David Drake has also graciously agreed to contribute a copy of his Six Figure Freelancer e-book for the prize package going to December’s top commenter. The e-book targets Web writers, teaching you how to make better use of freelance bidding sites, set up your own professional website, and more.
You can find out more about the Six Figure Freelancer in my recent review.
Thank you David!
That now makes the confirmed prize package as follows:
- A $25 Amazon Gift Card
- A book on freelance writing (you’ll be given a choice from three of my favorite options to ensure you don’t already own the book)
- A copy of Dee Power and Brian Hill’s The Publishing Primer: A Blueprint for an Author’s Success e-book – a $19 value!
- A copy of David Drake’s The Six Figure Freelancer e-book – a $37 value!
A hard copy or one-year online subscription to Writer’s Market will very likely be added. If any other contributions come in, I’ll post about them here (but I think that list plus Writer’s Market may be the final package).
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
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What an impressive lot of gifts already and all for participating in a blog that will better us all. You’re great Jenn!
I really, really wanted the 6 Figure-Freelancer ebook :) While many of the techniques there seem aimed to beginners (am I wrong?), I’m hoping it will help me make the most of my writing time and somewhat increase my income. I’m working on a business plan for 2008 and need all the help I can get!
I’d agree in that a lot of it is targeting writers early in their freelance writing careers (especially with much of it devoted to bidding sites, which frankly are used much less by more experienced professionals who are able to charge more).
It’s definitely centered around Web-based writers as well. I wish I’d seen something like it when I first got involved in Web writing. Like I said in my review of it here, I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it, but I think it gives you a great place to start. One point it drives home that I completely agree with is that any serious writer needs their own website. One thing I’d like to see covered more there (and which the author informed me will be improved, if it hasn’t been already) is how to set your rates. Of course, I’ve covered it pretty thoroughly right here on the blog, so the information is certainly around if you want that. ;)
If anyone else has a copy of the e-book, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. When I first started out, I probably would have balked at spending $37 for an e-book. Now, both as an e-book author myself and knowing that it would pay for itself in just one or two gigs, I’d say it’s worth it. I’m especially curious to hear your thoughts on the price, as it’s a price point I’m considering for an e-book I’m releasing in the new year targeting authors.
The price threw me back a little when I first saw it, yes. It wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but I would definitively think twice before paying that much for an ebook. I think it would make me evaluate who the author is, how much I trust her/him as a professional and where I am in my career (at this point, I probably would not buy an ebook unless it covers something very specific I haven’t heard about before, but beginners may be more willing to shell out the cash because they’re eager to step into the business).
By the way, I do agree with the website bit. I teach a freelance class online and is something I keep telling my students. I don’t think you can call yourself a serious writer in this age and time if you don’t have a website.
@Diana – Let me ask you a specific question regarding the pricing then, in reference to the e-book I’ll actually be launching early next year. The e-book will be targeting authors (published, self-published, and e-book authors alike). I’m expecting it to be at least 80 pages in length. Being a publicist / online PR professional by trade, that’s the general focus. More specifically, it’s about how to generate pre-launch publicity (on the Web) for your upcoming book or e-book. Even more specifically, it’s going to be centered around a laid-out 90-day pre-launch publicity plan. $37 is the price I’m considering at the moment (if I decide to engage in affiliate marketing, it definitely won’t be lower than that, but it’s not a definite at this point). For something of that nature as opposed to simply an e-book for beginning writers, if you were to price the product, where would you estimate it?
I considered buying an ebook last year (can’t remember which one right now) on how to increase your income. I remember I liked the author and the ebook itself was good because it explored areas I haven’t delved into myself. The ebook was $29 and I though it was too pricey. For some reason, I remember thinking “I would never pay more than $27 for an ebook!” Not sure where the $27 came from, but it still seems like a reasonable amount. The truth is that you can buy a print book on the same subject for much, much less, so paying that much for something electronic feels somewhat wrong. That said, if I wrote the book and I thought people would buy it for $37, that’s the price I would use. Is there any way you can check how well other ebooks out there are selling or compare prices and sale numbers? Maybe you would sell double the number of ebooks by dropping the price just a few dollars (in which case it would make sense).
E-books can sell for significantly more than print books for four primary reasons (so it’s tough to compare them):
1. E-books can cover something more timely than a print book, because the information won’t become out-dated in the publishing process (especially vital in something like the one I’m putting out, as it’s all about Internet marketing / Online PR – two things that can literally change overnight). People pay a premium to get the latest information.
2. E-books fill today’s need for instant gratification (no shipping, no waiting – or very little waiting). If someone wants information right now, especially with information focused on the Web itself in some way, they’re generally willing to pay more to access it immediately.
