Ebook dilemma: giveaway or charge

[maxrigging]

I've got a question I cannot seem to answer:

I have a series of three ebooks I'm just finishing in
conjunction with my site on rowing.

My dilemma is whether I should sell them
or give them away and use them to generate traffic?

I only have about 30 - 60 viewers per day.

(At this moment my only revenue source
is sales of my book connected to the site)

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Really!

Mike

[tmarek]

Ok, I could see a potential problem with selling the book and making money with it if you are focusing on that stream of income. Would it hurt you if you switched it?

What alot of marketers are doing these days are using that to build their e-mail list. Do you have an e-mail list? I would suggest that you give away the book for free to those who subscribe to your newsletter/list. Be sure to show them the dollar amount that they will be getting for free when they subscribe, people will understand the value of it better. Using that e-mail list, you can then springboard into the area of monetizing it properly and creating an income stream off of that, to the point of having it run on autopilot and you still making a decent income.

Questions? Post away, we're all ears...

-Taylor

[Blaine Moore]

I use a 20 page ebook to give away as an incentive to get people on my list, and I sell a 75 page ebook to that list after the fact. You can always test it and see what works better.

If you want to build a list and have a series of 3 ebooks that you can send out say once a week, then that's pretty powerful and could get people on.

Depending upon how they are structured, you could also set up a sales page for each of the 3 ebooks and then offer the other 2 as bonuses and drive traffic through adwords to see how those sell. It would also allow you to put a price on the ebooks so that you would have a specific value to give people in exchange for their email addresses.

[maxrigging]

Blaine and Taylor:

First . . . thanks.

Second . . . I currently use a free-online course for folks that sign up to my email system (aWeber). They get about an 8 class course for free.

The ebook series (Zen Rowing) is on how folks can get more enjoyment from their rowing.

Can I ask, which option of these do you like better:

1. Option 1: Give the ebook (100 pages) and then sell the next two in the series (35 pages) for $9.95 US
   
2. Option 2: Sell the ebook (100 pages) for $19.95, and give as bonuses the next two in the series
   
3. Option 3: Sell the first for $11.95, and each of the next two for $9.95.

Any insight appreciated.

Mike

[BarryMorris]

Generally people won't buy from you unless they have a taste of your writing and its usefulness to their lives. If your free eCourse accomplished this, then selling your eBooks is a valid approach.

Option1 is out. Unless your eBooks are a series that need to be consumed in prescribed order, don't give a way the farm.

See this post.

Option two is probably what I would choose. I'd even say offer a Basic and Premium deal. Sweeten the Premium deal so much with bonuses of value that your reader will choose it at the higher price. But limit the higher price to about 10%.

[smartile]

ok, now I'm really confused.

I just recently completed my first ebook,

The Genius Within YOU - How to find you inner genius, natural ability and life purpose

I've been giving it away for free to my readers and anyone else who wants it.

What I'm hearing is that I should use this book to generate some leads for my mailing list? Is that correct?

I've already setup two gift-giveaways to subscribers of my mailing list.

What are your suggestions?

[Rich Hill]

Max Rigging,

If we're voting, I would say give them away as prizes for posting the best comments, links to your Blog, posts about your Blog, etc. Just give the first one free to everyone and then you will find out if there is a market for the other two.

You could always do both anyway. Give the first free, then offer the other two for sale at a fair price and/or use them as prizes.

But that's just me. I figure if you've got enough ammo for three books in you, then you can come out with the sequel mother of all rowing books.

Speaking of rowing, have you been following Roz Savage's adventures of rowing across the Pacific? She left from San Francisco a couple of months ago and she is a good way to Hawaii. The Voyage: Roz Savage: Rower, Writer, Speaker

Leo Laporte interviews her on his podcast via sat phone. The TWiT Netcast Network with Leo Laporte

Ps: I stumbled your nice Blog and can't believe I was the first one.

Rich Hill

[BGenay]

It sounds like you have just started your list. At this point I would
be giving away my ebook. Use it to create a larger list and them
sell down the road.

You must have something else to sell if you are going to all this effort.
Does it tie into the ebook?

Lots of luck,
Barbara

[maxrigging]

@ Rich: Thanks you for the Stumble. It sent my at least 60 visitors. I don't completely understand it all, but am learning (and sounds like I better do it quickly).

Per ebooks . . . good suggestion. Also, nice site. I subscribed today.

@ Barbara: appreciate advice. I guess what I really want to do with them is

1. increase traffic
2. generate some revenue

I was thinking of putting them all together later as one big book, maybe treebook . . . ? Thanks.

[fredgleeck]

Stephen, I'd give the ebook away. Every ebook I do I PACK with all kinds of bounceback offers. The long term revenue I get far exceeds the short terms profits of selling most ebooks, at least in my case. The key is lacing the book with bouncebacks that not only benefit you but make the reader feel like you're providing them a valuable service. In many cases, I'll head people to a site as an example of how to do things. This works well because the person who visits the site sees what I mean AND they may end up buying something. I'd show you a couple of examples but don't want to look like I'm "promoting" so I'll hold off unless you ask. That's my read on the topic. Best, Fred