Sell It Before You Write it

How To Use Google Checkout To Sell Ebooks

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.

1. Process a credit card to receive payment and verify the buyer is legitimate (Google Checkout)
2. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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)
3. Money hits my bank account usually within 48-72 hours automagically!
4. Simple refunds with no fines.
5. 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.

10 Reasons Why I Do Not Use Clickbank To Sell EBooks

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!…