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Ebooks or Saas?

by wakizashi99
7 replies
Hi, I have some great unique content I've put together for a certain niche, but I am torn between going with an ebook, or would it be better to go with Software as a service (Saas) and present it more as a training course?

I think the information is valuable and the target market is affluent enough to spend whatever it takes but am concerned what the price ceiling is on a simple ebook?

I guess this is a 2 part question;

Whats the price ceiling for an ebook? Can you sell it for $500+?

Would it be better to get it chunked up and put into a Software as a service model? If so how much would it cost to go down that path and what could one expect to charge?

Will be extremely appreciative of any responses/thoughts

cheers
#ebooks #saas
  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    Originally Posted by wakizashi99 View Post

    Hi, I have some great unique content I've put together for a certain niche, but I am torn between going with an ebook, or would it be better to go with Software as a service (Saas) and present it more as a training course?
    If you know your target market, ask yourself in what format your information would be most useful to them. They may be affluent, but are they tech-savvy?

    You don't say what your info is, but it might lend itself to other formats, such as hard copy, video, audio books etc. In general, I'd be governed by the format's usefulness to/acceptance by my potential customers, rather than the maximum price I could charge for an eBook.


    Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author wakizashi99
    Thanks Frank, that is some good insight, I feel that Saas would probably be better or maybe a paid subscriber site with useful free content to draw leads in with the juicy content behind a pay wall.

    Just a bit worried about the time/effort/cost to develop.

    Would trialling it as an ebook work then moving to paid subscriber/Saas down the track once making some sales?

    Or would that be counter productive?
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  • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
    Originally Posted by wakizashi99 View Post

    the target market is affluent enough to spend whatever it takes
    Then there should be an existing market for this. What format is similar priced material in?
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    • Profile picture of the author wakizashi99
      Good point, I guess similar value products probably have more video based content eg interviews with industry etc.

      That's some good food for thought although Im not sure around my ability to put video content together. Maybe I need to have a combo of both.

      Although industry Im targeting regularly pays prices like 500+ for a report on consumer trends in a category etc. Maybe I could put it together in a similar format to one of these reports, with some bonus interviews from people in the industry answering the questions target market want to know.
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  • Profile picture of the author nicogrim
    I would go for the training course. Maybe you can setup an weekly training webinar. When you do it right you've got customers for live!
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
    I specialize in E-Books, but, as someone mentioned, the choice really depends on how your target audience prefers information to be disseminated. I will say, though, training courses have spiked lately in popularity, and their prices are on average higher than E-Books.
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  • Profile picture of the author rodrigofuentes
    Hi wakizashi99, I highly recommend you setup a landing page for your eBook content and sign-up for gumroad.com. That software will help you setup a transaction page for your eBook and test whether there's even demand for your content.

    If there is demand, then you can decide later on if you should capture more value through a SaaS product, rather than an eBook.
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