How to Price Your eBook

You've written and compiled an ebook. Now you have todecide how much to charge for it. Finding the rightprice is essential to the success of your product. Ifyou charge too little, people will think it's oflittle value, and they won't purchase it, or even itthey do buy your book, you will have to sell thousandsof copies to get to the point where you can begin tosee a profit. If you price it too high when comparedwith your competition, you will find yourself steadilylowering the price, which will cause you all kinds ofnew problems in the future. For example, if you sellyour ebook at first for $39.99, and later reduce it to$24.95, don't you think the people who bought it for$39.99 are going to be PISSED?

Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of themost critical parts of the marketing process. Thefirst rule of pricing ebooks is to never underprice.Determine the highest price your audience can afford,and then if you find your book isn?t selling, you canalways reduce the price. Before you take that step,make sure you are promoting your book like crazy onthe Internet and on websites. The price should beaimed at bringing in profits, but you should neverforget that price is one of the factors that peopleuse in judging the value of your ebook ? before theybuy it. So always start with the highest price, andthen launch a mega-marketing campaign.

Pricing an ebook is particularly difficult becauseebooks are a fairly new commodity. Since they aredigital, the value of an ebook is as confusing as theunderstanding of what digital actually is to theaverage layperson. This means that we must look atebooks in a different light in order to determinetheir actual worth in this brave, new cyber world.

Let's look at the difference between a book in printand an ebook. A printed book is an object you can holdin your hand, store on your bookshelf, even hand downto the next generation. It is priced on factors suchas paper stock, design and production costs, andmarketing.

But the fact that unites ebooks and print books isthat they are composed of ideas. It is the ideas inthese books that have the ability to change, orpossibly transform, people's lives.

What do you think an idea is worth when evaluatedagainst the cost of paper and ink?
It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how youdetermine the cost of your ebook.
What should I charge for my ideas?

There are all different formulas and methods fordetermining the correct price for your ebook. Let'sbegin with honing in on your ultimate goals.

Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution andmaximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawingcustomers to your business or service, or toestablishing the credibility of your reputation. Ifthis is your main goal, you should aim to keep yourprice on the low side. Some authors have even pricedtheir ebooks at a profit loss to draw a high number ofnew customers. The key is to find a price thatmaximizes your profits and the number of books yousell.

This is an excellent pricing strategy if you arelooking to acquire long-term customers. Long-termcustomers are extremely likely to buy from you againand again ? as long as the first ebook they buy is ofexceptional quality and beneficial to the customer.

However, if your book contains valuable ? and moreimportantly NEW information, references, or techniques? then you should aim to price it on the high end.

After you figure out your goal, you must figure outwhat your audience's need is for your ebook. Forexample, does your book solve a particular problem? Ifit does, and solves it in a way that hasn't beenwritten about in one hundred other ebooks, you will beable to achieve high sales at a high price. If yourbook solves a problem or answers questions in a newand unique way, you should price your book as high asyou can go. You will achieve larger profits this way,but bring in fewer customers. Just make sure thequestion or problem that your book solves is one thatis important and relevant to the majority of yourmarket audience. If your ideas are not commonknowledge, or you are presenting a brand newtechnique, you will be able to sell books at a highprice. Just be prepared for your competition toundercut you on price as soon as they hear about yourbook.

Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy istemporary. Eventually, you will cease to sell books atthis high price. So figure out in advance how long youplan to offer your ebook at this high price, and whenthat time is up, change your pricing strategy.
If you want to see large profits over customer draw,aim for an audience that is looking for easy solutionsto their problems at a low price. If your book isaimed at solving one particular problem rather thangeneral advice, then you can charge more. Start at thehighest price the market will bear to bring in thelargest profits, and plan to discount the book anumber of times throughout the year.

Marketing Strategies

The key that unlocks the sales potential of your ebookis to find a single sentence that becomes your sellinghandle. This sentence states what question or problemyour book answers and the benefits your ebook canprovide. Then be sure to use that sentence in everypiece of sales and promotional material, and everytime anyone asks you about your ebook.
Besides promoting your books assiduously online, thereare several other strategies that can help you sellmore books.

One is to give something away for free with your book,such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle severalebooks under one price, which lowers the price foreach ebook if they were sold separately.

An effective technique for figuring out a price is tosend out a survey to your current customers. If thesecustomers have already bought an ebook from you, askfor their opinion in terms of price. Do this bycreating a sales page for the new book, but don'tinclude a price on that page. Instead, add a number oflinks to survey questions that ask pointed questionsto aid you in assigning a price to your ebook.

