My Biggest Goof in E-book Publishing
December 10, 2007 – 3:58 pm
We all make mistakes in business from time to time. When it comes to e-book publishing, I made a big one with my first e-book, Press Releases Made Easy. Actually, I made a few mistakes.
This e-book only took me about five hours to write and publish (including the initial marketing / announcements). So it’s not like I needed to sell a lot of copies to make it worthwhile (and I did it in my time off, so it’s not like it really took away billable hours to begin with). I’ve sold somewhere around 100 copies (many at the listed price of $17, and many at various sale prices).
The problem is that it could have potentially sold many more copies than that. Here are the mistakes I made:
- I didn’t market the e-book through affiliates (a mistake I don’t plan to make again).
- I didn’t make the e-book instantly downloadable (I manually send it within 24 hours). It’s a hassle when I go away for a few days (which I do somewhat regularly for business and personal reasons), when I’m not checking in on email as often. Again, I don’t plan to make this mistake again.
- I didn’t market the e-book aggressively. I’ve promoted it on a few forums and on my own sites for the most part.
- I offered resell rights without price limits (meaning I could be undersold on my own product).
- I don’t have a solid sales page. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be comfortable with the spammy-looking long-form sales letters, but I do need to come up with some solid copy - I really do know better).
Despite my mistakes, I won’t be making changes with this e-book. Here’s why:
- This particular e-book will be disappearing sometime in 2008 (I’m turning it into a much larger e-book with case studies, samples, and more, and it will be marketed on a separate site - PRWritingKit.com - as the “PR Writing Kit”).
- It’s earned enough to justify the time spent on it, so I’m OK letting it “retire” as-is.
- I don’t want to push sales when they come with resell rights. At most, I might make a last-minute sales announcement about it right before I stop selling it completely.
Anyway, don’t make the mistakes I made in e-book publishing. I had no intention of writing one until I woke up bored one Saturday morning, and I didn’t put in the proper planning like I normally would. Be sure to consider the marketing and delivery of your e-book(s), and don’t give others the ability to price you out of your market with your own product.
Lesson learned.
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33 Responses to “My Biggest Goof in E-book Publishing”
I’ve been also thinking about ways to market my EBOOK — IN fact, I might be adding to it —- making it say double in length and re-promoting it.
Can you explain the affiliate aspect? That’s one thing I never really understood.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 10, 2007
Affiliate sellers are basically commission sellers. They agree to sell your e-book (or product) on their website or blog for a percentage of the sale price. The percentage is usually around 50% (sometimes more). I guess the most important benefit of having affiliates sell your e-book is that you get other people to promote your work. Because they are interested in making a sale, they will make sure the word gets out. Whatever you make from each sale is basically passive income, since other people will be doing the work for you. That’s the short version of it, of course. There’s a lot more that goes into successful affiliate selling.
By Diana on Dec 10, 2007
That’s very very interesting —- I think that’s what PAYDOTCOM is about, I have the page bookmarked and haven’t had the time to read what it is (I was confused), thus I think you answered my question. Do you use them?
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 10, 2007
Any recommendations for companies that provide those automatic downloads?
By Kathy on Dec 10, 2007
I’ve used Clickbank in the past. Correct if I’m wrong (Jenn?) but I believe they are the largest affiliate marketers out there. You can sign up with them to sell other people’s work, or you can offer your own to those who want to sell. I haven’t tried other companies, so I can’t vouch for them, but Clickbank has always worked as promised for me.
By Diana on Dec 10, 2007
I use PAYLOADZ and love it!!!
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 10, 2007
Well, I am sure glad I read your whole post! I was thinking about ordering your ebook and then I saw that you made all these “mistakes”. lol Glad it was just the marketing aspect because I’d really like to check it out.
By Kathleen on Dec 11, 2007
I’ve been thinking about putting an e-book together for quite some time, but I have yet to kick start myself into beginning it. Maybe that’ll be my 2008 resolution:) When I do start, I’ll definitely come back here and keep your lesson in mind - thanks:)
By Vanessa on Dec 11, 2007
Thank you for this post, Jenn! I refuse to write an e-book until I know what I’m doing on the publishing side. Thanks for the tips
By Denise on Dec 11, 2007
I am not the same Denise, by the way!
Thank you so much for sharing these mistakes, Jenn. I too am thinking about writing and marketing an ebook next year and you have given me tips that will help me make it successful. Sometimes mistakes made are the best lessons, huh?
By Denise on Dec 11, 2007
My published e-books are sold through an online publisher (I wrote it especially for them) so I never had to deal with affiliate marketing or heavy direct promotion. I do teach some online writing classes and I’ve been thinking of compiling all the lessons into an e-book and selling that. If I get around to doing it, I plan on using affiliate marketing. So I have a question for Jenn… Without revealing any numbers or private information… would you say you make more money selling your e-books directly or selling affiliate products? I’m trying to get a clear grasp of what to expect with affiliate marketing in general.
By Diana on Dec 11, 2007
@Diana - Clickbank is the company I’m planning to go through when my next e-book is ready. They’re the largest to my knowledge, at least of ones focusing on digital products. What I like about them is that it’s so easy for affiliates to get your links - no signing in and searching through approved offers; they just get your link and add their username to it. If it makes life easier for affiliates, it makes it easier to get people to promote your products (why I won’t do an independent affiliate program where they have to register).
