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Is it a good idea to post entire contents of ebook for sale?

by teckcrew1
5 replies
Hello,

My wife has written a great self help book for women. It's a small paperback book that she wrote about 5 years ago. Unfortunately we have had so many other projects that her book always seems to get the back burner .


We did put it on her site about 6 months ago as both an ebook and as a nook book. We have seen very little activity.

We asked half a dozen people in her target market and they told us they would much rather read a real book, not an ebook or nook nook.

We have discussed several times a few options:

1. Hire a dedicated book agent to get the book out.
2. Put more add energy into marketing the book online until it is successful.
3. Copy the entire contents of the book (in an organized fashion) and make money from adsense and start to pick up affiliates.

My question is how well would option #3 work and overall is this a good approach to kick start a really good book into some sales? Obviously this would mean we don't sell the ebook anymore, since it is 100% free with the contents as the contents of a website.

Your ideas are appreciated.
Clint
#adsense #contents #ebook #entire #good #idea #marketing #post #sale #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Alexandru
    Hey Clint,

    I didn't really work with AdSense that much, so I can't say for sure, but I can tell you what I would do...

    I would start building an email list on the topic of self-help and then through an autoresponder I would sell the book.

    You can use Vervante. They print and send on demand, so there are no additional costs for you. Whenever an order is made - they get it, print the book and send it.

    You could also create a video product out of it. You will provide a greater value for their buck and you'll also be able to charge more. The video product can be delivered both online and as a physical product. Vervante does DVD as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by teckcrew1 View Post

    3. Copy the entire contents of the book (in an organized fashion) and make money from adsense and start to pick up affiliates.

    My question is how well would option #3 work and overall is this a good approach to kick start a really good book into some sales? Obviously this would mean we don't sell the ebook anymore
    Affiliates for what, then, if you won't be selling the book any more?

    Have you thought about self-publishing through Create Space and selling the book on Amazon and elsewhere? (And/or even possibly a "Kindle" version?).
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  • Profile picture of the author Don Schenk
    Aleandru hit the nail on the head with his suggestion to develope a list of people in the market for that type of book.

    I know nothing about vervante. There are vanity publishers out there, and you want to avoid them because they add way too much markup and charge you too much to purchase your own books.

    A friend of mine is using LuLu, and they are charging him $17 per book to print a 250 hard back book. The same thing at LSI (Lightning Source, Inc) or at Amazon's Createspace is about $10 less per book! And LuLu uses LSI as their printer.

    In the main forum, at the top right-hand side is a search button. Search for Createspace, LSI, and Kindle. There has been much discussion about this.

    Also go to lightning source (dot) com and noodle around their site for a while. LSI is owned by Ingram, the largest book distributor in the US. LSI also has printing facilities in England and Australia. Amazon's Createspace has multiple printing facilities too.

    Just putting a book on Nook or Kindle, and even Amazon does not mean it will sell. You have to promote it.

    :-Don
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  • Profile picture of the author Nithiyaah
    Well, I will definitely will say 'no' for it. But I think I will turn all the content into video tutorials so that people can watch and learn from it. Nowadays, ebook is no more the trend. If you have the money and time, why don't you have a look at Amazon or any other services that can provide your physical book.

    Or as suggested by Alexa, why don't you try out the kindle version? I think it has more values rather than pasting it into a webpage. Once you're done with your physical book, write up few articles and submit it to ezinearticles.com and in the author's resource box just give out your website address where you're selling the book. You also can try out with the ebook version too. So you will have a better idea whether it is working for you or not.

    It is also advisable to have your very own list of subscribers who are interested in your niche. So that you can do some follow up and you also could sell your ebook and any other related products to your list. Hope this helps you.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Eddie
    It looks like you need to work on driving more traffic to her site.

    I would keep the book as a product to sell. If she writes more quality articles for her site in keeping with the theme of her book, and then you look to get them syndicated on various ezines, blogs and relevant websites, you should be able to get an increase of visitors to the site who are interested in the topic and in her writing and what she has to say.

    That's just one idea to increase traffic, but i think you'd certainly stand a good chance of starting to make more sales by doing it.
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