Another strategy is to test out prices by creating anumber of duplicate sales pages with different priceson each page. Make sure your sales copy is exactly thesame on every page, and includes your selling-handlesentence. Then figure out for each page the conversionratio between visitors to your site and sales of yourbook. This will tell you what your optimum price is.

Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves aproblem or presents a new technique, your book willbring in both traffic and profits. So be sure to writethat selling-handle sentence that sums up what problemyour book solves and what the benefits of your bookwill be to the customers who purchase it. And thenwatch your market come to you!

Articles : Food

Ebooks are Promotional Powerhouses

Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace.

They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing
information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge.
Each day the number of people accessing the Internet
grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase
incrementally. It's obvious why electronic
self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to
forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of
history. Books in print have their own special
qualities and merits, and the world would be
diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so
important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities
and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and
their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about
it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing
press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor.
You just need a great concept, the ability to write it
or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly
distributed online. They are also easily updated; they
do not require a second print run. All you need is to
go into your original creation and modify the text or
graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can
change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have
to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles
at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download
it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer,
ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique
and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add
surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for
customers to purchase your products or goods, sound
and video that draw your reader into the virtual world
of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites
that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is
virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other
mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio
shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks
remain on your computer for as long as your choose,
and they can be read and reread whenever you choose
to. They can even be printed out and stored on the
shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no
barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go
through the endless process of submitting your
manuscript over and over again, and then once you land
an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over
and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands
of dollars for printing a self-published book. All
ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software.
Figure out your market, write your book, post it on
your website, and with the right business savvy, your
audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook.
You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the
publishing trends of the time. You don't have to
haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys
to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control
of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote
your business and drive quality traffic to your
website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them
into a daily course, which brings your customer back
to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free
gift for making a purchase or for filling out a
survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an
innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by
inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that
are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you
have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can
offer to the public. People will have to visit your
site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow
of quality traffic and the potential of sales and
affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it
frequently as the market and trends change. Add new
advice and techniques to show your prospects how your
goods or services can enrich their lives. By
constantly keeping abreast of new trends and
techniques, you can continue to see profits from your
ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can
test their marketing potential without putting out
hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook
one copy at a time, each time you receive an order,
eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By
this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your
ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the
orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn
about your market and customer habits and motivation
over a period of time, without risking your precious
financial resources. They also provide you with an
invaluable way to gather marketing information, which
you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and
problems are in your specific industry. Then figure
out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook
with this invaluable information. This will increase
the value of your business, upgrade your reputation,
and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking
the book down into chapters for a serial course, into
special reports available on your website, or into
audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into
several different promotional materials by excepting
some of the articles and using them to promote your
product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to
promote all the products or services you sell. You can
include a thank-you note for reading your book and an
invitation to download a trial version of your
product. Or you can include a form for your audience
to contact you for further information or with
questions, thereby building your business
relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of
individually producing separate promotional materials.
You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and
to sell new products to your current customers.

No other medium has this kind of flexibility and
ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a
spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go
and create that web, and see how many customers and
prospects you can catch!

Articles : Medic

Choosing an eBook Compiler

What is an eBook compiler?
You've written and revised your ebook, hired an artistwho has produced outstanding graphics, and now you'reready to actually put together your ebook. What youneed to make an ebook is software called an ebookCompiler.
There are many different compilers to chose from, butfirst, you need to know exactly what an ebook Compilerdoes. Here is the simple explanation:
An ebook compiler is a software program that convertseither text pages or HTML text into a singleexecutable file or an ebook.
If you or someone you hired has created a file withgraphics in HTML, you will need an HTML ebookCompiler. This type of compiler requires a workingknowledge of the HTML tag language. You can also usesoftware to do this for you, such as MicrosoftFrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver.
How do you choose an eBook Compiler?
There are a large number of ebook Compilers availableon the market, all with glowing sales copy and tekkielanguage. It can get very confusing and overwhelmingvery fast without some simple guidelines to help youfigure out which compiler is right for you.

