July 19, 2009
I have two books that, I believe, are in such small niches that were either book to be posted in a web forum, my sales would plummet to almost nothing. Both books have about one or two websites devoted to the topic and any leakage of my EBook to those sites would certainly cause me financial harm.
On the other hand, I also am a firm believer in getting your books out to as many people as possible to help follow-on sales, however the books I’m selling can’t have follow-on products or services. It’s just the information that people need. I put it all in there, and I’ve decided to use password protection to attempt to keep my books off the forum pages.
Here’s how I set up password protection for my PDF Ebooks
1. I use Open Office to create my PDF files, so start by opening up your Open Office file.
2. When you’re going to create your PDF (see how this is done at Create my PDF EBook), choose the Security tab once you are taken to the Options Screen.
3. Click on “Set Open Password” to reach the dialogue box shown above. Enter a password twice to create a prompt when the PDF file is opened.
I choose to make my password attributable to the customer who bought my EBooks. So I will put their email address and/or name as the password. That way it’s easy for them to remember the password, however it’s also difficult for them to post the book online without identifying who’s violating my copyright.
4. If you want, you can “Set Permission Password” which will restrict how people can copy/paste the information in your book. If, for some reason, you don’t want your customers to be able to copy your text, set this password as well. Obviously set it different than the open password!
5. After creating the PDF book, verify that the password works by double-clicking the PDF file and typing in your password. If it works, your ebook should open right up!
And, as promised, I had another Michelob Ultra for this post. And here she is!
Till Next Time!
July 19, 2009
Some numbers, controversy, and success from Parrot Secrets
From time to time, one runs across an interesting story about Internet Marketing (of which EBook publishing is a subset of) that actually provides some background and understanding to an EBook success story. Parrot Secrets- a website run supposedly by an Indian who has answers for pesky Parrot issues – was one such success story that showed up on the web a few months ago. It took me a while to actually post about it, however I do think it should be brought up here in this forum as an example of one type of success.
Additionally, you should look at the variety of commentary responses to this story. Many people were simply outraged that this product had done so well under what they believe are false statements of attribution. These, of course, are questions to answer on your own between you, your ethics committee, and possibly your shrink. But this article does bring out quite a few viewpoints on the validity of the success of this product that I believe should be part of the E-Book discussion realm.
First, take a look at the main Parrot Secrets site to see what it’s all about and how it’s put together as a product/service.
Parrot Secrets Website
Next, read Mr. Cringely’s initial review from March 2009 on Parrot Secret’s Success
Parrot Secrets Review
Finally, read Mr. Cringely’s follow-up article based on the ire it drew from countless readers of his blog.
Bowling for Dollars – Parrot Secrets
Regardless of your opinion on Parrot Secret’s success, it does show a few things that we all need to keep in mind as we slave over our books.
- Potential
- Focus
- Specialization
- Monetizing the depth within your Niche
I hope this quick post gave you a few ideas and thoughts about the potential to expand your market and/or delve deeper into other revenue generating options in your current offerings.
July 19, 2009
One of the better free ways to create a PDF Ebook
One of the challenges of creating E-Books is creating quality, free PDF’s of your Ebooks. Lucky for us, there’s a free open source solution, called Open Office.
Open Office is a Microsoft Office competitor that is completely free and quite capable of doing everything we need to write and create PDF files to sell as E-Books. In fact, if you’ve written your EBooks in Word, Open Office can view and create PDF’s from the Word document without any trouble at all! Now that’s what I like to hear!
Here’s how to create quality PDF’s using Open Office:
1. Download the Open Office suite. (It’s available in Windows, Mac, and many flavors of Unix)
2. Install the suite of tools on your computer. You can customize the install and only install the “Writer” if you’re concerned about using too much space on your hard drive.
The installer will take you through the steps, which is essentially just a few questions regarding registration.
3. If you have already written your e-book in a Microsoft Word document, don’t worry, Open Office can read and edit .doc/.docx files natively.
4. Open your document (or just a blank page to test the software) in Open Office.
Now…here comes the magic!!!!
5. Select File/ “Export as PDF” (ShaZaam!!!)
6. A PDF Options screen will open, and you can change some of these options if you need to for your free ebook. Typically, I leave them all at their default settings. However, you should always check that your links and any active images that you have in your file actually work in the new PDF file. If they don’t, these options may need to be changed.
