Is Selling Free Ebooks Possible?
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How can selling free ebooks be possible? After all, doesn't the word 'free' mean it is available without paying money?
Yes, but there are ways you can start selling free ebooks - and do it ethically, honestly, while providing the buyer with real value for money. Think that's a tall promise, or impossible? Read this article and then see if you change your mind.
Selling Free Ebooks by Bundling
There are some niches where ebooks are available and are given away for free by the authors. However, these authors have little marketing skills and so their free ebooks, even if excellent quality, are not widely known.
If one is to find and download all the free ebooks available in this niche, it would take hours and hours of hunting for the information - and still one may not find them all.
Now what if you collected all the free ebooks available in that niche, and offered the collection as a bundle - for a very nominal cost? You'll be selling free ebooks - yet your buyers will get real value in terms of time saved or effort spent searching for them on their own!
Selling Free Ebooks by Licensing
Another way to approach selling free ebooks is by including licenses to use the ebooks in other ways. For instance, a gardening website owner may not be excited about your free ebook on fruit gardening - unless you include a license that permits him to give it away to his website visitors, and in the process build a list or establish a better relationship with his prospects.
There are many other forms of licensing you can throw in while selling free ebooks, including permission to use in brochures, advertising material, direct mailings, even as a chapter in a book they are selling.
Selling Free Ebooks by Adding Value
You can sell a free ebook if you throw in extra value. Let's say you are selling free ebooks about setting up a website. In addition, if you offer your consulting services, so that if people can contact you for clearing up doubts in case they run into problems after reading your ebook - you have added value.
Or if you are selling free ebooks on negotiating or joint venture deal making, and throw in some sample contracts the buyers can use in their own business, you are making the information in the free ebook become more tangible and instantly usable to the reader - and added value to the deal.
Selling Free Ebooks by Including Bonuses
Another tactic you can use when selling free ebooks is to increase perceived value by including bonuses. As long as the bonuses are relevant, and add value to what you share in the free ebooks, you will have buyers happy to pay money even for the free ebooks.
The bonuses can be a mix of services, extended protection, trial-runs, samples or even physical products - anything linked to the subject of the free ebooks and extending its value.
Selling Free Ebooks by Teaching Innovative Uses
Few infopreneurs intuitively know about ways to leverage information. If you can educate them on how the free ebooks you are selling them can be put to use in their information business, they will gladly buy from you.
For instance, you can show them how your free ebooks can be re-branded to convert links inside it into affiliate links that will earn them a commission for each sale referred. Or allow them to private label the ebook with their website and name, gaining brand awareness.
You could show them how exactly to use the free ebooks to build a list by giving them away to targeted prospects. You can teach them how to use the free ebooks as an educational aid to showcase the value of their product, service or website.
In these ways, and in many more, you can keep selling free ebooks and minting a small fortune - all the while, growing a network of delighted customers who appreciate the value you throw in to the deal. And that's infopreneur nirvana!
Yes, but there are ways you can start selling free ebooks - and do it ethically, honestly, while providing the buyer with real value for money. Think that's a tall promise, or impossible? Read this article and then see if you change your mind.
Selling Free Ebooks by Bundling
There are some niches where ebooks are available and are given away for free by the authors. However, these authors have little marketing skills and so their free ebooks, even if excellent quality, are not widely known.
If one is to find and download all the free ebooks available in this niche, it would take hours and hours of hunting for the information - and still one may not find them all.
Now what if you collected all the free ebooks available in that niche, and offered the collection as a bundle - for a very nominal cost? You'll be selling free ebooks - yet your buyers will get real value in terms of time saved or effort spent searching for them on their own!
Selling Free Ebooks by Licensing
Another way to approach selling free ebooks is by including licenses to use the ebooks in other ways. For instance, a gardening website owner may not be excited about your free ebook on fruit gardening - unless you include a license that permits him to give it away to his website visitors, and in the process build a list or establish a better relationship with his prospects.
There are many other forms of licensing you can throw in while selling free ebooks, including permission to use in brochures, advertising material, direct mailings, even as a chapter in a book they are selling.
Selling Free Ebooks by Adding Value
You can sell a free ebook if you throw in extra value. Let's say you are selling free ebooks about setting up a website. In addition, if you offer your consulting services, so that if people can contact you for clearing up doubts in case they run into problems after reading your ebook - you have added value.
Or if you are selling free ebooks on negotiating or joint venture deal making, and throw in some sample contracts the buyers can use in their own business, you are making the information in the free ebook become more tangible and instantly usable to the reader - and added value to the deal.
Selling Free Ebooks by Including Bonuses
Another tactic you can use when selling free ebooks is to increase perceived value by including bonuses. As long as the bonuses are relevant, and add value to what you share in the free ebooks, you will have buyers happy to pay money even for the free ebooks.
The bonuses can be a mix of services, extended protection, trial-runs, samples or even physical products - anything linked to the subject of the free ebooks and extending its value.
Selling Free Ebooks by Teaching Innovative Uses
Few infopreneurs intuitively know about ways to leverage information. If you can educate them on how the free ebooks you are selling them can be put to use in their information business, they will gladly buy from you.
For instance, you can show them how your free ebooks can be re-branded to convert links inside it into affiliate links that will earn them a commission for each sale referred. Or allow them to private label the ebook with their website and name, gaining brand awareness.
You could show them how exactly to use the free ebooks to build a list by giving them away to targeted prospects. You can teach them how to use the free ebooks as an educational aid to showcase the value of their product, service or website.
In these ways, and in many more, you can keep selling free ebooks and minting a small fortune - all the while, growing a network of delighted customers who appreciate the value you throw in to the deal. And that's infopreneur nirvana!