3. When you’re selling e-books you have the potential to have a small army selling for you through affiliate marketing programs (and I’m not talking about small-scale affiliate pay-outs like with Amazon.com). A lot of these e-books offer affiliates 50-75% of the sale price, so the affiliates market them aggressively. If you charge $20 for the e-book for a 50-50 split, you’ll get $10, as will the affiliate. From an affiliate marketer’s standpoint, that’s very little money per sale compared to others out there (some well over $100). If you want them marketing for you, you have to charge enough that you can pay enough to entice them. For many e-book authors, it’s the difference between selling a handful of copies to several hundred or thousand copies.
4. Many e-books come with “bonuses” (other e-books, software, workbooks, or other add-ons) thrown in for free to up the perceived value to the buyer, whereas most traditional book sales don’t.
I don’t really have any doubt that $37 will work in my case (actually less than I originally planned), because it’s filling a highly specific need for a specific group of people who actually have something to lose potentially by not buying it (authors with a product already scheduled to hit the market, who need to generate buzz to ensure their own success financially and otherwise). I couldn’t get away with that price or higher for the longer e-book on press release writing I’m also putting out in ’08, because it doesn’t have quite the same immediacy as the other one. It’s definitely a market thing. It’s less about who your target market is (imo) than being about when you hit them with it and how much they can lose without it (always more powerful than what they can gain).
It’s always good to hear varying opinions though, which is why I asked. :) Perhaps e-book pricing is a topic I’ll post about here in coming days to keep discussions going. :) Hopefully that gives you some more background on why e-books are usually priced high compared to traditional books, and hopefully we’ll get some more insight from other readers on the topic. :)
That’s why I asked if there was a way to check pricing of ebooks and sales numbers. Just to get an idea of what is out there, what sells, what works and what doesn’t. I don’t doubt for a minute that you will be able to sell the ebook for $37. I still think that ebooks in general are overpriced, though. I think it would be an interesting experiment to see how much and why people are willing to pay for information. I hope you explore this topic further in your blog!
@ JENN – Refering the price of your e-book, I think it’s clear that you’re a professional and I would trust in your work — however, don’t you think you will get MORE buyers for a little less? I think it’s just sales minded to make it say $20-$25 —- I think most people are obsessed with the price, no matter if you’re lowly me — or highly you hahaha ;) *wink*
That was my thinking when I originally posted. At $20 something, you may get more buyers. People who, like me, would maybe reconsider buying a higher-priced e-book but would be willing to pay $25 or so. I’m not specifically referring to your e-book, but instead thinking of the trend in general.
@ ALL — This is interesting and something I will be posting about this week on my blog, so many blog topic ideas from these conversations ladies! thank you for inspiration.
@ Jessica – Where is your survey? When I click on your name, it takes me to your website, but not to your blog? Am I missing it?
http://www.polldaddy.com/survey.aspx?id=e934b2c8bd04b4c3
There are a few reasons people are willing to pay more for e-books:
1. Instant gratification (it’s the same reason you pay a lot more at a convenience store than a grocery store for the same item). People know they can get the information free elsewhere, but they want it pre-assembled and organized for them, and available right now (why a lot of people “write” e-books by simply compiling PLR articles).
2. “Junk e-books” often fall in the “$7 e-book” lump. If you charge too little, you actually can lose credibility. Most of the e-books written by experts and heavily promoted are significantly more than that ($27, $37, $47, etc. up to well over $100 in some cases, although not too often).
3. E-books are very often sold through personal referrals by people who have built trust with their audience. That’s why in many cases the best selling e-books are the ones being pushed with a large affiliate program. You’re more likely to buy and pay more if someone you trust in the niche tells you it’s worth it, and the good affiliates know to only push products they really do recommend for that very reason.
So compared to traditional books, yes, they can look over-priced. But this is actually one case where lowering the price a few dollars won’t necessarily bring in more sales (and much less likely to bring in more revenue). Here’s how it often works, and why that idea doesn’t fly in most e-book sales:
1. It’s a known fact that prices ending in 7 can perform much better than other price points. So for me to lower the price from $37, and still take advantage of that psychological sales draw, I’d have to lower the price a full $10, which is nearly 25% of the price.
2. As I mentioned, the sales model very often revolves around affiliates pushing the product to their own audience. Affiliates choose products often based on how much they pay – they may have three products in mind that they like enough to promote, but they’ll take the time to do that with the one paying them the most. If you drop your price, you’ll very likely have to drop your affiliate payments. You’ll lose affiliates, and therefore the sales they drive (which can be a huge chunk of sales). You would also have to invest more time into marketing independently, and more money into other marketing efforts just hoping to meet those old sales numbers (unlikely as you’re losing a direct route to your target market through those affiliates).
Let’s look at a potential example:
Let’s say I have an e-book priced at $37, and I’m offering a 50% affiliate payout ($18.50 per sale). I’m making an average of 100 sales per month, and about 75% of those sales come from affiliates (I believe ClickBank gives you some of those numbers for different products, so you can take a look there to see how some are performing).
I decide that I want to lower the price to try to drive more sales. Because I understand basic e-book pricing, I’d take it to $27.
