E-Books: Why Would They Be Profitable?

It is all about the value offered and perceived. I remember thinking I would never pay over $20 for an ebook, but thank goodness i got over that. When I was clueless about SEO a friend recommended Aaron Wall's SEO Book and it was either $59 or $79. My friend was already making good money online and I respected his opinion so I shelled out the money and it was worth WAY more than whatever I paid to me at that time. This is not a recommendation to run out and buy it (if it is even still available) but to show that if the value is there then an ebook can be profitable to both the buyer and the seller.

And don't let people get you down. Stay positive!

Um...perhaps he's heard about an invention called the iPad? Prior to that, I was seeing an awful lot of people carrying Kindles and other reading devices...

This is where things are heading. My ebooks are selling better than ever, and i think part of this is due to the fact that ebooks are becoming widely accepted.

(I've published several "mainstream" books that involved agents, publishers, the whole deal...and I will never return to writing books in that format. Not enough money going into MY pockets!)

Yes, plenty of people are doing well selling ebooks, including myself. I've never heard of a "bad stigma" associated with ebooks, maybe in the IM niche. It's so easy to do and the main advantage, at least for the customer, is the ability to download it immediately after purchase right from the sales page.

I have no regrets since I started selling ebooks. It's something I never thought I would be able to do... then I just did it.

Thanks! Great information.... I was more-so taken back by the way it was handled. Why argue against something if all you can say is "personally I..." yet pull Devil's Advocate and tell me that I need research, and you don't? Where's your research to show this ISN'T possible? Doesn't Devil's Advocate bank on the idea that you've already researched both sides yourself?

This is why I am starting to hate that stupid Shark Tank show. Give people a jerk like Kevin and everyone thinks "critical thinking" is all about being a jackass when it's about KNOWING what to ask and how to do so.

We all have our personal opinions but you need to be open-minded to make money at the end of the day. I have been doing this for about 9 months, and have been in publishing for about 3 years. Digital is the way to go... I'm sure of this, and it's a matter of creating quality versus "quick cheap sell." If I DID do this, I'd do so with the best product I could possibly make so that even if nobody liked it, I could say I tried.

Scared money doesn't make money, but neither does inexperienced and defensively opinionated money.

E-Books would be profitable once well written, because it has a wider market coverage than the traditional hard copy.

As part of requirements to meet versa points for SFI for example, many international members would rather buy digital products than physical products in view of shipping complications and delays.

Also note the market shift from maintaining voluminous hard copies to compact/space saving digital products which once bought can be shared very widely without physical location restrictions unlike its hard copy counterpart.This is one reason why universities and research institutes are moving in the digital products direction.

NY1 I like how you think!

Guys thanks for all of your input. Hopefully he will see and understand the other side. I'm just not going there with him.

IMO, the thing killing digital book format is the hardware readers.
I was looking at readers at xmas. Four MAJOR problems with the ones I looked at:

1)
None of the models I saw had a search function.
I could not believe this. I literally said 'what the f**k?' to the assistant.
Lame bookmarking and annotations too.
Import and export was rubbish or non-existent.

2)
They were hugely over priced.
They'd need to be an 1/4 of the price before I considered buying one.

3)
They connected to a bookstore network, rather than the internet.
They were also totally loaded with DRM stuff that isn't attached to paper books.
Do paperbacks state 'you must not loan this to your friend'??? Ridiculous.

4)
The digital version of the book cost exactly the same as the hardback.
Even though they are saving billions of dollars on printing and distribution.


IMO, until hardware readers become portable, robust, usable and cheap, and the
books themselves are half the price of the printed version, digital books will remain
something that you read at your computer, which no-one particularly likes to do.

Great analogy!

I just got another sale of my ebook the Songmix Method so I can say you can in fact make a profit.

I've sell a profitable ebook but the ebook is profitable for both me and my customers. I have people emailing me telling how much they learned from it. I personally don't buy ebooks that have wild promises selling a "technique". Mine is more like a technical manual than a technique and I feel very good about the reaction to it and the value that my customers feel that they are getting. So, not all ebooks are created equal. There are some that deliver on their promises and some that are out to make a quick buck. A book does not have to have a hard cover to have value and I have bought my share of completely worthless hardcover books.

Lauryn, yes ebooks sell and yes they can make very significant income.

Don't think of them so much as e-books, but more like training products.

I have helped companies put together Million dollar training seminars and consulting programs for years, then in 2001 I wrote my first info product package which consisted of a 95-page Guidebook, 25-page workbook, two 5-page special reports and 2 audio interviews selling for $67.

At the time, my costs to start that business were less than $100 (mainly graphics for website and basic setup for webhosting/autoresponder, etc...) - I made 12 sales in the first week of that product going live which returned many times my investment.

What is even cooler is that the same product (with updates each year) still sells like crazy today, but now we have 11 others.

70% of our sales are digital products while 30% are physical - books and DVD's.

eBooks do well if...

1. You focus on a desire your market has to be, have, do or avoid something at a highly emotional level. E-books are emotional buys to exceptionally desparate buyers. Think someone who is at wits end trying to deal with a troubled teen, an alcoholic spouse, a lifetime of shyness, a mountain of stress, a painful health condition, a frustration with their current life situation, a passion to play an instrument like their favorite idol, etc...

2. That you package a system - your own method for solving a particular problem or achieving a strongly desired end result. Most books in the bookstore are general overviews of a particular topic (Ex Yoga for Beginners), but what you can do as an ebook author is APPLY that knowledge to partucular sub-niches - Yoga for the new Mom, Yoga to deal with Anxiety... Do you see what I mean? By taking general knowledge often available in bookstores and apply it to specific market desires you can charge more, keep far more of the profits (with ebooks you keep it all) AND have a happier customer because they get it instantly.

3. That you continue to serve your customer with additional help and products. When someone buys from our company, they are put into a system where we continue to send them useful information, updates, interviews (many at no charge), and then when we have a new product to release, the customer is happy to buy from us. It is the close relationship of having someone buy your ebook online that allows you to keep this close relationship with your reader - something that is much harder to do for authors that write books in bookstores.

Some have tried to drive their customers back to websites for tools, seminars, or updates, but only a small fraction ever come back.

Hope that helps...

Jeff