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! |
