Why You Need To Sell Ebooks, Instead of Online Courses?

I could not agree more thats where I made my start easy pekinese!

It is really simple to understand CityCowBoy. Because when you have a ebook you can read it whenever or where ever you are in. Either it's on a remote village of Nepal where you will lack good internet connection to NY City. People are interested learning, so an ebook can be available to people anywhere. I can share an ebook i bought with my friend, but i may not want to give the online credentials of an online course to my friend.

Hope you understand what i mean.

There's a world of difference in the purpose of a free report vs a full-length book.

Typically, a free report used as a lead magnet for your squeeze page serves the purpose of providing immediate gratification (among other purposes) to the person who opted-in for it.

In many cases, people are looking for a solution and if you can provide genuinely helpful information with less words, a short report works just fine or even better than a long ebook.

As for my personal taste in books, I generally prefer to read concise informational books while I usually prefer longer books if they're fiction.

But hey, that's just me.

Figure out what your audience wants, and see if you can deliver something they'll appreciate in just a few pages... then you'll know if a short report is worth it.

Daniel

Here's one more interesting fact. If your free report had 100 pages nobody would probably reach to the end of the report to see the main call to action.

So the goal is to give people away something that they can use or learn from immediately.

I don't know how you monetize the free reports that you give away, but in my opinion that's just a way to present yourself to your readers and show them who you are, build a relationship with them and make sure you let them know that they'll keep on receiving more awesome content from you via email.

If you don't explain it to them clearly, how do you expect them to follow you and open your emails that you send out without you setting their expectations in the first place?

How do you expect to sell a product to them via email if you don't teach them to open your emails in the first place?

No wonder why so many people get 5-10% email open rates on their autoresponders and keep on bragging about it.

Anyway...

The last time I checked, nobody was selling a $497 ebook. But on the other hand, you'll find a plenty of video courses or coaching programs that sell for that or much more.

Sure, you might only see what the statistics say, but it's obvious that you've never actually made money from selling digital products.

I'm not saying that ebooks don't sell well, they do.

But that's why they start at the beginning of a sales funnel.

$9.97 ebook -> $47 video course -> $497 coaching -> $1,997 god knows what.

You see how people make it big while selling a $10 ebook?

They have a powerful funnel that keeps on delivering more value to their buyers.

Maybe you should have one too.

It seems to me that the internet and youtube didn't exist for that period of time.


But the number of youtube users continues to increase. Did you ever think that might have something to do with it?

A lot of online courses can be bypassed just by watching free videos on a subject.

Whilst I believe everyone should publish a book (helps massively with positioning), you can charge a lot more for online courses, because they're of much higher perceived value (even if we know they're not).

What my eyes read in the title is should I have a peanut butter sandwich or jelly sandwich?

Why not do both! It's Yummy.

Sell eBooks and sell a course. Sell an eBook to promote a course! Promote your next eBook inside your course. Create a course on selling eBooks!

That is what is so cool about being entrepreneur marketers we are free to try it all.

Art

I personally prefer an online course over an ebook because I'm a visual learner. And sometimes I'm just too lazy to read stuff. Furthermore, I'd never write over 100 pages for a free report. I wouldn't even read a free report with that many pages myself. I think it all depends on who your audience is and how they enjoy learning. Finding out what their communication preference is will save you a whole lot of time and energy.

One of the issues I had when I create video courses, it's necessity to update the videos.

Sometimes the video have great evergreen value but aweber website change (just an example). They changes 3 times since I create the video and people start complain the screen it's not as the video shows, but if I take images and put them on a eBook this is not an issue.

Can you please provide a source for this factoid?

Marcia Yudkin

No, not really. That's the format that man had available at the time to collect, record, and distribute important information.

I really enjoy informative, "how to" ebooks. I can print them out, make notes next to important items, put them in storage or on a device or computer for later reference, etc.

Sometimes videos are great for technical tasks, but often they are not if you can't navigate around, highlight certain things, quickly move to a particular spot, etc.

Steve

About ebook - today, many people just want to carry one thing instead of carrying many things. They do not want to carry a lot of books, they just want to read it online.

There is a market for online courses and there is a market for ebooks. You need to deliver the information you're going to sell in different formats because people learn in different ways. I don't think it has anything to do with the formatting of the info but that your actual info is valuable.

Its very logical that having everything on ebook is the easiest way to channel the information that you want to share, easy to access and internet is the trend now! specially if it is something that can be share to all social media!!! I couldn't agree more

You guys make a really good point.