7. When you’re done with the options, click Export. Voila! Now, you can save the e-book as a PDF file on your computer.
8. Double check your new PDF file for integrity. Open it up, verify all your links and dynamic content work correctly. Can you control-click on hyperlinks and have them open a web browser? If everything seems to work, guess what, you’re done!!!
That was easy, huh? Instead of spending a few hundred bucks on Adobe products, you just saved yourself a ton of time, learning, and money. Plus you’ve got a solid, quality product that you can now sell.
BONUS: I’m starting a new addition to this instructional “How to Write, Publish, and Sell Ebooks” site. Since I’m typically havin’ a fresh brew while I’m typing, I’m going to always include a picture of my drink for your viewing pleasure. Here’s the scene where I happen to be today. It’s a Michelob Ultra for now…I’m watchin’ my weight. What…you don’t believe me?
Ummm, that looks good, I’ll have another…See you next time! ! !
March 15, 2009
Mechanics of Charging and Delivering Digital Products – Part II
If you haven’t read Part I yet, go to Setting up Google Checkout to Sell EBooks first.
How to Use E-Junkie to Sell EBooks
Have you noticed how hard it is to find information on How to Sell EBooks online? By that, I mean, how do you physically collect the money and provide the product? That’s what this two-part blog post is trying to shed some light upon.
When you sell an EBook online, you need to do two things to sell the book.
- Process a credit card to receive payment and verify the buyer is legitimate (Part I – Google Checkout)
- Have some service that automatically sends the product to the recipient (Part II -E-Junkie)
The goal is to not be involved in this process at all!!!
This is part 2 of the simple, must-have mechanics of how to sell EBooks online. Part One is about Setting up Google Checkout to Sell EBooks. You should read that first, and then come back to How to Use E-Junkie to Sell EBooks.
Setting up E-Junkie with Google Checkout to Sell EBooks
Let’s get this done so we can have an operating ‘EBook store’ running in no time.
Why E-Junkie for online EBooks?
It’s pretty simple really, E-Junkie works the best, is the most intuitive, and doesn’t charge much at all for its services. It only costs $5 a month to have up to 10 digital products for sale on E-Junkie. What does Clickbank charge for its (much inferior service) service? $50, just to start! That’s before they even do anything for you. Ok, enough trashing of Clickbank. Let’s move on…
I’ve used a few different digital download content providers, and E-Junkie is by far the best solution. In fact, the others weren’t solutions, they didn’t do everything I wanted them to do and I kept looking around until I found E-Junkie.
Step One: How to Set Up E-Junkie to Sell EBooks
- Sign up for their free 1-week trial at http://www.e-junkie.com
- In the Seller Admin screen, click on “Manage your Seller Account” and “Edit Profile”
- Under the Edit Profile, we need to fill in a few values.
Login Email : This should be filled in as the email you used to log into the account.- Display Name : This should match the “Credit Card Statement Name” you chose for your Google Checkout account.
- Display Email : This will be the email address that everyone sees and uses. So try and make it an account you actually check! ( I say this only cause I’ve done that before… )
- Password: Try something that’s not “passw0rd” or “1234″ please!
Good news, we’re done with E-Junkie for now! Well done (a good time to take a drink if you got one!)
Step Two: How to Set Up E-Junkie to Work with Google Checkout
- Ok, first, you need a Google Checkout account. If you don’t have one, go sign up for your own Google Checkout account.
- Then , once that account is set up, log in and go to Settings > Integration.
- Once there, copy your Merchant ID and Merchant Key onto a scratchpad, as you’re going to need them for E-junkie’s site.
- Enter https://www.e-junkie.com/gc/ResponseHandler.php in the “API callback URL” field
- Select “XML” as your “call Back Method”.
- Make sure you Save these settings!
See below for a properly filled out screen: 
- Now go to Settings -> Preferences in your Google Checkout account.
- Check “Automatically authorize the buyer’s credit card for the full amount of the order” under Order Processing Preferences. This will…well, automatically charge the customers credit card AFTER Google verifies that it’s a legit card. This way, we know we’re getting paid BEFORE we have E-Junkie create a download link and deliver our materials.
