Author: Lisette
Having recently completed the process of creating a couple of eBooks and setting up automated sales processes by integrating E-junkie with Paypal, I’d like to share some of the lessons I learned from the experience.
Shopping Cart
E-junkie is an amazing service, easy to use and customize. With one account and just $5.00 a month you can be both a seller and affiliate for other people’s products, list multiple products and enter discount codes. There is no charge to become an affiliate. Overall, I highly recommend E-junkie.
Automated Sales Process
Even though I had a lot of help from the videos in Project Mojave, the truth is there are a number of low level steps that you can only figure out by doing them yourself. Looking back it all seems easy but the first product and the first E-junkie – Paypal integration took some work.
Professional Cover Design
Like Michael Fortin says, People do Judge Authors by their Covers. It’s definitely worth creating an attractive 3D cover for your information product.
If you don’t have the skills to create 3D product covers using Photoshop then consider using with a service like eCover Makers. For $67.00 I got several banners and a nice soft paperback 3D book cover for my first eBook. (For the second one I was fortunate to have my friend Tim take my Photoshop image and transform it into a 3D book cover so I didn’t have to pay for it).
Professional EBook Design
If you’re just getting started this may be difficult since it’s not cheap (about $500.00 for a professional eBook design) but I believe it is a wise investment and a good way to build authority.
A friend of mine recently used the services of Blazeonfire, a professional designer and publisher for his eBook. If you check out their portfolio samples you’ll see what a big difference a professional design can make.
Landing Page
To market your book, you’ll need to create a landing page and place it on a separate domain name. The domain name should match the name of the eBook. For instance, if you write a book about “Slashing Credit Card Debt” then try to pick a domain name that most closely matches the name of your book such as: www.ReduceCreditCardDebt.com.
SEO Optimized Blog
Next, you’ll need a blog to bring traffic to your landing page. Pick a domain name for the blog that contains a paying phrase related to the name of the book. A paying phrase is one that people are searching for and are willing to pay for. (I could write an eBook just about this topic though I still feel I have a lot to learn when it comes to SEO).
This step is as important as creating the eBook. If you have the best product in its kind but no one can find it, you won’t have too many sales. Spend serious time researching keywords and try to pick a domain name that contains a paying phrase. This is no easy feat but it will make selling a lot easier.
Avoid this Common Pitfall
The single biggest mistake I made on my first eBook was devoting too much time to content creation. My mentor Clay Collins advised me to spend no more than a week creating content. At the time that seemed pretty extreme to me but looking back I realize the wisdom of his advise.
It is important to spend most of our time on marketing and promoting products. This is what all successful businesses do, from fast food restaurants to software development companies. We can always improve a product.
Start small->Market->Sell->Obtain Feedback->Improve product
Repeat cycle: Market->Sell->Obtain Feedback->…and so on.
This all seems pretty obvious but when you’re working by yourself trying to pick a market while you brainstorm ideas, organize content, create a product, revise content, buy domain names, set up an automated sales process and then market the product, it’s easy to get bogged down in details and loose sight of the ultimate goal.
Only through continuous practice we can learn to master these steps.
Lisette is an online marketer, copywriter and English-Spanish translator.
Lisette, thanks for sharing your hard earned insights. You are so right – it’s easy to get bogged down in the details and never actually get something out the virtual door.
Lisette, that’s a great overview! E-junkie is a great service to start out with, and Project Mojave is top-notch.
Yes, going through this process the first time was a daunting task and it was all new to me. Hopefully the 3rd one will go smoother. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
Lisette, this is a very fine overview– something I’d have liked to see when I got started. But there’s one thing I disagree with: the ebook design stuff.
If you can sell the book with a crappy cover, then there’s a great market there. You can always spruce up the design of your ebook, website etc after you’re making sales.
I consider spending too much time on design elements just as bad, if not worse, than the common pitfall of spending too much time on content creation. At least, it was another thing to get me procrastinating back in the day…
I Love project mojave. It’s great reading Clay’s process in your own words. The take away is to just do it, and have confidence that the technology is available to make it work.
@William – you make a good case. Ideally we should try to get our product out the door fast and then improve on it, once we have traffic and sales. I guess it depends on the topic and the market.
A fancy cover is probably not needed for an eBook on SEO Strategies or Keyword Research, but in some highly competitive markets like Travel or Diet & Nutrition, a home brewed book cover may not cut it.
But you’re right, if we can sell a book with a crappy cover then that means we have a winner. 🙂
@Joshua – that’s exactly how I looked at it – Just Do it. I figured if I completed the whole project it would be a great learning experience and one I could duplicate over and over again or maybe even teach others how to do it. Thank you both for your comments.
Great overview! I couldn’t agree more RE: the learning curve with E-junkie, PayPal, and the other myriad technical set-ups. While not especially hard to learn, it does require time to monkey around and considerable patience!
Thanks Victoria. This process is not rocket science but yes, it does take time and patience to implement like you said. Cheers.
The advice about not spending too long on creating content is a very good. In my experience, a lot of people spend far too little time on understanding and getting to grips with their market, and far too much time on writing the content.
Thanks for the overview – it’s good to see it laid out like this.
Iain
Thanks Iain. It’s also a good idea to start by providing a free download on a particular topic before investing a whole lot of time and effort on creating an info product for it. Thanks for stopping by!
Keep working, magnificent job!
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