eBook authors Learn How To create, publish and market your own eBooks
eBook creation and publishing tutorial
ebook marketing
Introduction to eBooks Welcome!
Creating and Publishing eBooks Introduction
Generating Ideas Generating
Ideas
Research Research
Writing Writing
eBook Compilers eBook
Compilers
Creating eBooks Creating
eBooks
Your Web Site Your
Web Site
3D eBook Covers 3D
eBook Covers
Copyright Copyright
Selling eBooks Selling
eBooks
Increase Profits Increase Profits
Free eBooks Free
eBooks
Marketing Marketing
Marketing Resources

Related Sites:

EBookCompiler.com
eBook creation software (Free Download)

CoverFactory
Create eBook Covers (Free Download)

EBookPower.com
Add multimedia to your eBooks

EBookSubmit.com
eBook marketing & promotion made easy

EBookFriends.com
Friendly community for eBook authors, publishers, & marketers

EBookInterviews.com
Read about eBook authors' experiences

EBookCode.com
Free Help on eBook HTML coding & scripts

EBookJungle.com
Search engine for eBooks


Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Downloads
Affiliate Marketing eBooks
Affiliate Program Reviews

eBook Authoring
eBook Authoring Tools
eBooks for Authors
eBook Compiler Software
eBook Covers
eBook Cover Software

Marketing
Ezine Guide
Increase Website Traffic
Internet Marketing Guide
Internet Marketing Help
Press Release Guide

Search Engines
SEO Guide
SEO Tools

Your Site
Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorials
Accept Credit Cards
Domain Names
Web Design eBooks
Web Design Tools
Web Hosting
Web Hosting Directory
Webmaster Tools 		electronic publishing  

How to sell eBooks

Selling eBooks

Once you've set up your web site and finished preparing your eBook you're ready to start selling your eBook.

Before you start selling there just a few things you still need to do:

  1. Decide exactly what you're selling:

    It's important to know exactly what you're selling. Answer these questions before you start, and you'll avoid problems later such as disatisfied customers, and requests for refunds.

    • Are you selling the downloadable eBook - or - are you going to going to allow people some level of access before they buy?

      You could for example allow people to download the eBook before paying, read part of it, and then either pay to download part two, or get a password to read a second part.

    • What rights do your customers get?

      Is the eBook just for their personal use - or - can they sell or transfer their copy of the eBook to other people?

    • How are you going to deliver the product? Over the Internet (as a download), or will you ship media (disks, CD-ROMs etc.) to your customers.

    • What guarantees do you offer your customers?

    • What level of support do you offer your customers?


  2. Check your web site:

    Double check your site clearly explains exactly what you're offering.


  3. Decide on the price:

    How much does your eBook cost?

    This is a difficult question - pricing is more of an art than a science. Here are some ideas for pricing your eBook:

    • Guess - not recommended - but a lot of people end up doing this as they can't figure out the right price.

    • Look at your competitors - and use their prices as guidance for setting your own prices.

    • Start with a high price and gradually cut the price until your sales take off.

    • Do market research - for example ask what people what they would be prepared to pay in a survey,

    Getting your price right is very important. If you under-price your product, you will be throwing away money that customers would be happy to give you. If you over-price your product, few customers will buy, and many of those who do, may demand refunds.

    So it is worth spending some time to research the right price - it can make a big difference to your profits! There's even a web site that's been put together as a tool for helping you find the right price - it's called Make Your Price Sell†.


  4. Get ready to accept payment:

    The next decision you need to make is how to accept payment for your eBooks. You must accept payment by credit card or you could end up losing 90% or more of your potential orders!

    Integrating credit card payment in your site need not be that difficult - depending on which method of processing payment you select.

    The ideal that you are aiming for is an automated system (so you can concentrate on marketing rather processing orders) - but be aware in order to set up a fully automated system, you may need to make some minor adjustments in your site.

    There are several options for how to accept payment, each of which has advantages and disadvantages:

    • PayPal

      PayPal is a service for sending and receiving money online. We do not (and have never yet) used them, so we don't keep up with details of their service - which we presume, may in any case, change from time to time.

      The main reason that we do not use PayPal is that we do not feel that it is convienent for our business, nor for those of my customers who do not already have PayPal accounts (as they would have to join PayPal to pay our company).

    • ClickBank†

      ClickBank is a low cost service, available to many people in many countries. Basically they deal with all the complicated technical stuff required for processing credit cards securely, and they send you checks for your sales (less a deduction which is based on the number of sales you make - this pays their fees) up to every 2 weeks.

      According to the information on their site (as of October 2002), they are infact retailing your product for you, and this is how they view themselves. It's their name (not yours) which appears on the customer's credit card bills (we've seen it on ours when we have bought from other ClickBank sellers, and their site says that sellers are required to tell your customers this). Technically, I guess you could say that it's them, not you, accepting the customer's credit card, but that aside, the key point is that by using them you get to sell your products online with relatively small amounts of hassle.

      We have been using their service for some years, and have found them to be extremely reliable and responsive - we don't consider their fees too high - and so, in summary, based on our experience, we can recommend them.

      ClickBank is good for many (not all) products that are delivered electronically over the Internet (by e-mail, as a download or on a web page) - but it is especially good for selling eBooks - and Activ eBook Compiler includes a number of features that make it really easy to sell your eBooks using ClickBank.

      (Another big advantage for me of ClickBank is they offer affiliate tracking at no extra cost - we'll talk about this more in the chapter about marketing).

      There are also other Payment processors, which are in many respects similar to ClickBank. These include:
    • Get a Merchant Account:

      Probably the ultimate in credibility, flexibility, and lowest fees per transaction, are Merchant Accounts.

      The downside to getting a Merchant Account is that it may take a little more time and effort to set up than the other options, and you may have to pay a monthly or annual fee just to maintain the account.

      Getting your own Merchant Account is often the best option if you are dealing in high volumes of sales - but for many smaller sites (and even some larger ones), ClickBank† may be a better option.

      A number of companies also offer help in getting a Merchant Account (although often for US merchants only),

  5. Test Everything:

    Before you unleash your sales web site on real customers. spend a bit of time to make sure everything works as it should. Test it once - then test it again.

You can find more information about setting up a web-based store at MerchantKit.com.

There are many resources available that will show you how to publish an eBook and there are many marketing books to help you reach your audience.


These tutorials will show you exactly how to set up your sales process with popular combinations of software and payment processing options:
   

 		 infoproducts
 
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