I'm thinking of writing and eventually selling an e-book, but it's something I've never done before and don't want to invest a lot of time to end up with zero profits. For you e-book authors out there, what is some good advice you could give me to help me on my journey? I know you don't want to give away all of your profitable secrets, but I just want to know the basics. I don't want to give away my topic just yet, but I will say it revolves around internet marketing. It's kind of unique and I haven't seen any e-books with that topic yet (not that I've read or seen too many e-books lately). Here are some other questions I have: - What is a good length for a typical marketing e-book? - How much should I sell it for? - Master resale rights, normal resale rights, or no resale rights at all? - How to get a lot of sales? - Where to sell? Should I do affiliate marketing? Thanks.
Hey Wyattt, Okay... - What is a good length for a typical marketing e-book? It could be a report, 10, 20, 30 pages. Or an ebook can be as little as 30 - 35 pages, 5000 words, 14 - 16 font. - How much should I sell it for? If it's a report, you could sell it for $7 - $15. An ebook could go for $17 - $47 or more. - Master resale rights, normal resale rights, or no resale rights at all? You could sell it without right initially, then you could up the price and offer 500 x resale rights, or finally, master resale rights, even more limited for a higher price. - How to get a lot of sales? The holy grail of internet marketing questions! Well, get as much traffic to it as possible. You can do this for free by putting a link to it in your forum sig file. You can post on others' blogs, make web 2.0 posts - Digg, etc, with links going back to your site. You can write and submit articles with links going back to your site. Later, you can use PPC, and, now it has a track record, JVs with others in your niche. - Where to sell? Should I do affiliate marketing? See above, and yes, offering an affiliate program will give you more exposure, and leave you more free to develop backend products for your new masterpiece... That's a real skinny, my friend. But good luck! Scotty
There's no "best" length for an e-book. It depends on your niche and how in depth you want to go. I have an 18-page e-book on writing press releases for example. I'm going to eventually be releasing an advanced version of at least around 120-150 pages, with case studies, examples, and other resources. There's also not one way to price an e-book. The big question to ask yourself is why would anyone want to buy it from you? What's so special about you that people should pay you money to read what you're selling? In my case, I'm a PR professional specializing in online PR (the focus of the e-book and an interest of my target market). If I were to write an e-book about breeding dogs, I couldn't charge as much as I would for a similarly sized e-book on PR subjects, b/c I have no credentials to be writing on the subject. Resale rights are a personal decision. I allow them on my short e-book, but I won't be allowing resale rights on the advanced version. It depends on your motivations. Do you want to earn money directly? If so, maybe an affiliate program would be better than offering resale rights. If you're writing it more for promotion, offering resale rights can help it spread a bit more virally, whether you sell it or give it away for free.
Personally I would never offer master resale rights of anything. When you do so it opens up a variety of potential problems. First of all, it can decrease your perceived value of the product dramatically and it will also put you into a different category of ebook sellers. Folks that make a ton of cash rarely, if ever give up resale rights to their stuff. Also, you can run into a nightmare with the FTC if they buyers somehow go off and start ripping people off. It may have nothing to do with you, but if your name is on that book anywhere, the FTC can literally wipe away everything you own on account of other people's actions with your resale rights book you sold them. Trust me, it happened to a good pal of mine. Never, ever, ever would I personally offer resale rights on anything I create.
You offer master rights at the end of the ride when you don't give a crap. Unless you're product is time-limited in origin, selling master rights is foolish. But, many do because they can't imagine themselves being in business 3,5,10,20 years down the road. If you sell master rights, you'll want to remove your name and everything (if it's there in the first place, which isn't always the case). The last time I created a product and offered resale rights was ages ago through direct mail. Oh, I guess you can offer rights when your product is junk or just a tester product.
I agree. Selling master/resale rights removes the one key selling point you have - exclusivity. Your book won't sell if your visitors are able to browse around and find it being sold by hundreds of different people for much less. The extra $10 you'll get from selling rights is nothing compared to the extra sales you'll get from having an exclusive book.
Whether you offer resale rights depends entirely on your motive. If you're not releasing it with the sole purpose of profiting, resale rights (even master resale rights) can play a large role in getting your name and information out there, to help build recognition for later product sales if you plan to release something else down the road. That doesn't mean a product is "junk" or a tester.
Don't undersell your e-book, either. People won't buy if it's too expensive, but underselling it makes people think it'll just be crap.
I think the biggest thing to convince me to buy an ebook at all wouldh ave to be reviews. There are so many people out there scamming people through the ebook market I will almost always turn around and walk away once I see the word. However, if you let 3-4 people read it here on DP, I can assure you that you will make more sales and word of mouth will begin to get around. That is only though if you really are picky about your grammar and the quality of the ebook. Last but not least, you have to have something useful in it and be honest about who it is targeted for, if anyone.
If your "name" is of concern, you shouldn't sell rights to anyone who has a few bucks. Imagine if you will someone you pawned off rights to for a few bucks. They then promote your book with lies or some other bad instrument(s). Guess who gets tarnished with that? Yes, your name does. Maybe it's just because I've been in the game for so long, but I've seen all sorts of stuff that can negatively damage a name. When it comes to name building, you'd be better off releasing a free report and allowing people to use it as a bonus. And if you're going to give full resale rights, you should screen and qualify the people. But, I won't begin to tell someone how to run their business (unless I'm being paid to do so ). I'm just a seasoned vet who doesn't play for the quick buck (usually). Perhaps there's no definitive best way, because we all have our own motives. Some just need quick cash and some are building for the future.
Well, that's why I monitor my e-book closely, and send out C&Ds every time I see something inappropriate or violating the terms. If you're not willing to do that, you certainly shouldn't attach your name to something with resale rights. In my case, I don't give master resale rights, so I keep some control over knowing who's able to sell the e-book. So far, there's only been one problem, and it was dealt with shortly after I found it. It has, however, led to a bit of income on its own, and much more in the press release referrals from a link I have in there for my services. So it's been worth it to let it get spread around a bit while keeping my name on it. But like we've both mentioned... it's all about motives. Mine's not just a product, but a marketing tool, and it's doing it's job well enough in that sense.