These aren't the domains i plan on using just examples. If the keyword i want to focus on is, "seo ebooks". Will using the domain seoebookplace.com rather than seoebooksplace.com hurt me much with seo?
Yes it help but not that much. there are still many site which can rank high without having any keywords in the url. so dont worry about it that much. other factors are much more important. orelse all the site will be only a keywords name. nothing interested.. A: which search engine you like to use? B: I like to go to www.searchengine.com isn't it a plain and weird answer...
buy both, they're cheap anyway. develop both with unique content. if one becomes more popular than the other, then focus on that. then sell the other one or 301 it to the more successful domain. that way you have zero regret.