ORM Ebook - Free Or Paid
Update: - The Online Reputation Management eBook is now available!
I’m going to release the Online Reputation Management Ebook - The Guide to Monitoring and Managing your Reputation Online. It’s currently well over 40 pages and would love some advice on whether people think it should be free or cost a fee.
Here is a sample of the up and coming ebook cover:
My Personal Thoughts
Free
- More likely to get links from people
- Gives the possibility of attracting more clients
- Becoming more established as an authority
- Gives the product little value, otherwise why would I give it away?
Paid
- Still the possibility of getting a decent amount of links
- Can still get clients from the reviews of the book if people enjoy it
- Still seen as an authority on the subject
- Gives the product more value, but might get less people reading it
- Can Set up an affiliate program that might push more sales
If I do decide to sell, I don’t see it being anymore than $20-$30 and it will be updated over time.
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it’s always a tough call for free vs paid. I would think that maybe you give a sample chapter away for free to gather a bunch of links and get people talking. Give a few copies away to bloggers to review to gather more links and create more buzz. But then have a money page that sells the full book. I think you then get the best of both worlds
Thanks for the comments Martin, I appreciate your thoughts.
I don’t know if 40 pages is not too long. Have you heard about the $7 ebooks/scripts? It’s inexpensive, yet you can earn some money, people who like your ebook can spread it as well and even though they get the $7 (or $10 or what ever) you will get the emails from the people buying.
I have tons of free ebooks on my hard drive. Don’t know when or if I’m gonna read them.
Hope this helps, Xarah
Are you saying that you arent reading the free books because they were free?
First of all, I’m glad to hear about the eBook. I’m willing to pay, but around $10, not $20-$30. I expect the eBook to contain valuable and concise information that I can’t find in blogs and forums (for free). If it’s at least 40 pages long, perhaps you should consider splitting it to 2-3 books (one will focus on monitoring and one on managing or something of that sort) and each can cost around $7-$10.
Interesting, because if it was $10 I think that might lower the value more than it being free. Thanks for the into
It’s just my personal thoughts. Of course you can price it $14.99 or $19.99 and I might still buy it (that of course depends on the actual content, and how much it will differ from your blog).
I don’t think that $10 is too little. Epikone for example sell their Analytics eBook for $10. It gives great value, I bought it (and so did my colleagues) and I appreciate the fact that it wasn’t free. I’m willing to pay (only) for quality, but all the blogs and forums make me think twice before paying for something I can get for free (or think I can get for free).
Have to admit, I agree with Xarah and Hadar - there are many e-books available now and while I’m willing to pay up to $10 for something that may be useful, I can’t see paying 20 - 30 unless I really know the author. Maybe start small and build up?
Either way, I wish you all the best with it
THanks for the comments, appreciate your thoughts
As long as you earn good money via your day job and you don’t want to quit soon give the book away.
I would make the book a shorter primer, maybe cut off 10-15 pages and give it away. A free product is very useful for many purposes… encouraging subscriptions, generating leads, info for potential clients, JVs for affiliate marketers etc.
Every good marketer should have both a free product and a premium product. Save the pages you chopped away and make a more comprehensive or advanced all-in-one book that you can sell at a later stage after the first free book has been circulating for a while.
Make the premium item more substantial if you want to charge a higher rate.
Thanks for your thoughts Maki, and for coming through via Twitter (very cool)
Cheers!
Hi Glen,
You could give it away for free on a landing page where you’ll collect their name and e-mail first, then take them to an OTO page where you give them a special offer for another product at a reduced price. Or maybe charge them a small price and again take them to another OTO page where you can get an upsell on another product. I’m more for the free and gettig them on your list. If your product is good, then they’ll come back and buy from you later. JMHO
-Jonathon
I’m not really into the email marketing sides of things much. I do see a practical use for it but not using my work just in order to build up a ‘list’
I do understand where you are coming from though and appreciate your thoughts
Hi Glen,
Go back to your “business objective” for the answer. It would seem to me that you’re still building your reputation (you’re off to a stunning start, but seems like you want to vault into the stratosphere). Having that alpha reputation is worth more than what you’ll likely make off the book at this stage.
Plus, most of the business type books that I pay $20 bucks for are more like 200 pages. 40 pages sounds pretty short to me in that context.
So I’d give it away. Hype it, promote it, track your downloads, etc. Then maybe sell your second book.
We’re finishing up a book on social media marketing. It’s currently 185 pages. We’re going to print it in paperback, order a few hundred and give them away. Then sell it on amazon, etc, but the goal is not to make any money, but to continue to build our (hopefully growing reputation) too…
Hope it helps.
~Jim
I’d love to know when you make the book public so please add me to any email list you might have!
Hello Glen:
Welcome to the ebook world! I too am just starting to write ebooks. I want to help push this new technology since it is easier on the environment - imagine no chopping trees! Promote as much as you can and be patient since time will tell.
eBooks have been around for years, but I agree in that it’s much better than chopping down trees, other benefits I like is that:
- They can be updated if they are time-sensitive
- They can be given away easier
Agree with Maki. Give away an intro (that has value alone) and then lead into a premium version with testimonials. That lets people get to know you’re stuff a bit.