer driver -- you print to it and out comes a PDF file. (Note: the actual writing process may be hard for you. I'm just talking about creating the e-book itself.) -- You'll need some way to sell the book. One dead easy way is to get it listed with ClickBank. You pay a one-time fee for this, and then they handle all the money collecting and also the affiliate program. But look at Payloadz and other programs, also. Be careful with the sales tax stuff, some of the services do it for you, some don't. -- When you're ready to go, do basic marketing: send out press releases, write articles for free distribution, etc. Prepare a free/preview version of your e-book if you want and make that available for free, perhaps in return for an email address (see autoresponder above). You can also use it with places like ZeroCostPromotions.com to get more people on your mailing list. -- Read about email marketing. Books like "The E-Code" and so on. Never hurts to know more and get some ideas as to how to market yourself.... Hope that helps you guys! Eric
Where did most of your promotion come from? Adsense? I see alot of eBooks on eBay aswell, I wonder how using that as a marketing technique would do.
One big promotion tool is to have an affiliate program... then your affiliates do a lot of the promotion for you. The downside is that you have to give them a big cut of the pie in order to make it worth their while. Say you sell a book via ClickBank at $47 and split the money 50/50 with the affiliate making the sale. After the ClickBank fees you'll both end up making about $20. BTW, if you want to see what an e-book done with OpenOffice looks like, see my page The Two Words That Can Make You Rich.
Most of the promotion came from Google. I keyed in on a good word and its misspelling which brought me some incredible traffic! I give my affiliates 70% and this is proving to be a big boost. Sure, it may seem that I am giving away a lot of money, but if it was not for the affiliate, I would have zero. Something is better than nothing and if you make the deal a sweet one, it appears that you’ll get more attention (money). Have not used eBay, but I’m still new to this so I’ll be trying all types of avenues. I’ve worked on the book for about 6 months. Not full time mind you, just a little here and there. It’s worth the time and I’m sure the next one will fly because of the reduced learning curve! Getting everything set up, learning affiliate systems and more has to be the most time consuming part! Take clickbank for example, what a pain! There is a market out there for a system that is user friendly and doesn’t refund your product for just any reason! And thanks Eric for chiming in. Regards.
You can pay someone to edit your work. Or even to write it, if all you want to do is come up with the ideas and the structure.
None, as I haven't made it available for sale yet I decided to lay off for a couple of months because Joel Comm released the third edition of his e-book in early March. That's OK, gives me more time to improve mine! Mind you, I doubt I'll be releasing sales figures even after it DOES go on sale. Keep 'em guessing, you know!