hello to all. i am trying to finish my 1st e book, and it's going at a slow pace. tomorrow a plan on siting in at writing all day until i finish it!

my book is about teaching people about commodity investing, and the basics, before they learn how to trade. also i will layer in real stories that i have experienced as a broker, and things that they need to watch out for.

i plan on charging $27.00 for the book. it should be close to 100 pages. maybe 70 at the least. what do you think?

i know nothing about writing sales copy, i'm a web designer. any suggestions?

as far as a back-end or bonuses, i have contacted 1 company and am working out a deal with them, they offer a daily report on the markets (commodities only) and will give my customers a 30 day trial. then they are charged $68.00 a month. the company wants me to put it aon a password protected area, and they will update it daily for me as well. out of that i will get $20.00 per person, per month. it can quickly add up i guess. should i add more stuff to the "members only" area? i was thainkg about a forum, but the other company suggested that i not, and set up an e mail questionare, where if someone has a question they e mail it and i'll answer. i don't know.

bottom line is that i want to automate this as much as possible. i have maillop already, and i have access to tons of cgi scripts including affiliate scripts.any suggestions?

as far as creating the e book, i was looking into html compilers, i found one at www.e-ditor.com what do you think about that one? or should i use pdf?

sorry that this is so long, it's just that i hear so much different info. and most of it is contradictory, so you get even more confused.

thanks

David

David,

Since day trading is becoming so popular yes, it seems like there would be a market for your eBook. The price seems reasonable as well.

My only suggestions would be to come up with one hell of an attention getting title for your eBook as well as a professionally made graphic representation of your eBook.

I sell my eBook as a self contained piece of software/ executable file rather than an html compiled eBook (this requiring Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher) as well as PDF format... I would NOT necessarily rely on one or the other but actually provide different versions.

The reason I do not use an HTML compiler for my eBook is because when I first put the eBook out, the only eBook compiler I saw on the market required the user to have Internet Explorer 4.0 or above on their system. At that time, 3 years ago, at least half of my unique visitors used Netscape so I didn't want to burden that half with having to download Internet Explorer as well as my eBook. I am NOW "rethinking" that decision because now, at least 80% of my unique visitors now use Internet Explorer and that percentage goes up each month.

Another reason I say to provide both versions is because no matter what method you use to publish your eBook, you're going to have customers emailing with problems... Most of my customer's problems seem to come from the fact that they have NEVER downloaded a program before...so of course they pick my product as the guinea pig...lol.

Anyway, some customers are so technically non proficient that I am sometimes very happy to simply offer them the different version... The sales for my eBook are about two thirds NON PDF sales... so it might warrant some consideration... I use WinEbook software for the publishing of my eBook and have never had any complaints...

The biggest problem my customers seem to have is "finding" the eBook file once they've downloaded it. I have step by step downloading/installation instructions, but I receive at least 2 or 3 problem emails per day... and no matter what I do... call the customer, send numerous emails to them, etc., I find that when one of my customers cannot get one version of the eBook to work, they always seem to prevail with the other version...

I also make both versions SEPARATE version sales so that a paying customer must make a choice before they buy... Why? At one time I allowed customers to download any version they wanted after their purchase. According to my download logs, 99% of the customers downloaded both versions... and it was these same customers that wanted refunds which I give with absolutely NO argument.

But after a month I did away with that option and switched over to a single version download that the customer MUST decide on before purchasing. Life is so much easier now...

And like I said...

When you've absolutely done everything you can to satisfy a customer OR assist him/her with figuring out how to install/load/find their download and nothing seems to be getting through to them... then you can always offer them either a)a printed version or b)the other eBook version. This also gives the customer the "perceived value" idea because they did not have to pay for the other version...

I am considering compiling my eBook with an html compiler and offering it as another purchase option for the same reason as I've outlined above. I can only see it as a benefit/solution to offer my customers that have problems...

As far as automation, I use ClickBank because not only is it automated, but I can run my own affiliate program as well. As I've offered in other posts here, if you have a decent program and offer a fair commission, ClickBank merchants will seek you out on the ClickBank marketplace section of their web site.

Unless you've got a lot a lot of money to promote your web site/eBook, this could be a good way to go. I had thought of using an affiliate cgi script on my site and even purchased one... but opted to stay with ClickBank because they do everything for me except customer service. The checks go out to all my affiliates and I don't have that headache! I don't have to worry about stats, affiliate sales, etc. which to me, is worth every penny ClickBank takes as their commission. I just wish they had a 2-tier program... but hopefully some day...

The bottom line is that I would offer as many different versions as possible to your customers so that later troubleshooting will be a breeze.

Hope some of this helps you out...

Matt
Doorway DNA
The Negative Calorie Diet