creating and selling ebooks

[Cloughie]

Who has and can anyone point me to a good reference that will detail how to go about it?

I need to know about creating them and publishing in PDF and also protecting against piracy and also actually an easy way to sell e-books.

I have tried to search but ironically the only thing I have found are ebooks that tell you how to write an ebook lol.. I really do not mind purchasing one either if anyone knows of a good one?

Thanks,

Daniel

[Cutter]

I have published an e-book, so far its sold 3 copies. I'm not promoting it anymore (ad campaign broke even.) The site only gets promoted through SE traffic now. It was written for a very small, and targetted, market.

I created the book in HTML, imported it into Adobe Acrobat. To protect against piracy I just put a password on the file. There isn't much else you can do. Piracy isn't as bad as it sounds. Obviously you have your own websites. Label every page with your URL and your logo and piracy will make you money.

I sell the book using Paypal. Whenever I get an order I just e-mail the person the pdf.

If you want any specific help with making your ebook PM me & we can work out a deal. My results haven't been absolutely spectacular, but I know how to make sales.

[charlie]

In fact the market of ebook is saturated now but if you come up with some valuable information making it more informative and user friendly and comprehensive to search you might get good response.

[chromate]

Here's what I've learnt from some of the big ebook publishers over on clickbanksuccessforum.com (which you may want to check out too BTW).

Firstly, it's a good idea to setup a focus group consisting of about 100 - 200 people. Ask them a series of questions relating to your planned eBook to gauge exactly what users want to see in it. Give them the promise that they'll get a free copy of the ebook when it's published to entice them to answer the questions properly. Then, when they have the ebook, get their feedback. This is also a good way of collecting your first batch of testimonials which is essential for your sales page.

Once you've hired a good copywriter and have your sales page put together you're ready to start making sales. Make sure you have a good email newsletter or auto-responder course. Setup your own campaigns to begin with and forget about affiliates. The idea is you want to work out if your sales page is converting well and you're not getting too many refund requests before you invite affiliates to promote your book.

Once you know it's a strong converter and you're not getting too many refund requests (aim for below 3-4%) then sign up with ClickBank to get your book into the marketplace so affiliates can start promoting it.

Also pick the top 10 or 15 websites in your field and convince them that they should promote your ebook. Include some projected sales figures based on your own sales testing to entice them.

[s2kinteg916]

Some of these ebooks out there seem as if they hired a staff of 5 year olds to write it.

[chromate]

Indeed. But then the same can be said for conventionaly published books ;) Some ebooks I've read are of a really high quality.

But I do agree that there's a lot of complete rubbish out there.

[jspider]

Great reply, chromate. you sound like someone who truly understands web marketing.

I especially liked your insight on running your own campaigns prior to getting affiliates involved. Just imagine the headache of doing tons of refunds and at the same time dealing with affiliates pestering for their checks.
:eek:

[beley]

I don't think the ebook market is oversaturated at all... the cheap, ill-prepared, get rich quick ebook market definitely is. If you are a good writer and expert in your industry you could do very well by publishing ebooks.

37 Signals just published their 2nd book as an ebook for $19 (https://gettingreal.37signals.com/) and in the first day sold 1750 copies. Source (http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/getting_real_book_update_new_version_sales_feedbac k_contributors_etc.php)

That proves to me that the ebook market is definitely thriving. I bought their book, and it was well worth $19.

A note about piracy... the last several ebooks I purchased, both from 37 Signals and The Pragmatic Programmers, had a special line at the bottom:


Prepared Exclusively for Brandon Eley

Now, it doesn't neccessarily stop you from uploading the book to a download site, but it sure discourages it. I think it would be a pretty effective detterent and it's something you could do with a server-side script automatically when someone orders.

[chromate]

37 Signals are just great aren't they? I've long been a fan of their stuff.

Interesting regarding th ebook "watermark" thing. I dunno if it would be legal, but you could take it a step further and print their address or phone number on the pages too.

[Sagewing]

I am considering working on an ebook myself.. I wonder where I can get the component that adds the purchasers name to the PDF. That's what they do in Hollywood when they send around scripts (using a real watermark).

[Shyflower]

I am considering working on an ebook myself.. I wonder where I can get the component that adds the purchasers name to the PDF. That's what they do in Hollywood when they send around scripts (using a real watermark).

Do you have Acrobat Distiller or PDF writer?

[Sagewing]

Yep... but I dont want to do it manually..

[Masetek]

Who has and can anyone point me to a good reference that will detail how to go about it?

I need to know about creating them and publishing in PDF and also protecting against piracy and also actually an easy way to sell e-books.

I have tried to search but ironically the only thing I have found are ebooks that tell you how to write an ebook lol.. I really do not mind purchasing one either if anyone knows of a good one?

Thanks,

Daniel

Did you end up writing this eBook? If so, how did it go?

[beley]

Dave, PHP has some PDF functions and there are additional PDF libraries you can download. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but I'm sure it's automated. Might not be a bad idea to ask them... both the Pragmatic Programmers and 37Signals use the exact same method with their books.

[Mullen]

Has anyone had a 100+ page eBook written for them? What would a rough price be? I'm assuming the price would change between different copywriters, but it would be good to know a rough estimate.

[Cutter]

Whats the topic?

[Mullen]

Whats the topic?

I don't know yet. I thought this question would come up, I was hoping for some examples such as "I got this book done for $this much".

