Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#1

Post by jmeyers » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 3:32 PM UTC

I have a niche site in home wine making, www.frugalwinemaking.com. I have also been teaching classes on home wine making for about 2 years now. I've decided to create an e-book on how to make wine and would like to sell it from my site. My hosting provider wants 49.99\month for a package to sell E-books.

I've been following the discussions here on selling e-books (sorry don't have the link), which is part o the reason I'm doing this, but now that I'm thinking about implementing it I have a couple questions?

1. Is there a better, less expensive way, to start selling an E-book?

2. Do I need to set up a company to start selling e-books? (I'm located in Pittsburgh, PA USA)

This site is something I do to try and "find my passion". It is built on Wordpress. I don't have any illusions that this will make me lots of money, but I'd be happy if I could make enough to cover my hosting costs.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#2

Post by michael_dorfman » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 3:53 PM UTC

If the $50/month package does what you want it to do, it sounds like a great move to me. Unless you are going to seriously underprice your e-books, you only have to sell a couple each month to make your nut.

Have you done a dry test to gauge the interest out there?

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#3

Post by swalberg » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 3:56 PM UTC

ejunkie.com is a lot cheaper. Darren Rowse over at problogger.net has done several successful ebooks through them, and there are several Wordpress-ejunkie tutorials out there.

I'm not an accountant, but I'd imagine that you'd declare this as self-employed income.

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#4

Post by jmeyers » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:02 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

If the $50/month package does what you want it to do, it sounds like a great move to me. Unless you are going to seriously underprice your e-books, you only have to sell a couple each month to make your nut. Have you done a dry test to gauge the interest out there?

I have not done testing to gauge interest yet. I was looking at what else is out there and the sites I have seen look like they are just there to make money. The material I looked at doesn't cover what I go over in class, so I think I can offer something new.

So how would I go about testing interest??

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#5

Post by byoung2 » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:16 PM UTC

I'm not sure what you get for $50/month, but I had an ebook site a few years ago, and I wrote a custom script that automatically watermarked the PDF with the PayPal email address of the buyer. It was just plain PHP so I could host it on my $6/month unlimited domain shared hosting along with 50 other sites I had there, making the cost negligible.

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#6

Post by nhangen » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:29 PM UTC

swalberg wrote: post #3

ejunkie.com is a lot cheaper. Darren Rowse over at problogger.net has done several successful ebooks through them, and there are several Wordpress-ejunkie tutorials out there. I'm not an accountant, but I'd imagine that you'd declare this as self-employed income.

Correct, E-Junkie is $5/month and works for 99% of uses.

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#7

Post by michael_dorfman » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:29 PM UTC

jmeyers wrote: post #4

michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

If the $50/month package does what you want it to do, it sounds like a great move to me. Unless you are going to seriously underprice your e-books, you only have to sell a couple each month to make your nut. Have you done a dry test to gauge the interest out there?

I have not done testing to gauge interest yet. I was looking at what else is out there and the sites I have seen look like they are just there to make money. The material I looked at doesn't cover what I go over in class, so I think I can offer something new. So how would I go about testing interest??

Well, the classic way is to set up a web site describing the book, which has a "Buy" button. If/when people click, you explain the the book is not available yet, and collect their email address to notify them when it is available. Then, you pay for some Adwords traffic (say, $25 worth) to drive people to the site, and see what your Conversion Rate is.

In your case, though, if you already have a website in that niche that gets decent traffic, there are probably simpler ways to take the pulse of your current readers.

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#8

Post by mikecane » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:30 PM UTC

eBooks are my thing so let me save you time and energy: Format it for Kindle and sell it via Amazon, PERIOD. That's where people go to buy eBooks, period. They have at least 80% of the market and it's not worth it to try to fight that. Most of your customers are bound to have Kindles too.

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#9

Post by dwc » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 4:44 PM UTC

mikecane wrote: post #8

eBooks are my thing so let me save you time and energy: Format it for Kindle and sell it via Amazon, PERIOD. That's where people go to buy eBooks, period. They have at least 80% of the market and it's not worth it to try to fight that. Most of your customers are bound to have Kindles too.

Do you have advice on publishing elsewhere in addition to Amazon? Specifically, are there exclusivity restrictions that must be negotiated away, etc.?

Re: Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

#10

Post by mootothemax » Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 5:08 PM UTC

Surely the cheapest way would be to create a sales button in PayPal (Log in, click "Profile", click "My saved buttons") and then email the book to anyone who pays. If your book (I hope!) turns out to be a seller you can invest the money, otherwise do it by hand :-)