What to do with an ebook
June 6, 2007
When I started traveling in March I started working on a new eBook. I haven’t done much on it since I left Thailand, but just looked at it again today. While perusing the Lonely Planet’s travel forum last night in the living abroad forum, I thought again about the ebook and how it could appeal to people wanting to live and travel overseas while making money.
It is getting to a point where people are not surprisingly fairly skeptical about making money ebooks. I have only had one sale this of the ebooks I created last year. The options I have is to give it away free and try to make money from including affiliate links, like what John Chow recently did with his money making ebook or at least try to capture a person’s email address before they can download it, so I can at least build my own email list.
I have never been a fan of email lists, but if you go to any internet conference, people will judge you not by what exciting things you might be doing on the internet, but by the size of your list.
I have written over 20 pages of the ebook now and looking over it today, I think it is getting to a point where I could release it.
Comments
6 Responses to “What to do with an ebook”
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I have a hard time marketing ebooks because I don’t think there are many I would personally buy. I have never bought any ebooks either. Living abroad would defiantly be something that could have an ebook though. Because $30 for an ebook is nothing compared to the anxiety they will have before the move. But the problem is, if they want to have something to read on the plane or a crib sheet when they are actually there.. They will probably want a paper copy.
Getting rich quick is pretty scammy sounding… Though if its a good guide (like a real guide and not just hey you can make money from adsense by making content!!) it would make sense to buy it. Though I consider this a cop out and a hard subject to do well at considering the competition.
I look at it like this.. I can try to beat rich jerk, or I can try to beat 2 guides on how to organize your closet (both of which don’t have any real domination)
I am not a big fan of ebooks myself. I can understand how can a ebook (or anything else pushed) by a “guru” in any industry be a hot item which lots of people will purchase.
But I am yet to be persuaded that an ebook written by…um “not that well known” personality is, from financial point of view, time well spent.
Mike you said it yourself, you only had one sell of your previous ebook.
So yeah I am one of the named “fairly sceptical people”
Edit:
But I am yet to be persuaded that an ebook written by…um “not that well known” personality is, from financial point of view, time well spent BY THE AUTHOR.
I think if you have a good niche topic with reasonable content, it can do well if you spend time marketing it.
My money making ebook is a slightly different take from the other ones I have seen and is basically how I have done well with my sites.
I bought the richjerk ebook just to see what it had to say, and for anyone who already knows what affiliate marketing is, it is a waste of money and is also pretty out of date.
A few people have also agreed to an interview which should show a different perspectvie on what I have to say.
“I have only had one sale this of the ebooks I created last year.” Did you mean this year?
One sale this year of the ebooks I created last year.
http://www.expatjapan.com
http://www.tokyoebook.com
I think that expatjapan is a good domain and I might even make the content freely available and put adsense on the site.