Selling eBooks

[garrettsloan]

Hello, I am interested in selling my eBooks and the problem I have is how to deliver the eBooks and I thought the best way was to : when they buy the eBook, they are sent in email a link to the download but I am having trouble setting it up.

[crich70]

Actually the best way would probably be by setting up an account at either Smashwords or Amazon (to name two places). I've never sold any booksbut both of them have the ability to let Indie authors upload their books by a step by step process (or so I understand). That way you don't have to personally email the book to the purchaser and you know you get the payment as it is deducted from their bank or paypal account automatically.

[garrettsloan]

I thought about that and I looked into it but Amazon Kindle takes quite a lot of the percentage of the price, and I am trying to get the most out of my textbooks.

[thewitt]

You can sell eBooks off your own website and after purchasing allow the user to download. I do that today on my site. The reason Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, etc take a percentage is because of the huge exposure they give you.

You don't need them to sell eBooks, but you better have a plan to market your product yourself.

Check out my site in my signature for how I do my online store. You can download one of the free books as an example of how the store works if you want.

[mr ploppy]

Amazon takes about the same amount as Paypal would, and either drops the money in your bank or sends a cheque. Plus they're more likely to sell there than on some random website. If you sell them on your own site you will also need to keep records of where the buyer lives and pay each country the correct amount of VAT. Not really worth the hassle.

[thewitt]

Amazon takes significant more than PayPal, but you are correct that VAT is something a small eBook seller does not want to deal with. Now that the EU has totally changed the way we have to deal with VAT, most small businesses outside of the EU just can't sell into EU countries any longer. The administrative side of VAT mgt is too expensive.

[Harper Kingsley]

You could try Gumroad. They don't accept Paypal, though they'll make payments to your Paypal account. Their fees are 5% + $0.25 per transaction. ($2.99 book = $2.99 - 0.14 - 0.25 = $2.60 in your pocket.) gumroad.com/features/pricing

They seem pretty legit. I purchased a desktop copy of the Hemminway App through them, and they offer the ability to re-download a purchase if it's needed.

[Hitch]

Hi:

This site is still underdevelopment--in other words, it's not live, so please don't share the ink, and please ignore the glitches and other things you see, but you might want to scroll down to the article called "Can I sell my Book From My own Website?" (click to expand the accordion) : http://booknook.biz.customers.tigert...and_uploading/ and pay particular attention to the LAST paragraph, if you skim. (I recommend reading the entire article, but if you don't, make sure you read everything after the list.)

It's nearly impossible for me to describe to you what the tech support requirement is like. Suffice it to say, at my company, next to actual direct labor costs for making the book, it is the second-biggest expense I have. I won't discuss real numbers here, but a HUGE percentage of my would-be profit is eaten up in providing tech support (which we flatly state we don't provide) to clients who don't know how to download files from browsers, don't know how to save a file to their computer, don't know how to find a file that they've saved to their computer, etc. Bear in mind that the VAST majority of eBook readers aren't on MR--they don't know what MR'ers know. They buy books at Amazon, et al, and the books are auto-magically delivered to their devices.

I've had several clients try it. Clients that were law firms, and the like, so not dimwits--and every single one of them, every one--quit it after six months. Why? Because they couldn't hack the phone calls, emails, etc., to help the book buyers with downloading the files and getting them on their devices.

Entirely up to you, of course, but....

Hitch

[cromag]

But, how do you really feel about this, Hitch?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by cromag

But, how do you really feel about this, Hitch?

Oh, well, y'know...I think everyone should try it at least once. Go through the cost of setting up a digital cart, applying DRM (if that's desired--please, please, let's all not get into pro- anti-DRM discussions here, thanks), working the kinks out, integrating the cart into the site, and then find out what happens after people click the "buy now!" button. After all, misery loves company, so, I'd like those who try it to post back here and tell me how GREAT it's all going.

I have a thread (more grist for your enjoyment mill, Cro!) that is 89 emails long. EIGHTY-NINE, from a client that couldn't get his book open. (I've told this story here before, I know.). This is ONE example--and not the worst!--from over 2,000 clients. And he's NOT atypical.

He was a Mac user with a gmail account. The emails included endless accusations about how my files were corrupt, mind you, because Apple told him so. This is why I had no choice but to finally do all the tech-support--above and beyond what we ALREADY DO--myself, because I couldn't have him smearing the company name, saying we'd delivered corrupt or unusable files.

This was after I explained that dragging-dropping a download link, to create a SHORTCUT, to the desktop, isn't downloading a file. And so on and so forth. He finally called Apple, which promptly told him that the file was corrupt, because those geniuses, in their PAID TECH SUPPORT, MIND YOU, couldn't figure out that he wasn't downloading the file correctly, which entailed the hair-raising high-tech capabilities of SAVING IT TO HIS COMPUTER. From a LINK. And then using the RIGHT program to open it. Because Apple, of course, can't conceive of the idea that you might have to open a program (Kindle previewer) and then drag and drop the file ONTO IT. Therefore, as the client repeatedly didn't read the step-by-step instructions that we send not once, not twice, but THREE times, to every single client, Apple decided "Hey, the file's corrupt!" And of course, as the mighty APPLE said it, it must be true, no?

I finally had to pull out my MacMini paperweight, boot it up, wait 2 hours for the dropboxes to synch, and make a series of screenshots, using my personal gmail account, (so that what I was shooting as screenshots would match what he was seeing, EXACTLY), which I then further explicated using SnagIt, with arrows, boxes, etc.: "click here." "Go there." And so on. Two hours of screen caps, marking up screen caps, and the like. This is IN ADDITION TO the 89 emails, you understand.