I am sharing this link not because it's for my own promotion, it has nothing to do with me or anything I'll benefit from I just found it to be a good article that chimes with the topic you're speaking on.

10 Mistakes I Made Publishing My eBook, and How You Can Do it Better
10 Mistakes I Made Publishing My eBook, and How You Can Do it Better

When does it make sense to sell your self-published book on Amazon, and when should you forego the giant and sell on your own website?

Yowza... Lot's of strange thinking in this thread, it seems to me.

However big or small a market may be is far less important than whether you can position yourself to make money.

When Frank Kern launches an "Online Course" at $1997 a pop, limited to 1000 customers, sells 300 in the first hour and sells out in 12 hours, I doubt he's worrying whether or not ebooks sell better...

For me, that undermines the credibility of your entire argument. I do not believe that this is true.

You need to provide evidence for it.

Marcia Yudkin

E-books these days read more like quick e-reports on a certain industry...I wish they were more informative than a bunch of pages with vague bullet points as they often end up being lol However, I am far more likely to download something labeled an e-book rather than an ad report etc. I really do think e-books convert more people than any other system so there ya go

Of course, more people are reading electronic version of books in print they would have invested in the past...this is fiction and non-fiction by the way, so for those who see this overall number as achievable for non-fiction e-book need to take this into account. Your facts on online courses decreasing every year is not accurate - growth of e-learning (aka online courses) is in the 20% range starting from a much larger base of somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$60 Billion depending on which analyst you want to believe. There is a place for e-books, and online courses in any digital product publisher's portfolio - to stick with just one or the other would be short-sighted. In any case, structuring your e-books in a "course-like" format is extremely powerful where your e-book can delivery transformational methods instead of just information makes them much better sellers (in non-fiction realm of course)

Ebook is entry level, course is next level.. Try to get a grand or two for an ebook (good luck with that).

A lot of people are making money selling ebooks, from the other side, a lot of people are making money on Udemy.
Sometimes I need a book to read, sometimes I want to spend a few hours watching online course on Udemy.
YouTube is another way to learn something new.
I wouldn't say that ebooks are better or worse than online course. They are a bit different way to get information.

Thanks for the post. One question I have for everyone, do you recommend a particular source (such as Amazon, ClickBank, etc)? And does anyone recommend just selling the eBook through your own site not using any source (other than an e-delivery system)? I'm doing the latter now; granted, I only make a couple sales a week and wondering if it would have a better chance on some platform. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

In response to both tntatro and flexworth...here is my experience on platforms.

Kindle is good for markets where you have a very broad audience and where your product is meant to get attention AND can fit within the parameters of Kindle pricing norms.

For example, let's say you have a membership site around weight loss and you want to get added attention as well as an entry-level product to bring initial buyers into your sales funnel - then a 50-60 page ebook on Kindle priced at $5 or under would be a great way to do that...assuming you promote your back-end offer inside the ebook

However, if you are putting together a training guidebook that includes lessons, exercises, meal plans, illustrations and perhaps a link back to some video training sessions that you want to sell for $47, $67 or even $97 - then Kindle is not the correct platform.

What you want there is something like Clickbank or Ejunkie or even a shoppingcart service like 1SC with a link to payment systems such as Paypal or 2CO

In short, Kindle is a good place to hit wide markets, get attention, set some branding and sell an entry-level product - but you should also try and get those customers back to your site and at least on a list if not buying higher-end, back-end offerings from you.

I've been thinking of writing an eBook lately too. It seems like the next logical step from blogging. The hard part for me is doing the research and actually sitting down to write it.

Just finished a podcast this morning (will be released later in the week) with a blogger who has spun 4 books from her blog over the last couple of years. She uses her blog posts to find the posts with the most interest, then pulls the top blog posts around that topic as a starting point for her book - then fills in the rest with additional research, exercises/lessons, stories/case studies and in some cases, interviews with a few additional experts to add to her own material. Chances are you can do the same by leveraging your blog content and spinning book off from there where you already get 25-50% of content from blog.

I know several other big name on-line bloggers doing the same thing. Their audiences appreciate the targeted nature of the e-books - even if they may have read a blog post on the topic months ago - having the e-book organized and augment the blog content is a winning formula.

Interesting perspectives. I personally believe there will always be different and profitable markets for different types of information products. The "demand" will always be driven by the demographic that we serve. If you listen to Amazon's Audible marketing you'll be led to believe that audio-books have been and will continue to rise in dominance - same thing if you listen to YouTube focused information providers.