Step Three: Now go back to your E-Junkie Account…
1. Enter your Google Checkout Merchant ID and Merchant Key (from above) in your E-junkie profile. (Remember, you can find it under “Edit Profile” on the main screen, Step One #3)
2. Sweet, we’re all set to add Buy Now buttons and/or Shopping Carts to our webpage!
3. Go back to the Seller Admin, and click on “Get Buy Now / Carts”
4. This is pretty easy, just pick the type of code you want. Paste it right where you want it in your web page.
- You may want to center the Buy Now buttons or adjust the placement of them in your site. One of mine looks like this:
Guess what, you’re integrated! I suggest really testing the Buy Now buttons, or even get a friend to buy a product through your system. (E-Junkie and Google won’t let you buy from yourself…grrr!) And when they ask if you’ll pay them back, say “Heck no! You’re getting a good quality product and I gave you a beer last Friday, so we’re even now!”
That’s a ton of work we just did. I’m thinkin’ 24-pack and blocking out the next 24 hours of my life to celebrate our success!
Congratulations!
February 22, 2009
Mechanics of Charging and Delivering Digital Products – Part I
If you have read Part I, please proceed to Part II on How to Use E-Junkie to Sell EBooks.
How To Use Google Checkout To Sell EBooks
Have you noticed that it’s a little confusing to learn just exactly how you sell an EBook online?
When you sell an EBook online, you want to do a few things really, if you ask me.
- Process a credit card to receive payment and verify the buyer is legitimate (Google Checkout)
- Have some service that automatically sends the product to the recipient (E-Junkie)
The goal is to not be involved in this process at all!!!
That shouldn’t really be too hard. And it isn’t, but I haven’t found anyone that’s outlined how to do this so far, so that’s what I’m going to do here.
By the way, I’ve seen some people recommend getting a business Merchant account, possibly with Paypal, to process credit cards. Well, if you’re incorporating that’s a possibility, but even if you incorporate, you can use your EIN to open a Google Checkout account to take advantage of the benefits. Merchant accounts are a hassle, expensive, and complete overkill for selling digital products, if you ask me.
The Two Step Process to Selling Ebooks Online
In this article I’m going to take care of Step Number 1, the processing of the Credit Card order. Step two, delivering the EBook to the buyer will be covered in How to Use E-Junkie to Sell Ebooks.
I have used the three credit card processing options that are the most popular, Clickbank, Paypal, and Google. I settled on using Google Checkout for five reasons:
- Ease of Use, as in, it’s incredibly easy. It’s all they do, compared to Paypal and Clickbank who spend 90% of their time trying to upsell you for unnecessary services.
- Lowest Transaction Cost (.20 + 2%, verses Clickbank at $1 +7% and Paypal at 2.9% + $0.30 US. (Note : These fees change slightly in May 2009, see Google Fees)
- Money hits my bank account usually within 48-72 hours automagically!
- Simple refunds with no fines.
- Tight integration with E-Junkie, my preferred EBook delivery system.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time convincing you to use Google Checkout, you may want to experiment with other services to see if they possibly do work better for what you want. However, for me, since I want to sell books without any extra hassle, get as much money from my sale as possible, and receive the money as soon as possible, Google Checkout is my preferred credit card processing vendor.
How to use Google Checkout to Sell Ebooks
Here’s the steps to get this running with Google Checkout.
1. Open a Google Checkout account. You will need your SSN/EIN number and credit card information. If you already have a Gmail account, you could link this Merchanat account to your existing Gmail account.
Note: I created a completely new Google account for my EBook sales. This way I have a dedicated email address foro my hobby and can keep my business and personal finances separate, which is helpful around tax time because Google Checkout does not provide you much in the way of tax filing assistance.
In essence, you are creating a buyers account that you can purchase things on the web by using Google. However, we’re actually going to use the ‘selling’ aspect of the service, not the ‘buying’. So don’t be spooked because it looks like you’re setting up a buyers account and adding credit card information. They’re both under the same Google Checkout roof and I’ve never used my credit card once since I opened this account.
2. Once your account is created, log in and click on My Sales. It’s the link you see here in the upper right hand corner of your home page.
3. Click on Settings - This is where we tell Google Checkout how we want it to process our orders.
Let’s walk down the left side links and deal with each one to set ourselves up to accept credit card payments from buyers.