[shadowbox]

Regarding the personalisation of ebooks a la 37signals, I thought this was a fantastic idea - I wondered why during checkout they kept making such a big deal over getting the card holder name exactly correct. I've since done something similar using a pretty standard php class (they used in in Mambo at some point, don't have a link) - on the fly php PDF generation is fine if you don't want to take it too far and get to complex - simple text conversion is really easy.

I've written a couple of ebooks for a niche market, and have sold around 8,000 copies over the past 3 years. I gave up on piracy, there really isn't anything you can do about it IMO - just treat your customers well and basically they wont' want to give your product away to other people. Realistically though, people will give it to their friends, so you have to accept that. It's one of the only downsides about ebooks - the plus side is high profit margin, endless stock, no shipping, completely automated delivery etc etc.

Those ebooks have earned me 6 figures in the past 3 years, so it is well worth pursuing this, but I do think it has to be a niche market and obviously a high quality product. My market are willing to pay around $40-$50 for one of these ebooks, although they do come with 250 pages and lots of audio files to accompany the tutorials in the ebooks, so there's certainly a lot more to them than your average $5 ebook.

As far as marketing goes, I spent a few years building up to these ebooks - first I had a content site, this spawned a forum (22,000 members) then came an ecommerce site, so I had a captive audience. I also sell other digital products on the site, it's not just ebooks, but the books count for 50% of the site turnover.

[Sagewing]

About $1000 seems to be the going rate on the jobsites. I'm not sure how accurate that is, though...

[Emancipator]

so long as its not an SEO or "make money" book I buy them. programming ebooks are typically much better then books in the bookstore and on top of that the writer CARES and puts alot more time into answering questions or feedback on their book. Since as shadowbox pointed out if you treat people right they buy, and buy again.

[Cloughie]

I haven't written the ebook yet, the one I had in mind I changed my mind on.

however, I have ideas for 4-5 solid ebooks on the subject my sites is on and I plan to strike a deal with some well established article writers and get them written, published and advertised on my sites.

I'll either pay for the production and split profits, or just pay them to simply write and enjoy all profits.

In terms of making them, I will more than likelt outsource this to a guy I know who produces some really good ebooks for some others in the industry. That should keep it nice and professional.

[Cloughie]

Regarding the personalisation of ebooks a la 37signals, I thought this was a fantastic idea - I wondered why during checkout they kept making such a big deal over getting the card holder name exactly correct. I've since done something similar using a pretty standard php class (they used in in Mambo at some point, don't have a link) - on the fly php PDF generation is fine if you don't want to take it too far and get to complex - simple text conversion is really easy.

I've written a couple of ebooks for a niche market, and have sold around 8,000 copies over the past 3 years. I gave up on piracy, there really isn't anything you can do about it IMO - just treat your customers well and basically they wont' want to give your product away to other people. Realistically though, people will give it to their friends, so you have to accept that. It's one of the only downsides about ebooks - the plus side is high profit margin, endless stock, no shipping, completely automated delivery etc etc.

Those ebooks have earned me 6 figures in the past 3 years, so it is well worth pursuing this, but I do think it has to be a niche market and obviously a high quality product. My market are willing to pay around $40-$50 for one of these ebooks, although they do come with 250 pages and lots of audio files to accompany the tutorials in the ebooks, so there's certainly a lot more to them than your average $5 ebook.

As far as marketing goes, I spent a few years building up to these ebooks - first I had a content site, this spawned a forum (22,000 members) then came an ecommerce site, so I had a captive audience. I also sell other digital products on the site, it's not just ebooks, but the books count for 50% of the site turnover.

Interesting.

It would be good to talk about how you wrote, produced and advertised your books and what the niche is.

You live in the UK aswell as me. Perhaps I could give you a call or get in touch via msn?

[chromate]

I once read about the process of creating a successful ebook and one of the key points was to hold a focus group of about 100 people. Tell them about the general book idea and get them to answer questions on exactly what they would like to see in it. You can then pass this information on to your writers along with your book plan.

Offer them a free copy of the book once complete as an incentive. The bonus here is that you can get their feedback and hopefully a good few will contain positive comments that you can use to promote and market the book when you make it available for purchase.

As you already have the traffic Cloughie, doing something like this shouldn't be a problem.

Once you know your book is converting well, put it on ClickBank and start getting some affiliates to promote it. Approach the owners of the top sites in your niche explaining how it could be profitable for them, including the your conversion ratios you observed.

[Cloughie]

Chromate, thats an excellent idea.

I think I will do just that. Maybe with a smaller more focused group of people as 100 is quite a lot, but... a good idea and something I reckon can really strenghten the quality of the book.

Thanks!

Daniel

[SRTech]

I am considering working on an ebook myself.. I wonder where I can get the component that adds the purchasers name to the PDF. That's what they do in Hollywood when they send around scripts (using a real watermark).

Here is a way, though it might take some tweaking to make a PDF that has all the text you want to replace together as a string:
http://www.petercooper.co.uk/archives/001244.html

I am working on a shopping cart to sell eBooks, and hope to start selling some for an author I know. (and then maybe selling the cart itself)

I also found this site that looks like it will be a valuable resource, but it is on hold until June 1st.
http://www.epublishingdaily.com/

[Sagewing]

Shadow - Do you use a special authoring tool to make the ebook look nice, or just do it in Word???

[shadowbox]

Shadow - Do you use a special authoring tool to make the ebook look nice, or just do it in Word???

Just word for text and fireworks for images