Choosing an ebook Compiler depends on a number offactors:
1. How did you create your pages? Did you use HTML orPDF format? There are many more compilers availablefor HTML, but you can find some very good compilersthat will covert your PDF files into an ebook.
2. Consider how easy the program is to use and thethoroughness of the software's instruction manual. Itis absolutely necessary that the compiler you buy havean instructional manual, documentation, or online"wizards." If it doesn't, your chances of figuring outhow to correctly use the program are compromised, andthe time required doing so is going to be significant.Many manufacturers of compilers offer a free trialversion so you can play around with it and see if itsuits your needs. Download the trial version andascertain that it actually does what it claims to do.
3. Security features. If you plan to sell your ebook,check out the security features of the compilersoftware carefully. Security features should include:prevention of the reader from modifying text, accessonly to the pages you assign or by entering apassword, different ways of generating passwords suchas secure passwords, user-friendly, and openpasswords.
4. Supported scripting. Find out what scripts thesoftware supports. Scripting allows you to createspecial effects, customize menus, and create andmodify other user interactivity. Choose a compilerthat permits you to include graphics, search windows,hyperlinks, forms, surveys, etc.
5. Pricing. This is a factor that is not always easyto gauge. The highest priced compilers are notautomatically your best choice. Choose your compilerbased on the necessary requirements for your Ebook.That means you need to know exactly how you plan touse your Ebook and what functions you require.

Let's look at some of these factors in more detail.First of all, make sure you have the correct browserto run the compiler. The majority of HTML compilersuse Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape. Check outthe version that the compiler supports. Compilers thatrequire a browser will not run on a computer that doesnot have the required browser installed. However,there are ebook HTML compilers that don't require youto have any browser installed on your computer. Thesecompilers run on any Windows system.
If you choose a compiler that requires a browser,check to ascertain that the browser is installedcorrectly and that it is properly configured to thespecifications of the compiler. Check to see ifcertain functions are turned off or on, and make anyadjustments according to the compiler instructions.
Security is an essential element of any compiler,regardless of whether you plan to sell or give awayyour ebook. One of the main reasons for using acompiler is to prevent the reader from modifying thecontents. A secure compiler allows access only to thepages you want the user to access unless they enter acorrect password.
To find out how secure an ebook HTML compiler is, openan ebook on it. While it is open, check the temporarydirectory of your computer. This can usually beaccessed by typing in C:\Windows\temp. If you see abunch of files when your ebook is open or running, itmeans that your computer is decompressing the securedata from your ebook before showing the ebook to theviewer. This method is not secure! It means thatanyone with the knowledge of how to access thesetemporary files can steal the secure data and thenthey can fiddle with your ebook to their evil heart'sdesire. Remember, one of the main purposes of buyingand using an HTML compiler is to protect yourproperty.
Next, let's discuss passwords. When trying to choosean ebook Compiler, check out the type of passwordsthat the compiler supports. Almost all compilers offersome kind of password protection that insures that theuser can only access the contents they have purchasedfrom you. However, the best compilers offer variedways to generate different types of passwords. Choosea compiler that gives you the options of secure,user-friendly, and open password generation.
Another important factor when it comes to passwords ishow the compiler generates them. A compiler that hasinternal password protection generation built into thesoftware is more secure than compilers that link tolive Internet password control systems.
Find out if the compiler generates passwords online.If it has this option, it allows you to choose anypayment processing system you want or to do thepayment processing yourself.
Next, look into the size of ebook the compilersupports. The best compilers can create ebooks up to 2GB in size without decompressing the HTML pages orimages to your hard disk. Usually, ebooks that are 2GB in size can easily support 6 GB of compressed data.The catch here is that only text files will generallybe compressible.
You do not want a compiler that decompresses thisamount of data when the user attempts to open yourebook. This would mean that anyone who purchases yourebook will have to wait for all the data to decompressbefore they can access your ebook right afterdownloading it. So look for compilers that onlydecompress temporarily files that are NOT HTML to thelocal hardisk. Non-HTML files include Flash, Word, andAcrobat files. This type of compiler is more secureand certainly faster.
Make sure the compiler you choose is compatible withyour system software. Check out what version ofWindows it requires, and make sure you have thatversion before buying your compiler.
Support issues are extremely important. Choose acompiler that includes an installation program. Thisprogram allows your user to choose a number ofdifferent places on their computer to install theebook, to place a shortcut on their desktop, and toadd the ebook, if they choose, to the Start Programsmenu.
You also want excellent and accessible vendor support.Make sure you can access quick technical support! Atthree o'clock in the morning, this factor will be VERYimportant. Also, check to see the terms of freetechnical support offered. Unlimited technical supportis obviously the best option.
Check to see if the company that puts out the compilersoftware offers a service level agreement. Thisagreement is to assure you of their quality responseto your questions or problems.
A good thing to consider is how long the compiler hasbeen on the market. Usually, the version number willgive you an idea. The longer the program is on themarket, the higher the version number, the more bugshave been worked out.
When choosing an ebook compiler, do not be swayed byincredible promises and dazzling sales copy. Do yourhomework first, and then consider all the above issuesand factors before choosing an ebook compiler.

Articles : Food