3 ms·

Rules to sell thousands of copies of your ebook

30 points by madrobby 14y ago

madrobby 14y ago
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the book and blog post. I've been asked on Twitter about student discounts, short answer is don't do it. Long answer: if you have a book specifically targeting students, price it so they can afford it, otherwise don't bother as it's more work for you and they probably won't buy it anyway.
- ilamont 14y ago
  Do you use affiliates? I know this was one of the primary sales channels for "Evernote Essentials".
  - madrobby 14y ago
    No—I've had the experience that it doesn't work for the types of technical books we (my wife and I) write. Or we're just really better at email/twitter/blog marketing. :) But it's definitely a good option for many types of books.
arbuge 14y ago
Isn't distributing your ebook as a simple pdf an invitation for people who don't want to pay for it to copy and circulate it for free? How do you get around this?
- kiba 14y ago
  Some people don't care about getting books for free. They just care about the convenience of getting the book. If you make the book more convenient to get than downloading it for free, the more likely you will make money off of them.
- madrobby 14y ago
  You can't get around this. People will pirate it and they do. However, those who pirate it wouldn't pay money anyway so there's no loss. And because it's literally two clicks to buy it with PayPal, it's easier to buy it on my site than to try and find a pirated copy, so for those who want to buy it legally it's really easy.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  You can require a password to download the book in the first place, which is like a "please don't steal" sign. Many people won't. Those who will can't be stopped by any technological means; DRM doesn't work, and devalues the product for honest customers. You can hope that the freeloaders end up increasing the book's popularity and attracting more paying customers. But there isn't much you can do to influence that except make good stuff.
  - madrobby 14y ago
    I don't have a general download link, when you buy it I'll send out an email with a personal download link that will expire in a week or so, and can only be used 5 times. Of course you can just write to my support email box and I'll send you a new link if you loose the file. I also send out free updates whenever I update the book.
- snookca 14y ago
  In addition to what everybody else said, there's also trying to find pirated material for niche markets. That is, it's hard to find. I sell an e-book as well, and have foregone any DRM. More to your point, could people buy the book and give it to their friends for free? Absolutely. And I'm sure some people have. Again, I'm okay with this. I'd rather people bought the book but like print, I can't stop people from sharing and ultimately, I don't want to.
- arbuge 14y ago
  If you find a copy of your book posted on another website where people can download it, what can you do? Presumably the webmaster won't be the nicest guy in the universe to deal with.
- mixmax 14y ago
  Write a bit of code that automatically inserts a footer on every page with details of who bought it. "this is The personal copy of Tom Wainworth - tom@wainworth.eu"
aw3c2 14y ago
The promised five rules about selling thousands of copies are contradicted by three to four of them: Rule #1: No publishers. Publish the book yourself. A publisher usually has marketing and distribution options at hand that you could only dream of. Rule #2: No 3rd-party sales channels. No Amazon/Kindle, iBookstore, etc. If your goal is to spread it as much as possible than you've got to use any possible option. Rule #4: Publish as a PDF. Optionally also as EPUB, depending on topic/audience. No dead-tree version, please. To sale thousands of copies you should try to offer a diversity of formats. While there is no reason why you should not print the book to sell to those who prefer it, a "dead-tree" book is no ebook and thus the submitted post is correct that you should avoid that when trying to sell your ebook. I guess. Rule #5: Price high. Price for the value you provide, not for what feels right. To sell thousands you should probably not use a high price, but price rather low. I pulled my answers out of the air just like madrobby. Yeah, I am getting sick and tired of these marketing fluff unscientific best-practise posts. Same level as the usual life improvement blogs for me.
- madrobby 14y ago
  Are you an author who is successfully publishing books?
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    I don't see how that question is relevant. Anecdotes do not make good rules.
    - madrobby 14y ago
      It's very relevant because you pull stuff out of your ass while I'm actually doing this (successfully). With "anecdotes" you mean repeatable strategies that work every time for me and for other book authors we know?
      - aw3c2 14y ago
        "air, not "ass". Which of my rebuttals are false and why?
williamle8300 14y ago
To Thomas Fuchs: How would you modify your tips for those publishing non-fiction e-books? I work for a company that publishes non-fiction in the major digital marketplaces, and we're doing fine right now. One of the major perks that we see with using these marketplaces (ex: Kindle) is that they provide perks which we could not provide had we been selling e-books ourselves and asking our customers to sideload content to their devices. For us, we see the royalties to them as necessary costs.. or investments to make buying and reading content as convenient as possible. Love to hear your on this Thomas. Thanks.
- madrobby 14y ago
  This is advice for non-fiction ebooks. :) The most important thing really is to learn how to do marketing right. It's not that hard at all and will yield great results.