As an owner of an online course establishment and a number of online educational academies I agree ebooks have their place, however don't agree that ebooks are the "thing" to focus on because they seem to be more appealing.

I do agree that they should be a part of offerings for Inforpreneurs and Information Marketers though.

Regards,

Bayo

I have a 500 GB ebooks collection. Could anyone tell me how to start with this?

Thank you kindly for this very useful information. I will now go off and review all those notes I have made on eBooks that I have never got round to writing!

I think courses can sell for higher prices than ebooks- you will make a good living build an online business or not?

Ebooks- I like it you can use it to get lead magnets (subscribers to give it for free).

But the other side is, have a good writer and let them write 100 pages with 500 words each- this ebook will cost you min.$400- $600 , expensive is it not? And then sell this ebook like Bob Bly for $30?

So depend on how big you list is, when you have a small list say 1000 subscribers and make 100 sales- you make $3000 in month with this ebook.
And after then it stops? The next months $3000 in sales again or not?

When the sales stops after 1 month so you have make one time $3000 and you need that money to create a product with higher price and invest it to grow your list.

So problem is make sales every month to build an online business and make good living from, so that is the point where I be little bit sceptic of selling ebooks.
To make a good living, build a business, you must make sales in the $300.000 /year or higher income range and that is in my eyes no possible with selling ebooks.

marco005

I hope everyone reading this thread will learn to be skeptical of "facts" that have no source.

Here are some reports that show that online education is still definitely growing:
https://campustechnology.com/article...ts-ascent.aspx
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/02/06/914187/0/en/Global-E-Learning-Market-to-Reach-325-billion-by-2025-Rapid-Growth-in-Online-Content-Digitization-Innovations-in-Wearable-Technologies-are-Flourishing-the-E-learning-Industry.html

Udemy now has 17 million students (https://about.udemy.com/press-releas...tity-and-logo/)

In December 2014, they had just 5 million students (https://about.udemy.com/press-releas...tity-and-logo/)

Sounds like growth to me.

Marcia Yudkin

I still start all of my products with either an ebook or manual/workbook and then typically re-purpose those into a full-blown course, a seminar/powerpoint program (for webinars or seminars); and sometimes evolve that into a membership program using the ebook and course as key content using the membership to structure ongoing updates/communities and other related resources.

Over time, these can be combined into larger bundles which serve as higher-end products and can also be blown out into group or 1:1 coaching programs (where the products serve as the content basis + weekly/bi-weekly personal touch via coaching (don't do as much of this anymore..but still have a couple going)

Still like to start with that intro product , use that to get initial leverage in the market and then build out product strategies from there

Still think people like Video on the whole...much better

This is an old thread of unsubstantiated claims. The advice below makes no sense:

Everything I have tested suggests that squeeze page freebies should be short, quickly digested, without fluff or filler, and leaving the prospect wanting more - not trying to solve every problem in the niche.

And as far as ebooks vs. online courses . . . as always, you should test and track results - different mediums shine with different niches and audiences - no "one size fits all" is appropriate in IM.

Steve

You can do both.
Sell an ebook, but have an upsell of the videos course of that same book.
Each video is a chapter in the book.
I've done this and it works really well.
And online courses also sell well - there will always be buyers.

There are things that you're not taking into account.

Yes, my free eBook is 81 pages. I do that for a reason.

The people that read it convert better for my other products later in my funnel.

My 1st product is a traffic course that teaches so much about getting great traffic that even people who many call gurus say it's insane.

That's a 7 week course and only sells for $47

Then my main product is $1,997 and is an 8 week course that truly delivers one of the best and surest methods to earning 6 and 7 figures.

The nice thing is, you can do it while traveling the world.

So, the thing that you're missing is that online courses can deliver great value!!!

An eBook couldn't come close to containing what my traffic course does, let alone my main course.

Just food for thought.

My experience with ebooks has been mixed. I have a site loaded with ebooks for a few dollars and my sales have been negligible. I have also added free ebooks to my Twitter feed and there has been very little interest.

I gotten some fair results with solo ads and other paid advertising. Good for list building. I also incorporate advertisements to the PDF which can reap rewards as well. Proper targeting seems to be the key and the most focused method for me seems to be PPC.

I personally love to create online courses, and publish books also.

Want a massive (elite) secret?

Why not take your awesome e-book, and then simply turn it into an awesome course?

Often times, both mediums may contain the exact same content. Why not stretch your ideas so that they may impact the world maximally?

Feast from the opportunity of both worlds, is what I say.

Wishing you the best!