ebooks

**"DGreen" d*@kingston.net**

Let me start this quick note off by saying that there's little difference
between self-publishing an ebook and publishing a pbook.

Anybody can do it.  It isn't difficult.  The software exists for both and is
readily available on the net.  I'm working almost full time on writing my
gardening websites and producing ebooks.

Most of the steps are the same.  You have to write it, edit it, lay it out,
graphics, etc etc.  

The publishing process is different.  In pbooks, you kill a bunch of trees
and ink 'em up to produce a pbook.  In ebooks, you use some software (which
one you use depends on your marketing / selling system) and click a button.
You occupy a few electronic bits.

Distribution is different.  Pbooks uses physical hauling.  Ebooks use wires.

**But the major similarity is that if you don't market your book - nothing
happens.**

Any author will tell you that if you don't market your pbook, then you won't
have a ton of sales. If you don't do speeches and flog the book - it won't
sell.  If you don't send out news releases - it won't sell. The publishing
company isn't really going to sell your book for you - most pbook authors
will tell you horror stories of discovering this.  I learned this the hard
way with the 7 pbooks I've had published. 

 It's the same with ebooks.   Simply shoving an ebook up on the Net is no
guarantee that somebody will come and buy it.   You have to market that
ebook just as hard, just as diligently as any other book.   And the ways
you'll do this are much different than in pbooks.

**The need to market pbooks and ebooks is the same and takes the same amount
of effort.**

If you're not interested in working at writing, then you can delete this
note now.  The hard cold reality is that there is no get rich quick scheme
in ebooks for garden writers.  It is a business.  

It can be a profitable little business but never make the mistake of
thinking its easy - it is a business and you'll have to work at it.

Let me give you a bit of an example.  Direct mail marketers consider a 3%
return on a sales letter to be an excellent response rate.  Most internet
marketers consider 1% phenomenally good.   So if you can write an excellent
sales letter, you might convert 1 visitor in a hundred to buy an ebook. (I'm
currently less than that but getting better)  To sell 5 books a week, you
need 500 unique visitors a week.   Let me suggest that those of you with
author websites check out your unique visitor counts (not hits) and see how
many individual visitors you get a month.  This will tell you how many
ebooks you might expect to sell. 

This means not only do you have to have the skill to write an ebook, you
have to have the skill to produce a website that attracts 500 unique
visitors a week, and the skill to write a sales letter that will convert at
1%.  These are three specific and distinct skills.  If you become competent
at these skills, the above example will produce a gross sale of $35./week.
Get those visitor counts up as high as mine or some other garden writers on
this listserv who have even higher visitor counts - using the SBI system we
use - and your numbers become quite attractive.

Let me tell you that it can be done.  But it isn't as simple as shoving an
ebook up on a website and counting your money.

You'll have to produce tons of great content so the search engines will find
your site and visitors will come to see what you're doing. (If, like me,
you've been writing gardening articles or columns already you likely have
tons of files to modify for articles.)  Once you have that traffic, once
you've formed relationships with your visitors, you can put up ebooks for
sale and some of your visitors will want more info than your site gives them
and (if you've written the letter properly) will buy your ebooks.

But it is a long term business strategy.  It is not get rich quick.  But it
can be done.

Here's the system I use for my 8 websites.  I'm currently writing and
producing ebooks as fast as I can along with taking courses on copywriting
and producing tons of content for my websites.  You can do it with one
website or, like me, as many as you think you can handle.  

I want to emphasize that I'm no web guru or understand how search engines
work.  I let this software do it all for me.  I'm not an expert on all parts
of figuring out what to write about that will attract customers, so I let
this software figure it all out for me.  I know gardening so I let this SBI
system do all the rest of the work.  

This system isn't for everyone.  If you think you want to learn all those
Net techniques of creating websites and producing traffic, or if you believe
the get rich quick folks that say you can simply create a page and the world
will come, then this SBI system isn't for you.  

But if you're like me and want to write about gardening, something you
really love, and don't want to worry about the technical side of things,
then this might help you as it has helped me and several other garden
writers on this listserv.

Check out http://infopublishing.sitesell.com/review.html

Let me be upfront with this - if you click on this link and purchase
something (there's tons of freebies here too) I'll get a small affiliate
cheque.  But having 8 websites using this system, I am a firm believer in
what they're doing.

If you want some of the freebies this company offers, check out this page: 
http://freetrial.sitesell.com/review.html   You'll be able to see the kinds
of things others are doing and try them out, get trial versions of the
software, access the forums, the search tools, get the free reports, get the
data you need to make a good business decision that works for you. (Even
though it works for me, this system may not be what you want)

Hope this helps a little bit in your decision making.  All the answers to
questions I could answer are answered much better on these urls.

Doug

p.s. as I said, this is not get rich quick but it is an excellent system for
those of us who love to share our gardening information and a great way to
make some money doing it.  If you want to make your living writing (like I
do) you really want to check out this system.

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