30 points by madrobby 14y ago

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the book and blog post. I've been asked on Twitter about student discounts, short answer is don't do it. Long answer: if you have a book specifically targeting students, price it so they can afford it, otherwise don't bother as it's more work for you and they probably won't buy it anyway.

ilamont 14y ago
Do you use affiliates? I know this was one of the primary sales channels for "Evernote Essentials".
- madrobby 14y ago
  No—I've had the experience that it doesn't work for the types of technical books we (my wife and I) write. Or we're just really better at email/twitter/blog marketing. :) But it's definitely a good option for many types of books.

arbuge 14y ago

Isn't distributing your ebook as a simple pdf an invitation for people who don't want to pay for it to copy and circulate it for free? How do you get around this?

kiba 14y ago
Some people don't care about getting books for free. They just care about the convenience of getting the book. If you make the book more convenient to get than downloading it for free, the more likely you will make money off of them.
madrobby 14y ago
You can't get around this. People will pirate it and they do. However, those who pirate it wouldn't pay money anyway so there's no loss. And because it's literally two clicks to buy it with PayPal, it's easier to buy it on my site than to try and find a pirated copy, so for those who want to buy it legally it's really easy.
nathan_long 14y ago
You can require a password to download the book in the first place, which is like a "please don't steal" sign. Many people won't. Those who will can't be stopped by any technological means; DRM doesn't work, and devalues the product for honest customers. You can hope that the freeloaders end up increasing the book's popularity and attracting more paying customers. But there isn't much you can do to influence that except make good stuff.
- madrobby 14y ago
  I don't have a general download link, when you buy it I'll send out an email with a personal download link that will expire in a week or so, and can only be used 5 times. Of course you can just write to my support email box and I'll send you a new link if you loose the file. I also send out free updates whenever I update the book.
snookca 14y ago
In addition to what everybody else said, there's also trying to find pirated material for niche markets. That is, it's hard to find. I sell an e-book as well, and have foregone any DRM. More to your point, could people buy the book and give it to their friends for free? Absolutely. And I'm sure some people have. Again, I'm okay with this. I'd rather people bought the book but like print, I can't stop people from sharing and ultimately, I don't want to.
arbuge 14y ago
If you find a copy of your book posted on another website where people can download it, what can you do? Presumably the webmaster won't be the nicest guy in the universe to deal with.
mixmax 14y ago
Write a bit of code that automatically inserts a footer on every page with details of who bought it. "this is The personal copy of Tom Wainworth - tom@wainworth.eu"

aw3c2 14y ago

The promised five rules about selling thousands of copies are contradicted by three to four of them: Rule #1: No publishers. Publish the book yourself. A publisher usually has marketing and distribution options at hand that you could only dream of. Rule #2: No 3rd-party sales channels. No Amazon/Kindle, iBookstore, etc. If your goal is to spread it as much as possible than you've got to use any possible option. Rule #4: Publish as a PDF. Optionally also as EPUB, depending on topic/audience. No dead-tree version, please. To sale thousands of copies you should try to offer a diversity of formats. While there is no reason why you should not print the book to sell to those who prefer it, a "dead-tree" book is no ebook and thus the submitted post is correct that you should avoid that when trying to sell your ebook. I guess. Rule #5: Price high. Price for the value you provide, not for what feels right. To sell thousands you should probably not use a high price, but price rather low. I pulled my answers out of the air just like madrobby. Yeah, I am getting sick and tired of these marketing fluff unscientific best-practise posts. Same level as the usual life improvement blogs for me.

madrobby 14y ago
Are you an author who is successfully publishing books?
- aw3c2 14y ago
  I don't see how that question is relevant. Anecdotes do not make good rules.
  - madrobby 14y ago
    It's very relevant because you pull stuff out of your ass while I'm actually doing this (successfully). With "anecdotes" you mean repeatable strategies that work every time for me and for other book authors we know?
    - aw3c2 14y ago
      "air, not "ass". Which of my rebuttals are false and why?

williamle8300 14y ago

To Thomas Fuchs: How would you modify your tips for those publishing non-fiction e-books? I work for a company that publishes non-fiction in the major digital marketplaces, and we're doing fine right now. One of the major perks that we see with using these marketplaces (ex: Kindle) is that they provide perks which we could not provide had we been selling e-books ourselves and asking our customers to sideload content to their devices. For us, we see the royalties to them as necessary costs.. or investments to make buying and reading content as convenient as possible. Love to hear your on this Thomas. Thanks.

madrobby 14y ago
This is advice for non-fiction ebooks. :) The most important thing really is to learn how to do marketing right. It's not that hard at all and will yield great results.