The
Problem With E-Books
by: David Coyne
One of the most popular online ventures is selling
e-books. People are hungry for information; that’s
why they’re on the Web in the first place. And
e-books are cheap to produce and distribute.
However, I’ve come across quite a few new online
entrepreneurs thinking they’re going to strike
it rich selling a $20 or $30 e-book. They’ve
failed to do some simple math.
Suppose you sell an e-book for $30. Deduct $5 off
your $30 sell price to account for advertising and
other costs. That leaves you with $25. You’d
have to sell 1,000 copies a year to make $25,000.
That’s a lot of copies! Even if you did sell
that many, 25 grand isn’t exactly going to put
you on Easy Street.
Another factor is competition. Many e-books with resell
rights have also be purchased by hundreds, possibly
thousands, of competitors.And if you’re selling
an e-book as an affiliate, you’re usually limited
to 50% or less of the sell price.
The key to making large amounts of money selling information
products is that you need resell rights for at least
one higher priced item.
Say you have duplication rights to a product that
sells for $400. If you sold just 6 copies of this
product a month, you’d be pulling in $2,400
in sales. That’s $28,800 a year. If you sold
12 a month, you’d make $57,600 a year. Sell
24 a month and you’re raking in $115,200 a year.
“Wait a second” you say. “What about
my costs to duplicate, package and ship the product?”
Here’s the beauty of the information marketing
business: people pay for the value of the information,
not the physical medium on which it’s delivered
(e.g. paper, audiotape, videotape, CD etc.)
It’s dirt cheap to duplicate information products.
It’s easy to duplicate a CD-ROM on your computer
and blank CDs are less than a dollar each.
I have an info product that I sell for $397. To duplicate,
package and ship it via UPS, costs me $60. Subtract
$50 for advertising. That still leaves me with $287.
That’s a huge profit margin.
So instead of concentrating all of your marketing
efforts on low priced info products, be sure that
you have one or two higher priced items that you’re
actively promoting.
Use e-books as a stepping stone to upsell customers.
Once they’ve purchased a product from you, you’ve
established a relationship with them. Someone who’s
already down business with you is five times more
likely to buy than someone who hasn’t.
About The Author
Dave Coyne is a copywriter, marketing consultant and
president of DC Infobiz. Get his FREE REPORT on how
to start your own Information Marketing Business at
home. Send an email with REF006 in the subject line
to dcinfobiz@GetResponse.com
