I'm getting close to finishing my e-book, so I'm starting to work on the site. I'm not sure exactly what to do though. I don't really like how all the other e-book pages look, with bolded and colored text and everything, it looks bad I think. But maybe the books sell better with that layout. So should I go with that generic look or come up with my own? Also, should I make one of those fake books, with the title of my e-book on it? This e-book is about a video game, FYI.
in my opinion, putting up merely a sales page (those are what they're called by the way) is not going to attract alot of (if any) sales. not unless you're an established person with a responsive e-mail list. if you're just starting out, you need to first build trust and the e-mail list amongst the visitors first.
The sales pages used by 99.9% of ebook retailers are some of the worst on the entire internet. It is amazing that nobody has come along and revolutionized that tired strategy of blah blah blah blah <p> testimonial <p> audio track with more blah blah blah <p> enter your email <p> get rich blah blah <p> Pay me now
There is a reason why 99% of pages are designed like that.. Its not because they cant make anything better.. its because they convert.. If they are written like a letter.. like most sales pages it gets the reader on a more personal level.. If you look at the pages from an internet guru's point of view it may seem scammy.. but from the view of somebody interested in the product it works..
I know from experience that it isn't even close to optimal. It is a tactic that has been copied for years as more and more people entered the affiliate marketing arena in search of their pot of gold. It reminds me of when I started promoting webcams in 2001. A great conversion ratio then was 1:100 and I was doing 1:15 on pages that webmasters made fun of me relentlessly for. Too bad they were just laughing while I was laughing all the way to the bank. Just because you see something stick around for years doesn't mean it is the best way to go. In general affiliate programs (mainstream) as well as the big marketers are about 5 years behind on promotion techniques.
the point here is that you did not see the part that actually makes it work. true, you can get some sales off unsuspecting buyers (and really, we have alot of those around), but if you are going to just put up one of those sales pages and expect to get plenty of sales, you'd be disappointed. internet marketers who put up those pages already has a customer base. those customer base who trust them and what they do. alot of times when an internet marketer launches something new, puts up one of those sales pages, they send an email, and half of the subscribers just buy it without even reading the sales page. actually i'm not sure where i'm going with my argument...
I agree with devin here. An already established customer base is the main reason behing their success. Also, the price of the product is a big factor. If you can get a 25 % off or something like this, and yet reasonably price the book to get profit, you can make lots of $$$. But again, a good user base is whats needed.
that's why they always have "Discover how I made $2,281 in 6 hours!" and you think that "this guy's good!" but actually what you didn't see going on behind the scenes, is that all he had to do, is to send an email to his subscriber base. "i just put up this $5997 $1997 $897 $147 $97 product for a limited time only!!" that's enough for his customer base to buy. and all he had to do is make around 30 sales in 6 hours. the sales page works...to some degree. but it's the list that makes the money.
People don't buy the first time of their visit, that's why mailing list is important to educate subscribers.