Stop Trying to Sell Your eBooks
BY GRAHAM JONES
Throughout the Internet there
are many people who have written eBooks, are writing eBooks or
have produced other information products such as reports. No
doubt, each writer wants to sell them. And many people have
problems selling their eBooks. That's because they try too
hard. Here's a different approach which will change the way
you see what you do.
Firstly, let's take a look at
the traditional book publishing business. An idea is turned
into a series of words by an author. A team of people at the
publishing company then take those words and fashion them into
a book. Then a printing company takes the output from the
publisher to produce the final copies. These printed volumes
are then taken to a wholesaler who then delivers them to a
retailer. A series of customers then buy the book
(hopefully!).
Now, look closely at that
process again. The customer is buying the book from the
retailer. The person doing the selling job is the retailer -
not the author. The author is the first part of the
manufacturing process which allows the retailer to sell
something. So as an eBook author you are not a retailer, you
are in the manufacturing business. Manufacturers don't sell -
retailers do. So, because as an eBook author you are a
manufacturer, not a retailer, perhaps your sales would
increase if you concentrated your efforts on the manufacturing
process, rather than the selling process.
In the traditional publishing
sector that's exactly what happens. The publishers work out
which book formats are best for a target market, they deal
with pricing issues and they arrange all of the promotion.
They hand all of this on a plate to the retailers who then do
the selling job. The same is true for cars. Almost no car
manufacturer sells cars; dealers do. But the car manufacturer
does all the research and promotion. They provide the dealers
with the advertising, the brochures and the support they need
to help them sell.
So, take these analogies into
the eBook publishing business. What happens? Instead of eBook
authors stopping their work at the end of the manufacturing
process, they then try to be retailers as well. And then they
wonder why they don't have many sales.
Here's a plan which works.
Other eBook authors have demonstrated it time and time again.
Stop selling your own eBooks - get other people to do that for
you. On the Internet such retailers are called 'affiliates'.
Most affiliate schemes do not result in sales. The ones that
work adopt the model of the publishing industry or the car
market. Here, the eBook author does all the promotion and
provides affiliates with every support necessary to help them
sell the books. So provide your affiliates with brochures,
adverts, newsletters, articles - anything they can use to sell
your books. The more you do for your affiliates, the better
they will be at selling your books. And because there are more
of them, you'll end up with far greater sales than you could
achieve on your own.
Remember as an eBook author
you are a manufacturer, not a retailer!
Graham Jones is a psychologist
who has specialized in the way we use the Internet. He is an
expert on information products and runs
Infoselling.com where you can get a FREE report on how to
sell your own infoproducts.
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