Profile Page – This page has basic information, like Contact Information, Business Name, Returns Policy Information, Shipping Information, etc.
Credit card statement name : Even if you aren’t incorporated, choose a name to put here that’s not your real name. Since it will show up on their credit card statement, you probably don’t want your name there…
Public business website : You don’t need one, so I put the same page as my EBook Sales letter. Don’t worry, you can sell multiple products from multiple webpages, it doesn’t have to only be this page.
Customer support email : I make this the same as my Google Checkout email address. Another good reason not to have this linked to any other Google or Gmail accounts. Don’t worry, people will send you the dumbest questions, but at least it’ll go to this address.
I have nothing for the Customer Service Page, Frequently Asked Questions, or Returns Policy links. Not that they aren’t a good idea, but I just haven’t done it yet.
Shipping Policy : I add a quick blurb about how you can download the product immediately from E-Junkie (a link will be provided to the buyer) and to email if something gets screwed up. This has worked for me for a couple years and I’ve never had any shipping issues that were my fault. (Many times people put the wrong email address and then can’t understand why nobody contacts them with resolutions to their problems.)
Financials – This page has our Checking Account information and Credit Card information. Since I like getting direct deposits to my account, I have my checking account information listed here. Add yours, go through the verification process (which takes a few days) and you’ll be set to receive direct deposits after your first sale. Compare that to Clickbank where you may wait 3-4 months for a paper check…
Adwords - This is a bit advanced for a simple set up. But the point here is that Google Checkout will lower or eliminate your transaction costs if you also advertise your product with them. Pretty sweet. I don’t use it as I don’t directly advertise my books (Although I have in the past), so I leave this blank.
Preferences - Select “Automatically authorize and charge the buyer’s credit card” and select to receive an email each time the order is processed. Oh how good does it feel to hear that ‘ping’ when you make a sale!
E-Junkie needs this to be done so they don’t provide a product that you didn’t charge for in the first place.
Tax Setup – Skip it. Unless you live in a state the requires you to tax electronic orders. I have no idea what those states are.
Integration - This page we will use to integrate with E-Junkie, so finish this section first, then read How to Use E-Junkie to Sell Ebooks to set this up correctly.
Until then, what’s important to know is the Google Merchant ID and Key are used by E-Junkie to process the sending of your book to your buyer. So Google approves, charges, and confirms the payment. Then E-Junkie takes the confirmation (using your ID and key) and says “Ok, it’s paid for, let’s provide a download link for the customer”.
Users - Up to you, I’m the only user on my account so I haven’t added a person.
That’s basically it for Google Checkout Setup!
What do we NOT need to do?
I know you’re looking at the Tools/”Buy Now” button and ready to put it on your web page to make a sale. But since Google Checkout doesn’t ‘hold’ the content for us or provide a way to send the Ebook to a new customer, having someone click on the Google Checkout “Buy Now” link means we’d be responsible for emailing the Ebook to the customer. Who wants that! I want this to work while I’m sleeping!
So hold your horses on adding a Buy Now button to your site, we’ll get there in just a bit. Why not celebrate by grabbing a beer before proceeding, it’s just as rewarding as adding HTML code to a website, don’t you think?
Now E-Junkie integration comes into play. As a reminder, we’re using Google Checkout to process the credit cards and E-Junkie to deliver the material. Processing Credit Cards is now set up!
Since Google Checkout appears to be up and running, let’s move on to Step 2, How to Use E-Junkie to Sell Ebooks.
February 22, 2009
I’m going to start this post by saying something absolutely anathema to EBook marketers and publishers.
Clickbank sucks as an EBook payment and delivery service.
There, I said it. Flame away. It sucks for the seller, it sucks for the buyer, and I imagine it sucks for the affiliates (although I wouldn’t know.)
Every book and advice article I’ve read says “Use Clickbank and Paypal to sell EBooks”. I insist this is bad advice and will briefly describe why this is so below.
I used Clickbank when I first started, just like I was told to do, but quickly learned they were not a ‘partner’ for my business. So my list below has been well earned through actual experience.
10 Reasons Why Clickbank Is Not My EBook Delivery Service
* Blue Quotes are taken directly from www.clickbank.com
1. Clickbank takes $1 plus 7.5% of each product you sell.
For comparison, Google Merchants takes $0.20 and 2.0%.
