The Shocking Truth About eBooks
BY JOE VITALE
Last August the New York Times
announced that eBooks were not selling.
A reporter wrote, "The main advantage of
electronic books appears to be that they gather no dust. Almost no one
is buying. Publishers and online bookstores say only the very few
best-selling electronic editions have sold more than a thousand copies,
and most sell far fewer."
Is that true?
I've learned to weigh everything the
media tells us with more than a grain of salt. As the author of numerous
traditionally published books, as well as the author of several popular
eBooks, I'm here to tell you that eBooks are selling and selling far
better, in many cases, than most traditional books.
Here's just a little proof:
- Corey Rudl made $400,000
from his e-works
- Stephan Mahaney made $800,000
- Michael Campbell made
$10,000
- David Garfinkel made $35,000
- Larry Dotson made $5,000
in less than a month
- Allen Says made $15,000
on a Sunday
- Bob Gatchel made $30,000
in one weekend.
My own "Hypnotic" series of eBooks, all
published by Aesop Marketing, have broken sales records and left my
printed books in the dust:
Hypnotic Writing has sold in the tens of thousands — at $29.95
each — for more than two years now!
My follow-up book,
Advanced Hypnotic Writing, has sold well into the thousands; and
the recent work by myself and Larry Dotson,
The Hypnotic Writing Swipe File, came out of the gate with a
bang —selling at the whopping price of $197 a copy.
And keep in mind that these eBooks have
no printing or shipping costs associated with them.
They are "invisible" books. You don't
have to warehouse them, either. When they sell for $29.95 or
$197, that's virtually all profit. (A very nice feeling.)
I don't blame you if you are skeptical.
I was, too, at first. Mark Joyner, CEO
of Aesop Marketing, begged me for two years — years! — to give him a
work of mine that he could release as an eBook.
I'm a book lover and never thought
anyone would EVER buy an eBook. (So much for me being a futurist.)
But apparently there is an entire world
out there — or ON line — that don't care for printed books or big
bookstores, but instead love instant information delivered with a click.
My Hypnotic Writing sold hundreds
of copies within 24 hours. I'm now a believer in eBooks.
They've enabled me to live in the Texas
Hill Country, drive a BMW Z3 hot-rod, own a pool, and travel as I
please.
My friend David Garfinkel grew up in the
traditional publishing world and in fact worked for McGraw-Hill, the
world's largest publisher of business information.
He didn't give eBooks much thought
either until he published a couple of them himself. His most recent one
is titled,
Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich.
David told me, "I'm astonished by the
results. I can honestly say my life has undergone quantum changes for
the better in many ways since my first eBook hit the Internet a year and
a half ago."
So what's with the New York Times?
My hunch is that they are asking
traditional publishers about their eBook sales. Well, traditional
publishers don't know beans about marketing. Never have. They can't sell
their printed books, so how can you expect them to sell their eBooks?
To give you an example, one of my recent
books is There's A Customer Born Every Minute: P.T. Barnum's Secrets
to Business Success. AMACOM, a division of the American Management
Association, published it.
I got national radio, print and TV
coverage for that book. A&E Biography created a new special on the life
of Barnum and at the end of it the host held up one book — and only one
book — and basically urged people to get it to understand Barnum as a
businessman.
That was MY book. Sales skyrocketed. My
book became an overnight bestseller at Amazon. Yet what did my publisher
do? They let the book go out of print.
I bought their leftover inventory. The
books are in my garage. I never received one single royalty check. You
can now only get the printed book through me — though, ironically, the
eBook version of it remains for sale online.
There's more. My most recent book is
titled Spiritual Marketing. I released it as an eBook as well as
in paperback and hardcover formats through Amazon. Which sells the best?
The eBook version! (Paper is second and hardcover last.)
Again, what is the media trying to tell
us when they forecast gloom for eBooks? Remember that the media focuses
on the negative. Good news isn't generally considered newsworthy to
them.
Finally, here's the moral of this story:
Don't let the media talk you out of
releasing your own eBook. As long as you have solid information that a
specific group of people would enjoy, you can write an ebook and let
that target group know about it.
Even if you only sold a few hundred
copies, you would receive PURE PASSIVE INCOME which no traditional
publisher — including the New York Times — can promise or
deliver.
Joe Vitale is co-author of the new eBook,
How to Write and Publish your own eBook... in as Little as 7 Days.
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