Creating an e-Book using only images in a pdf...

I don't think it's worth going thru all of the effort to protect your stuff. The fact is no matter what you do those that want to steal from you will.

But here's the thing. You have to step back and think about it for a minute, you're likely not losing anything from it. Here's what I mean.

The people that will download your PDF for free from a hacker site, etc... would NEVER HAVE BOUGHT it from you anyway. They're hackers by nature and that's not gonna change.

How much are you really prepared to spend in legal fees going after them?

We do a lot of digital products as well and it's annoying to see people rip you off - I know - but I think you just have to move beyond it and not let that be a reason to slow down your efforts. The time you waste on that is just time that could have been put to better use finding JV's and promoting your product.

Won't stop someone from printing it out and then scanning it in using OCR software. Then saving a clean copy to distribute. Also if you disable printing they will just use screen capture to grab it.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

Every system you can devise or purchase can also be hacked. That is the nature of hacking. If you don't believe me, look at DVD's. You think they've not invested millions trying to keep people from copying them?

You can't fix a social problem with a technical solution. Hackers and thieves enjoy "the hunt" - the thrill of cracking a program. It's just not worth your effort or time to try and stop it - just focus on selling more, it's far more productive...

I agree with Troy. Unfortunately, some people are going to pirate your ebook. However, don't let that stop you from publishing your ebook, as most people are honest and willing to pay for the information. All you can do is to place a legal statement in your ebook that tells the reader that redistribution of your material is prohibited.

I am thinking about the same method as you. A watermark is necessary! Using some software to do that.

Talltom, that's a lot of work for potentially no gain. As Dan pointed out, it will also most likely increase the file size considerably.

I seriously doubt doing that would improve you profits. If you consider the time lost to do it, you could probably make a case that doing so will cost you money. You could have been working on promoting it or your next product.

If you create a product that you know is going to get distributed by a small percentage of people, you have two options (besides creating yourself all that work):

-Forget about it. It'll happen anyway, and the people downloading your stuff probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. Free advertising, sort of.

-Use it! You know it'll get distributed so take advantage. Create a second version of your product but FULL of affiliate links and stuff (or some other method), then distribute it yourself.

I think the big point that is being missed is that yes it will be copied, but you're not going to lose sales because of that.

The people that go into black hat forums and piracy forums to download illegally copied eBooks would NEVER have considered buying it - it's a different crowd... They probably are just downloading out of curiosity because it's a "free" (hacked) download.

This just becomes one of the many "busy work" tasks that so many people get bogged down with and all it really does is prevent you from making money by wasting time on something you simply cannot control.

Successful marketers know that this is part of the price of doing business online.

There are many ways to get access to the protected ebooks. You invent something new and they improve their method to cracking it. You must go ahead in publishing your book without doing anything different... a sincere reader will never try to find unethical ways to get access to your books and those will be the readers who benefited from your book.

Personally, when I read eBooks I like to highlight the text while I'm reading and I wouldn't really want images.

And I also believe it's not really worth it.
Look at the big guys - Frank Kern, Eben Pagan, Jeff Walker and everyone else get ripped off big time.
Their $1997 products are probably available for free download somewhere on the net. Just a few days ago someone added me on Skype and offered to sell 6 of these courses for $500.

In short - you might make a few more sales, but it's definitely not worth your trouble.

And you're not alone. Everybody else's content gets stolen as well. If nobody else worries - neither should you.

Let's say you watermark it with a serial for every purchaser. You know who spread your ebook to the pirates. Now what? Are you going to prosecute them?

Copying is something that you cannot prevent no matter what you do.

A person intent on copying your product will go to the extent of typing out every word and copying out every image you have by taking a print screen.

Yet on the other hand people who wanted to show the product to their friends to recommend it face difficulties. i have recommended products to my friends and they bought it because they were good.

Take some time to think about the products you buy, especially those from Apple. would you accept a fake? or would you want to get the real thing?

Anyway most of the information that you have will probably be available online somewhere. Are you going to go after the people who copied your product?

right at the end, think about the time you are going to spend protecting your product, and also in the end going after the people who copy legally. The time could probably be spent creating another great and exciting product!

Of course there are people who protect their products. These are the big names like microsoft and sony entertainment. But they dont go after a single individual because it is not worth their time. They go after organisations, i know because my organisation was approached before. it is more cost effective and they are able to claim more money.

That said, consider protection after you are already making a million bucks per year.