* Update March 2009 – In May 2009, Google will change their fees to a tiered structure. The most expensive tier will still be a lot cheaper at $0.30 per transaction and 2.9%. *
* http://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html *
2. They mail you your earnings by check.
Wait, did I just read that right? Yes you did. It’s 2009, and the ‘preferred internet marketing vender’ is mailing checks 90 days+ after a sale. I laugh.
I laugh again and spill my beer. Damn You Clickbank!!!
By the way, if the USPS loses your check? Clickbank will charge you $10 to get a new check.
Clilckbank does offer direct deposit now (it started in 2008), however you can’t use it until they mail you at least three checks after at least 90 days or more…Why? Who cares…it’s just a terrible way to get paid.
3. They hold your money for weeks to make sure they are covered if someone returns your product. On top of that, typically they will hold 10% of your money indefinitely for any future returns . Thanks guys, I guess Clickbank really is a ‘bank…’
4. If you have less than $100 in your account, they hold the money until you make enough for them to go to the trouble of sending you your money.(Oh, and “A $2.50 pay period processing charge is deducted from each payment we issue.”)
This isn’t conducive to new EBook venders or trying new products that may or may not work out. If your account goes dormant while you are learning the ins-and-outs of the business, they start to change you $1-$3 per-day until your account is $0.
5. Customer Service is not responsive or interested in your efforts to understand Clickbank’s archaic system. Enough said. Go ahead, try it out for kicks.
6. Returns can cost 3x the value of the product you sold – “In these instances we charge the publisher $18 per credit card chargeback. We will charge an additional $35 penalty per credit card chargeback if the publisher’s products generate in excess of 1% chargebacks in any 90-day period”
7. “A one-time $49.95 activation charge that must be paid upon approval of your first product.”
Google? $0. Paypal? $0.
Do I really need to pay you to be a user of your service?
8. The website is difficult to use and there are no instructions or help that is of use to new clients. The blogisphere is full of posts about “How to get Clickbank to Work”. That’s a bad sign, if you ask me.
9. By the way, Clickbank does NOT hold your content or deliver any value to your customer!
So even after they charge you all the above charges, you are still responsible for providing the product to the buyer. All they do is process the credit card.
10. The tracking and history services are archaic, cumbersome, and worthless over time.
You may agree with some of my reasons here, or you may not. It really doesn’t matter. What I found was Clickbank is expensive, lacks features, surprisingly difficult to work with, and absolutely loved by the VEM’s. Personally, I recommend you stay far away from the site.
So what do I recommend instead? A combination of Google Merchants and E-Junkie. Much cheaper, easier, and much much much more modern for my EBook marketing needs.
Clickbank - whether people can admit it or not – is insufficient for our digital marketing needs. Cleaner, cheaper, and better services exist. I wanted to write this post to warn EBook sellers that there are other options to Clickbank that are better. Don’t give up because you can’t find a way to sell your products because you can’t undersatnd Clickbank or warm up to its high fees for no service…
Man, I need two beers after revisiting my Clickbank frustration memories. Off I go!…
February 22, 2009
If you’re wondering “What’s a good hosting service for selling my EBooks”, then you’ve come to the right post. Pull up a beer and have a seat.
I’ve tried a few hosting services and have settled on HostGator for a few reasons. I’ll walk you through what I’ve experienced so you can see whether it’s a good fit for you and your plans for selling ebooks online.
My First EBook Hosting Site Story
Initially, my first EBook came from a blog where I was writing about personal training. After I had written about 40 posts on the process of becoming a personal trainer, I decided “What the hell, let’s throw this into a book and sell it”. (Ahhh, the innocent days…)
At that time, I didn’t know what I was doing nor where I was going with my idea of selling EBooks. I had no idea I’d write another, and another, and another. Incidentally, I still don’t know what I’m doing today nor where I’m going tomorrow, but bear with me for a bit…maybe something genius will come out!
Since I didn’t know my long term plan, I signed up with my favorite web hosting company LaughingSquid out of San Francisco. These guys really are fantastic, they’re a small shop that runs reliable servers for your website. I never had a single bad experience with them and only stopped using them because my needs changed outside of their specialty.
