My publishing company, Caramal Publishing Inc. has been going for ten years now and we’ve published hardcover, softcover and ebooks, CDs and DVDs. I’ve found that for shorter books (up to 100 pages, but ideally not more than 60 pages) people don’t mind an ebook. But for anything longer, they want the physical book. I also have quite a few customers who purchase BOTH the hardcover and ebook (which I offer at a substantial discount) so they can get started right away while they’re waiting for the hardcover to be delivered.
There are lots of security options for ebooks – but at the end of the day, once someone has bought the ebook, if they want to send it to someone else they can (and why not, we can lend our physical books anytime we want).
If you’re just starting out, this is a system I can recommend (that I used myself for several years) that will take you to mid-level sales/complexity:
they have an ebook sales facility automatically included – immediately upon purchase of your ebook, the customer goes to a download page for your ebook (which you have uploaded as a pdf). They also receive an email giving them the link to the download page. However, the security feature is that the link/download is only live for 24 hours. This makes it harder to ‘share’ an ebook, since many email providers won’t let people email large files to each other. Just adds a layer of hassle. Go to the site and check it out as you can signup and test it for a month for only $4. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll be hooked.
Oh yes, and they also have a built-in affiliate program – so that you can have other sites advertising/offering your book and whenever a sale comes from them (your affiliates), they will automatically get a commission on the sale (you can set the commission at whatever % you want). They offer many more useful features, so go to their site and check it out.
I used 1shoppingcart.com for about 5 years and was really happy with it, until we outgrew it and our marketing got too complex/extensive for it. Now we use a CRM (customer response management) system since we also have the Holistic Health Shoppe with over 200 products:
Now, I recently found this company in Ohio that is really good for short-run, softcover books (no minimum order) – that way you can have books in stock if someone wants the physical book, with minimal investment. I recently published a 136-page softcover book on natural healing for constipation with them and they did a great job – production, communication, delivery, etc. – everything was no hassle and delivered as promised:
If you’re planning to sell on Amazon though, then your best option may be a company affiliated with Amazon called Create Space. This service allows you to print-on-demand only the number of copies you need. You submit your book design files and they will keep them on file and just print and bind the number of copies you request – and the print cost is very competitive.
Once your book is printed, you then have two options. You can sell your books through Amazon (i.e. the customer has ordered your book through Amazon) and Amazon will handle shipping and fulfillment of that book to the customer, plus any customer service issues.
Or you can order your books to sell on your own website, at your seminars, workshops etc. To do this, you simply place an order of your book with Create Space and again, there’s no minimum order. So you can order 10 books or 100 books. Here’s quick look at the pricing guidelines on Create Space. They also do DVDs and CDs as well.
Since companies change their pricing, you would do best to compare the pricing of 48hour Books and Create Space – taking into account Create Space’s affiliation with Amazon, and then choose the solution that will work best for you.
Don’t even think about printing 500 or 1000 copies of your book until you have established a sales record. It’s not uncommon for a niche publication to only sell 20 books per month. At that rate, it would take you over 2 years to sell out a print run of 1000 copies, by which time some of your information will probably be out of date.
Also, another big reason to print small runs – no matter how well you’ve edited your book, after it’s published your readers will call your attention to all the errors you missed! If you only print 50 books at a time, you can easily fix these errors before the next print run.
Okay, last nugget to share (my publishing company: www.caramal.com has been running for ten years now so I’ve had a fair bit of experience) when you want to get your ebook formatted and a cover design done, definitely use:
to source a cheap-as-chips designer from India, Russia, China, etc. In fact, due to the competition in this marketplace you can often find a North American designer who will quote for only a little bit more. Also use elance.com to source your website designer, etc. The cost differential is astounding. There is no charge to you to post your project and receive quotes for the job (the provider pays Elance the brokerage commission). I outsource everything now. My long-term computer programmer for $20/hour is in Pune, India, my latest logo design project was done in Buenos Aires, my forum management (to keep out porn, spam etc.) is done in Assam for $5/hour, my virtual assistants for customer service are in Massachusetts and Wahsington, etc. etc.
If you use www.elance.com it will be very cheap to get your ebook ready and available. Then just test it and see! You can’t know anything for sure until you test it.
Jini
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