About selling my own eBook

[ssandra]

Hi,

In the future I am planning on writing and selling online my own ebooks.

I underestand using other people to promote my product, via clickbank, or (once I´m rich already) one of the many other sites.

The only issue that I am facing is that I have zero (0) knowledge of programming and website building. I´m not stupid, so I´m sure I could learn... if I wanted to... But easier would be if there was a step by step program (think Windows Wizard) that could do stuff for me.

Anybody has any idea? (preferably cheap of course.. i´m still Dutch )

My questions:

* How to make it possible that people upload the book automaticly after they pay

* How to use secure payment (ok, paypal would be a good choice there... but how to connect that with the download of the book?)

* Do I need a computer / server at home that is on 24/7 to run my website?

* Of course I need a nice domain name but if my product is successful do I need to take into consideration the number of visitors or the number of downloads? Is there a maximum normally, or am I being very oldfashiond now?

* How to create an email list and to sent people emails annoying them with new products?

Thanks for anybody who can point me in the right direction (even if it is just with giving me the right names for the things that I am looking for. Google doesnt work very well when I am looking for "thingy that does stuff with emaillists on my website")

[Deergirl]

You could opt for a Wordpress installation which is free. You can't get any cheaper than that, right? It's not only a blog tool, it can also be used to maintain a site on which you sell e-books. Wordpress has many plugins among them an e-commerce plugin (WordPress e-Commerce Plugin a WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin by Instinct | Instinct Entertainment). You can install it, add your e-book as an item and people can buy it through PayPal. When people buy your e-book you can either send it to the email address they left or I believe it is possible that you can get the item send to the automatically once they payed, but I'm not quite sure about that though.

If you want a domain name, you can easily buy one. And with the domain name you could buy hosting as well. You could compare the hosting with disk space on your own computer. Only you will buy "disk space" somewhere on a server. It could be either in The Netherlands (check out Sensiva.net - Webhosting en Software., awesome hosting service) or somewhere else, anywhere in the world.

Next to the "disk space" you'll use, there's another thing you have to keep in account which is the bandwidth you are using. You get a certain amount of bandwidth each month. And every time a visitor comes to your site, he'll take a bit of your bandwidth. If you have a lot of large images on your site, each visitor will use more bandwidth. If you only have text on your site, they won't use a lot of it. But services like sensiva.net offer a very good amount of bandwidth. So unless you will have a lot of visitors (by which I mean a couple of tenhousand a day) I wouldn't worry too much about that just yet.

Concerning the e-mail list... Again, you could probably find a Wordpress plugin to maintain one of those.

If you need more help setting up a site or if you want to ask questions, feel free to ask.

[sirkinm]

I run this site: Mister Ebooks - Mister Ebooks

I do the set-up and actively promote the book (along with you), and we split the profits. However, I have to be selective about the projects I accept because there's only so much time, and many ebooks simply aren't marketable (I recently had someone submit a proposal for a mathematics text, for example).

Here's an example of a recent project: Secrets of Successful and Profitable Salons - Salon Secrets

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

I run this site: Mister Ebooks - Mister Ebooks

Do you really run this site or is it an affiliate?

Originally Posted by sirkinm

Here's an example of a recent project: Secrets of Successful and Profitable Salons - Salon Secrets

There is a mistake in the layout in firefox under "It requires guidance", the letters are double and unreadable, and the picture is over the text.

Did you write the sales texts? Or the author, or a third party?

It does look sort of interesting, but without more information without having to give my email address I´m not sure how much I trust this...

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by Deergirl

If you need more help setting up a site or if you want to ask questions, feel free to ask.

Deergirl, thank you so much. This was exactly what I was looking for in terms of information!

My blogs are now already in wordpress, so most likely I will continue with that. it is easy and simple, plug and play format.

[sirkinm]

Originally Posted by ssandra

Do you really run this site or is it an affiliate?

There is a mistake in the layout in firefox under "It requires guidance", the letters are double and unreadable, and the picture is over the text.

It does look sort of interesting, but without more information without having to give my email address I´m not sure how much I trust this...

I run it myself -- no affiliate business going on.

Ah, thanks for pointing out the "guidance" text thing. It appears fine in my Firefox, but someone else had mentioned that too -- are you a Mac user? I'll have to figure it out. I use XsitePro2 for website development, and it has quirks that that get on my nerves (otherwise I love it).

I do the sales letters myself, incorporating the suggestions of the author. I don't promote my services much anymore cause I have my hands full, but in my opinion I'm offering something rare: I take the reigns on a project that has numerous barriers to entry, and split the profits w/the author from sales that almost certainly wouldn't have occured in the first place.

I don't want to hold anyone back, so there's nothing preventing the author from from selling the book on his/her own (through his/her own site, Clickbank, Amazon, etc.). A recent client even asked me if he could use my copy in his independent site (he already had a site that wasn't generating many sales), and I said "sure."

Anyway, doing it on your own isn't bad at all. In fact, you can even sell books on a free blog (that's how I started). Just remember that the bulk of the work comes after the book is written -- writing it is the easy part.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

Anyway, doing it on your own isn't bad at all. In fact, you can even sell books on a free blog (that's how I started). Just remember that the bulk of the work comes after the book is written -- writing it is the easy part.

Thanks. Your service is actually what I had in mind, sort of. Only I would like to write my own sales pitch, but would not want to be bothered with the pictures etc.

It is something for in the future, but I will for sure put your website in my favorites. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

(i´m not a mac user, but I do use a laptop with an exeptional large screen... maybe that has something to do with it? Ow, and Windows Vista if it makes a difference)

[Lawliet]

If you're a newbie to this stuff, using simple and recommended software that is already available is probably your best bet.

If you do decide to do it all on your own steam, somewhere down the line you'll probably want to look into IPN. By the time you know PHP (or whatever you choose) this will all make more sense anyway.