Ebook help,thoughts

The only problem I see here is the fact that many tourists pick up the free leaflets in the racks in hotel lobbies that will give them places to go, eat etc.

I think i have only ever bought 2 guides and they were physical guides for New York and San Fran.

You have got to ask yourself whether there will be hungry buyers for this sort of info, and my doubt is that there is - but not the paying type.

My idea was to set up site where they can buy before they come downloadable or emailed.Another idea was just to give away and have the business I focus on may pay to have them listed.

I think it's a good idea for a free ebook. People often search for economical places to stay before going on a trip. You could even rank for the year, as so much information is outdated and this kind of thing has to be timely. Something like "Cheap places to stay in New York 2013" (or wherever). Then you could monetize the site in other ways, or have another travel related product to sell them.

It's a good idea and if the book sells well, you could also create an iPhone app with the information as well.

Just sent you a PM

Virtualghost,

I think you have a very innovative and useful idea. You have been given some good advice for ebook services so I wanted to point out a way that you could market your title on social media. You could create a business page on facebook modeled after the tourist town that you live in. I know the town may already have a Facebook page however you could create another one using a different theme and name. For example the State of Michigan has its own page but then there are dozens of other pages that are modeled after the state and its pride and those have a lot of followers too.

You could then set up an app to download the guide right from your page or have links posted to it. This page and any other social profiles could also be tied to the website you are planning on building for the book.

Here is also a list of free sites to promote your ebook,

Free Sites to Promote Your eBook - GalleyCat

Best,

Shawn

Build a website for it, build a community of people, get the conversation going. Give away the eBook free and sell the advertising in it.

I think your problem is going to be how you will sell it. You'd need something pretty special, otherwise you can generally get the same information from the free leaflets.

If you created a travel site, and sold them for a lot of different places - that would work. I have bought guides like that before.

The other thing may be, you'd probably have to have physical products, unless you can find somewhere like a hotel, and get on their site, then you might be able to do it.

The cheaper prices could work, for sure, but you'd need to make people aware that they're potentially going to get ripped off, so that they know to see you...

I think your idea is great, but only newbie traveler will buy it, while other experienced traveler is certainly skip your offer. but still, there is a market for your product. I suggest you to promote your product by using tumblr site, where people can see directly about your recommended place. people in tumblr are crazy about exotic and unique place photos. I think you can reach your targeted audience this way.

"I think your problem is going to be how you will sell it. You'd need something pretty special, otherwise you can generally get the same information from the free leaflets."

The only leaflets that you get are ones for tourist area not the places I would be recommending off the beaten track.As for example some of the nicest places to eat are mom and pop places,or places that don't think to advertise to tourist example a local market where campers/tourist can get fresh vegetables,meet,all there groceries in one spot.
The leaflets you get after you have booked your expensive room for a week.
Tell you where I live you can google till hearts content see if you can find the places where we locals eat,shop,visit.
Niagara Falls Ontario Canada
I challenge anyone to find the info online.I know there is a few local warriors on here who could find them but by their name but you don't know them as a visitor or know what I am saying.

It is a bigger project, but this seems more suited to a "portal-type" site to me. You can start the site with just one town, however the larger concept of the "where locals go" travel site seems like a better concept to me. More work yes, but I'd venture that someone else reading this thread is going to now launch that, if you don't...

Even better - get a decent video camera and/or camera and SHOW them the top, off-the-beaten-path, spots in your town. You will have to test if the real demand is to save money or to experience a "different" vacation so they can share this with others.

I have done a fair amount of travel and I can tell you that many people thrive on finding THE out-of-the-way, authentic place that they can brag to everyone about after they return instead of seeing the same-old, same-old. So you may want to test that angle as well.

What I would do is start a blog, setup some posts on top 5 (or whatever) best, unknown restaurants, top 10 best unknown shopping gems, top 10 best unknown museums/artsy places, etc...

This will pull in traffic for you...then you can spin off products like ebooks, video membership site they can subscribe to for a one-time $$ amount, perhaps even some sort of discount offer that you work out with the business in exchange for introducing new customers to their establishments where you get a % of that too.

I would go ahead and get moving on the blog to get it all rolling first.

Next question you will probably have is "but what will I sell if I give the tips away on a blog" - two answers here 1) You don't give ALL the tips, only some to get your traffic and customers and 2) Even then there have been many blogs I have worked with that build loyal followings and then, over time (say 1-year) collate their blog posts into ebooks and sell them on specific topics...their readers already love them and appreciated that they can get organized information in each ebook.

Jeff