As for which I make more from, that’s tough. I make more per sale for the Six Figure Freelancer e-book that I liked enough to promote ($23.50 per sale I believe) as opposed to the $17 max for my own short e-book. However, I promote the affiliate product only on my relevant sites (here and the writing forums, and on a Squidoo lens or two about writing). My Press Releases Made Easy e-book is promoted in webmaster forums, quite a few of my websites across writing and business niches, and also likely on a lens or two. They’re two different markets I’m promoting to in different ways. Overall, I’ve made much more with my own e-book, but I’ve been promoting it much longer. If I’d promoted the other product equally well, affiliate marketing would have earned more, since it’s a higher payout.
@Denise #2 - Yes, mistakes are learning experiences. Even the best writers have made them, and we’ll all make them too. You can’t improve if you never do something wrong.
I’m just glad I made these mistakes with my small e-book, and one that didn’t take a big time commitment to create, as opposed to one of the longer ones I’m planning to release in 2008.
By Jennifer Mattern on Dec 15, 2007
I really really really would love if someone did a post about affiliates — so I can grasp the concept more and fit it into my workings
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 16, 2007
I had someone offer to do a guest post I believe on this topic a little while back, but I was too busy to really talk to them about it. I’ll have to see if I can dig them up and see if they’re still interested. If not, I have another contact who might be willing to.
By Jennifer Mattern on Dec 16, 2007
Thanks so much Jenn!!
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 16, 2007
That’s what I like about Clickbank too –How simple they are to use. Just copy/paste. Also, I think that because they are the best known affiliate providers, people tend to check there first for products to promote, so you have better chances of your work being picked for promotion by others.
By Diana on Dec 18, 2007
I haven’t used Clickbank, have you used any other —- so that you have a comparsion of why you like it better? I have used Payloadz and am curious if CB is better.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 18, 2007
I actually hadn’t heard of Payloadz until very recently. Clickbank was always the first name that came to mind when talking about affiliate selling, so I figured most people would also use this one.
By Diana on Dec 19, 2007
Yeah definitely, I forget where i found payloadz, but i’ve had it set up for my plr article packs (haven’t marketed much only sold a few as of now) — but it’s really nice and easy to use.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 19, 2007
I think these two may not be the same thing. Clickbank is basically for others to sell your products. You don’t sell directly to costumers. You sell through other people who decide to advertise your product in exchange for a percentage of each sale. It sounds like Payloadz is more for direct contact (in this case writer-to-customer).
By Diana on Dec 19, 2007
Oh, I see the difference, Payloadz provides a easy “checkout” for people to purchase things — but I will read about Clickbank for my affliate endeavors.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 19, 2007
Yeah, that’s what I figured. Clickbank allows you to make money even if you don’t have your own product to sell. You can actually sell somebody’s else e-book in your site and make a nice percentage every time somebody buys it.
By Diana on Dec 19, 2007
I think I might try it out
Thanks for the resource.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 19, 2007
I ran into a very interesting article on pricing e-books and wanted to share the link, especially because I’m interested in hearing what others think about the tips given there. Jenn?
Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/2ugr4u
By Diana on Dec 20, 2007
FYI: Payloadz is giving me a few minor problems as of late, not sure if it’s on their end or not, but perhaps they aren’t as good as I thought?
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 23, 2007
What kind of problems? I ran into a complaint in a different website (actually a forum), where a writer was complaining that not all her sales were registering and that she found out by accident (when a client emailed her directly)
By Diana on Dec 23, 2007
Well FORTUNATELY for some reason my file isn’t shipping with every order, so I ALWAYS have to forward the pack, so I know when someone doesn’t get it (and thus when sales are made), so I do believe my sales are correct.
However, I’m going to look into the other one you told me (forgot the name now)….
By Jess on Dec 26, 2007
I think you’re referring to e-junkie. I saw a comparison somewhere online (can’t remember where but you should be able to find it easily if you google their names together). It seems more than a few people are switching over to e-junkie because of the problems they’re having with Payloadz.
By Diana on Dec 27, 2007
@Diana - on the e-book pricing article you mentioned:
Overall, it’s not bad advice. The trial and error mentality isn’t really smart though in my opinion. If someone’s basing their price simply on a competitor, that would tell me they didn’t do the market research in advance, and aren’t really ready to sell the e-book to begin with. Your price should be based on your buyers, and yourself. If you’re more experienced and more respected than the author of a competing e-book, you shouldn’t be simply trying to undercut them. You need to know what your selling point is even before you write the e-book.
Just my $.02.
And I know you asked somewhere (can’t find it now) about the e-book challenge. Yes, I’ll be doing one. I’ll probably post about it on the first of the year (maybe the 2nd), and it will be a month-long challenge / guide, and I’ll likely make February’s focus be building a professional website for your writing services (the HTML basics, templates, hosting, and such that we’ve briefly discussed here recently).
By Jennifer Mattern on Dec 27, 2007
Thanks, Jenn. Doing different challenges/guides every month will probably cover all your readers (both beginners and more experienced). It also evens out the field: if we have no use for a specific challenge, we only have to wait until the following month. Works for me.
I really wanted to hear your opinion on the e-book pricing issue too. I thought maybe competing with other writers (in price) would be a good move for those without a good platform. I do think it’s a good idea to do your homework and find out what others are charging, even if it’s only to understand what the market can bear.
By Diana on Dec 27, 2007
I’m not sure what to price my new ebook at it — I do believe it’s going to be at around 10,000 words —- and I think it’s edited (and added to) in quality, but not sure what I should charge.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 30, 2007
It probably depends on whether you will be doing affiliate marketing or not. If you are, you need a higher price. I was thinking about the same topic for my own e-book, and considering the idea of including “extras” (such as additional small reports, discounts for future orders, etc.) as an incentive to order the e-book. That would also allow me to price it higher but people would still feel they are getting a good bargain.
By Diana on Dec 31, 2007