Is Selling eBooks Online Dead?

Written by Pablo Palatnik on May 27, 2008

How many people a year buy books? Millions? Billions? Think worldwide…That’s how you have to think in terms of selling a product online…WORLDWIDE…specially a product that can be digitally delivered.

About 4 months ago I launched my first eBook landing page for an eBook subject millions of people are looking for. Though they may not be looking especially for an eBook (they are looking for books on the subject, discs, etc…), I knew to target the whole market.

I’m not going to lie, the results weren’t great but for the amount of money and time invested, it did decent without my blowing out a campaign.

Note: Google told me due to customer feedback, etc…they will rank ebook sites with low quality scores unless you have an established site.

I sold about 10 ebooks in a weeks’ time which isn’t great at all. The price point of the eBook was $17, so that was $170 in a week spending about $40-50 in PPC. Note that the beauty about selling an ebook is that the profit is pure profit because the ebook doesn’t cost ANYTHING once it is done. The price point of $17 is a lot of money for an ebook but you have to show there is value in what you are selling if not people will think it’s too cheap. You have to find the right price to make it affordable and give it real value.

I decided to lower the cost of my ebook to $10 and will see what happens. Also, I will add more ad groups and try different online avenues to see how it performs. If this works, there are hundreds of subjects that you can sell ebooks for. The trick is finding the right formula for that ONE ebook, after that…you’re golden.

It’s a great way to generate extra weekly/monthly income online.

So, to answer the question in the title of this post, NO. Though people may not find an ebook a real replacement for a real book, it can still hold value to many. You just have to make sure you make your ebook seem credible with good design and content.

I’ll write a post with my update launch of the ebook site (I have two and not sure what I’ll try first) and we’ll see how it performs. May do well or may be a total failure…either way, it’s worth a shot.