Specifically, my issue was LaughingSquid charges you for each domain you host with them. After my first couple of books and websites, I had 6 domains…each costing about $10 a month.
Now, here’s my issue with that situation…if I had a fleeting idea that I wanted to put on the web, it required at least 48 hours turnaround before I could set up a new domain with LaughingSquid. Plus, it cost me another $10 a month, $120 a year, etc…That’s real money. And real money equals real beers.
What I found was that the cost of adding a new domain and the time I had to wait before I could use a new site retarded my entrepreneurial ideas…the cost and time made me shelve projects to ‘think about it for a while‘ before I went through the hassle and expense on an unproven idea.
I’m an entrepreneur at heart. Shelving ideas does not sit well with me. So I looked for a better solution.
A solution where there was no additional cost to try new ideas online.
I came across HostGator and found that for the same price per month, I could have as many domains hosted as I wanted. (Well, at least as many as I was going to be able to run effectively. If you’re putting up 294,492 sites, it’s probably not the best option.)
HostGator, so far, has been effortless to use. And it has no ‘friction’ cost when I decide…after 4 too many beers on a Saturday night…to buy a domain name and put up a new website in the weee hours of a Sunday morning. It costs me nothing to add a new site (other than the DNS registration fee, that one-time fee to buy the domain name). Basically, HostGator allows me to do multiple “trial and triage” ideas for different website ideas and offerings. If you think you may want 2 or more websites, this is the type of hosting you need.
Why does this matter for an EBook publisher? Because, like me, you may find that you want to sell more than one EBook. If you use a hosting service, like HostGator, that allows you to add multiple sites for no additional cost, you’re cutting down on expenses dramatically. Additionally, if you’re anything like me, you think like this:
Ok, if I bang out a new book…and it doesn’t cost me an extra penny to give that book it’s own website…and it doesn’t cost a penny more to sell it…why not bang out a new book? I’ll pocket 100% of the money it produces.
Get that? 100% of your incremental revenue is profit, if you already have a website running on HostGator and are using E-Junkie. Does it get any better?
So, my advice for hosting your EBook sales letters is to use HostGator or a similiar hosting service that allows you to add domains to your hosting package with no additional cost.
HostGator’s “Baby” plan sells for something ridiculously cheap like $8 a month for unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, and unlimited disk space. The customer service is adequate and has yet to fail me, but I’m always waiting for it to cause nothing this good lasts forever. For me, as a novice authority on EBook marketing, the best hosting plan for EBook sellers is HostGator.
Now where’s my beer? I’ll be right back…
February 22, 2009
The answer is simple.
I am not.
In fact, I believe that there really is nobody who is an ‘authority‘ on selling EBooks online. There are a lot of people that claim to be authorities, but unless you pay them $47 dollars for their, surprise, EBook…they won’t tell you why they consider themselves an authority on making and selling EBooks online. (And no, saying “I made $30,000 in 48 hours with my first EBook!!!” doesn’t make you an authority. It likely makes you a liar, until you prove otherwise. )
But what I have done is write a few EBooks on my own, made a few bucks, and learned a few things along the way. I decided to take my lessons to this blog, share my education with others, and see if we can all learn from each other and make some money…at least enough to split a beer (virtually or even in person someday) or two.
I plan on sharing real stories (gasp!) of my past few years of EBook marketing, explaining the tools that I like, the things that worked, the ideas that didn’t, and spread a little sunshine on this otherwise closed community of … well, I’m not sure what to call them. What do you call a band of ‘authors’ who tell you they make a ton of money, but don’t tell you what they sell? That should be our first goal, what do we call these people?
I think, for now, I’ll call them ‘virtual EBook millionaires’.
Definition: A Virtual EBook Millionaire is a sales letter, masquerading as first person conversation direct to you, by a ‘successful’ EBook author who makes ‘lots of money’. Each VEM will sell you his or her secrets for a price usually greater than $7, most likely $47, but never, ever ending in a number other than ’7′.
So, these VEM’s have apparently paved the way for all of us ‘outsiders’ to make money online, if only we’d give them a few bucks first. No thanks. I’m just going to declare myself an authority and figure it out on my own, thank you very much.
Next thing for us to do is pave our own path by sharing our lessons learned and ideas for the future of digital ebook marketing and sales.
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