I sent those, and, surprise! His files weren't corrupted any longer, as if I waved my magic wand over them. (He still thinks I did something to them to "fix them," you understand?).

So, sure: heck, you go right on ahead, folks, and you sell your books from your own website. Have a blast. As I said previously, every client I had that tried it, including lawfirms with support staff, secretaries, doctor's offices, ditto, all decided inside of six months that the percentage that Amazon takes is MORE THAN FAIR, because at Amazon, they handle all this crap for you. Got a buyer that doesn't know PDF from ePUB? Downloads some unheard-of mobi reader, to read their Kindle books? Amazon handles it. Got a client that doesn't know USB from UBS Financial? Amazon handles it. Got one that can't find the Downloads folder (I get this not less than 3x weekly), Amazon handles it.

In fact, one of my lawyer clients declared, afterwards, that Amazon doesn't charge ENOUGH--this same guy thought that they were thieves, before his little experiment in online sales and tech support.

I'm not a shill for Amazon. But don't say you weren't warned.

[pendragginp]

I thought about that and I looked into it but Amazon Kindle takes quite a lot of the percentage of the price, and I am trying to get the most out of my textbooks.

I have a question to the OP - you said you want to sell your textbooks. Are you talking about textbooks you wrote? Or are you talking about textbooks in ebook form which you want to re-sell?

[thewitt]

I sell eBooks from my online store every day. I get one or two requests for support a month, and generally sending them to the FAQ for instructions on how to side-load their book resolves it. For the one in a hundred it doesn't I'll gift them the book on Amazon and move on rather than try to teach them how to use their computer. That costs me Amazon's percentage plus their delivery fee, which is cheaper than paying someone to support them.

I'm not sure what the crisis was when you tried this, but my users seem to have very little problem with side-loading their books.

It's no different than what Smashwords does. All of those books need to be side-loaded unless you buy from a device that's smart enough to take the download and put it into your eReader.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by thewitt

I sell eBooks from my online store every day. I get one or two requests for support a month, and generally sending them to the FAQ for instructions on how to side-load their book resolves it. For the one in a hundred it doesn't I'll gift them the book on Amazon and move on rather than try to teach them how to use their computer. That costs me Amazon's percentage plus their delivery fee, which is cheaper than paying someone to support them.

I'm not sure what the crisis was when you tried this, but my users seem to have very little problem with side-loading their books.

The "crisis" was that the client couldn't download the file, in the first place, from his email. Period. We don't run a "web-store," we run an ebook-conversion business. Our clients get download links in their emails, just like 90+% of most online software stores. Fully 25% of them have issues with downloads, in the first place; another 30+% can't figure out how to sideload their books to ADE, Kindle Previewer, Kindle for PC, etc. Almost NONE of them know how to sideload a book to their devices.

It's no different than what Smashwords does. All of those books need to be side-loaded unless you buy from a device that's smart enough to take the download and put it into your eReader.

Yes, of course it's no different than what SW does. I never said it was. I simply said that while you mayn't get requests for tech support, perhaps your readership is the type of readership that tends toward Indy books, buying from websites, and sideloading. For example--I'm quite sure that the vast majority of people who post here at MR would never have an iota of trouble buying a book from a blog, and getting it to their designated reader/device. But that's not the same thing as the general public.

If the OP is writing books aimed at a somewhat techy crowd, then great. But what if he's writing books geared for older audiences? What if the bulk of his readership have AOL email addresses? (Yes, those still exist--many of my clients have them). I know that Amazon has been continually surprised at the burden of tech support that they bear, vis-à-vis the KDP, and the folks there that can't upload a file.

A good 70+% of my clients actually don't know what "downloading" IS. I'm not being derogatory, I am simply stating facts. They think that double-clicking a Word file, from within an email, and having it launch, in Word, on their computers, is "downloading." They don't know how to download and save a file that doesn't have a program already on their systems to launch it. if it can't be done with a double-click, they can't save it. And those that do save the file, then can't find it, because they don't know where their downloads folder IS, on their Macs and PCs.

I'm happy for you that your experience is better. But I'm not kidding when I say that we had 8 clients that were bound and determined to try it, and one of them went so far as to buy ACS (all $6200 of it)...and as I said, not one of them lasted 6 months, because they had typical readers as clients. Not sci-fi readers, not bloggers, etc., just regular old readers. So, my sampling is simply those 8, plus my own experience after 7 years of having my firm, with 2,000+ clients.

Lastly, I'd note that perhaps you don't have issues because the ones who aren't comfortable already buying from a website just go to Amazon to buy your books? Thus, you only get a few that brave it who don't already know how? And so, if that's the case, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn't get more than a request or two a month for help--those that can, buy from you, those that can't, go to Amazon. Therefore, Amazon is already handling the clients that would be problematic for you, without you even knowing it, because the issue is handled during the buyer's purchase decision. That would be a perfect set-up, for just those reasons, but the OP was talking about NOT having his/her books on Amazon at all, from my understanding.

Offered simply FWIW.

Hitch

[thewitt]

Though I will not make any attempt to characterize your customers, let me assure you, my customers - hundreds of them a month - are just the average eBook reader.

Many have never side-loaded a document before, however they are virtually all able to do so with only a little assistance if any required.

Your experience is clearly different from my own, and that is fine.

[Nabeel]

I just love Hitch's story. A lesson to us all.