In the worst case scenario, let’s say half of my affiliates leave to promote other products. That would knock out 37.5% of my sales (assuming all affiliates are equal just for easier calculations in the example). I’d now not only have to come up with other means of making up those sales, but still increasing the total sales enough to equal the profit or exceed it. So if I were hoping for a 20% increase in sales by lowering the price, I’d now have to come up with 58 extra sales per month instead of 20… more than a 50% increase, and not necessarily an easy feat.
In a better case scenario, I’d keep my affiliates by paying the same amount per sale, and taking the cut on my end so I don’t lose the marketing vehicle. I’d now make $8.50 per sale instead of $18.50. Let’s say I now easily make that 20% sale increase by lowering the price. A true 20% increase in revenue would mean I’d be going from earning $1850 / month (100 sales at $18.50) to $2220.
A 20% increase in the number sold under the new model would only make me $1020 ($8.50 x 120 copies). It’s far less than what I was making before the sales increase. To come out ahead, 20% increase just wouldn’t cut it anymore. To keep the affiliates to push the product, I’d now need to pick it up to selling 218 copies per month (much less realistic, and that’s barely coming out over the original figures – if I wanted to make the actual revenue goal of $2220 / month, I’d need to now sell a little over 260 copies per month).
You could try to balance it out by decreasing affiliate payouts only a little, to increase your profit margin and hopefully not lose too many affiliates, but you run into a combination of the problems though. And if you lose your regular affiliates, it probably won’t be easy to get them back.
The real key with e-books is understanding the different sales process when compared with books, and understanding the buyers’ motivation for being willing to pay more. I made the mistake of not using affiliates for my first e-book. It only took me 5 hours to write it, so it’s not as though I invested a lot into it where I’d need to make several thousand dollars to make it worth my effort to promote. With my new e-book, it’s taken months of planning and writing. Considering what I charge clients for a unique product of the same length – assuming 80 finished pages, and charging around $100 per hour for most of my writing – I need to be able to account for that time in my sales figures.
So what looks like a really high profit margin to a buyer is really just a normal writing fee having to be covered, split between multiple buyers. If it weren’t worth it financially, I’d not write them… I’d stick to press releases and reports.
So hopefully that clears up why a lot of e-book authors charge what they charge, why it looks high to a buyer, and why people still buy them regardless (in my own case, my current e-book may be $17 only, but it’s nearly $1 per page – the new one will be considerably less expensive if you look at it that way). ;)
I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick with $37 for this author-targeted one. I look at it this way… if it’s not selling in the first few months, there’s nothing stopping me from lowering the price later, and it gives me room to offer occasional sales to drive buyers if I need to. :)
I’d actually recommend e-book writing to any writer with a real expertise in their specialty. You may actually be able to earn significantly more than you would with more unreliable client work that can fluctuate. :)
@ Jessica. The survey is a little tricky. I don’t do copy writing or press release writing, but the survey didn’t give me an option to skip the question. I ended clicking on what I WOULD charge if I was doing that, but it’s not exactly an accurate answer. I didn’t want to choose the $0-$x because I feared it would give the wrong impression (like I maybe charged 10 for something, which I don’t).
Thanks for doing it — :)
I wanted to comment on the e-book post for a couple of days but haven’t had a chance to actually sit down to do it until now. I have some ideas for a “make money writing” e-book covering a specific topic (not a general guide). I never considered writing and marketing an e-book for the type of price discussed here, but now I’m thinking that maybe there’s some merit to the idea, especially if I want to get into affiliate marketing. While I very much agree that a higher price makes sense because of the work involved, it would be interesting to actually test the market and see how well an e-book does at those prices. So if you ever decide to start a monthly challenge regarding e-books, I’m definitively in.
I’ll be sure to do that. Maybe later this week I’ll lay out a plan. :)
E-book challenge would be fantastic, especially to do my series, since they are relatively short books, could be easy to do them progressively and with others cheering me on, I’m sooooo in!
Well before I do too much planning on the idea, let me ask this: what are you gals envisioning as far as an e-book challenge goes? A challenge to do it in a month? A longer challenge with monthly break-downs? A step-by-step series on the blog for people to follow along with while writing an e-book? What do you think would appeal to the largest number of potential e-book authors.
I think it could be done in a variety of ways. For example: month 1-research, month 2-writing, month 3-marketing… Or it could be about writing a new e-book each month (if you’re thinking series). Well-planned, it shouldn’t take anybody longer than a month to write a full e-book, so working on the same one month after month seems too much, although maybe that’s a good option for beginners. But Jessica got me excited on the idea of a series, so I was hoping for something that would push me to get that done.
@ Jenn. Any update on challenges? Are you still thinking of doing them month to month or pushing that off for a while? The New Year is just around the corner and I would love to get that little extra push! If not in January, I’m looking forward to seeing the challenges in the future.