One of my favourite surf brands, The Critical Slide Society has used freedom, and a sweet-ass Defender, as the inspiration for their latest clothing range.
The autumn collection is called The Freedom Sliders and is hitting stores now. The photo shoot for this range not only happens to feature some of my favourite pastime (surfing and camping), but my favourite vehicles (a Landrover Defender and a VW van).
I recently wrote four compelling reasons to write your first eBook. If you need a refresher (or are simply pressed for time), the key reasons detailed in this post were revenue, lead generation, reputation growth and SEO. I maintain that only one of the aforementioned reasons should be selected as the primary motivator for writing an eBook, however the truth is, after countless late nights spent writing the digital publishing world’s answer to War & Peace, you may find yourself second guessing your original decision, “To pay, or not to pay?”
Deciding whether to request a payment from your audience for the privilege of downloading your eBook is tough.
[Insert table of Advantages vs Disadvantages]
Advantages
The advantages of giving away your eBook for free all revolve around maximising volumes. More specifically the volume of downloads, the volume of times it is shared, and the volumes of backlinks pointing back to the eBook’s home (i.e. your website).
Being a free eBook, you will naturally expect a greater number of downloads than its paid equivalent, since there are no financial barriers or credit cards impeding access. Assuming the standard of publication is reasonable, the number of backlinks and shares is directly proportional to the number of downloads, meaning it’s a numbers games that can really help to build your online reputation and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of publishing free ebooks mainly relate to consumer perceptions. Firstly, as xxx has quoted in the past, “offering your products at the princely sum of $0 devalues not only your product, but also your personal brand”. In other words, your be perceived as lower quality simply because it is free. While this is a very hard notion to quantify, it is well worth considering (as is my ‘solution’ to this challenge, which I have added to the end of this article!). Secondly, offering free ebooks can very easily exacerbate an issue that already runs rife online, whereby consumers have been spoilt by a multitude of high-quality information at no cost (mainly due to the poor transitional planning of traditional print publishers trying to readapt to the online world). For this reason, consumer continue to expect high quality information for free. This sets the expectation that all of your future ebooks will be free, even if that is not your plan. I’ve seen it first-hand, customers are thrilled to bits by a free ebook, but when presented with a ‘pay-wall’ for the sequel, they turn away never to be seen again. Finally, it’s worth considering the opportunity cost, in real dollars, of giving away an ebook to appease soft metrics such as brand awareness. You could be forgoing significant chunks of online revenue.
[Insert table of Advantages vs Disadvantages]
Advantages
The advantages of selling your ebook as opposed to giving it away for nada, are clear. Loud and clear is the potential to make an ongoing income, and with relatively little ongoing upkeep, provided that your tech infrastructure and marketing methodology is right.
I repeat, the potential to a make decent recurring revenue is there if you nail the infrastructure and marketing methodology!
You may have written the best guide to playing blues harmonica straight from the streets of New Orleans that the world has ever seen, but if you haven’t considered how to get it in front of the right audience, at the right times, on the right platform, you ain’t gunna smell a breathe of success brother (and then you’ll definitely have the blues). Read my guide on marketing your ebook for a few tricks of the trade.
Of course, the offshoot of launching a successful publication of any sort is the credibility it adds to your personal brand, and a successful ebook is no exception.
Assuming that you choose to write in the guise of yourself and produce something of value to your audience (and not an alias, which is something that should be only considered when your fulltime job or identity cannot be divulged under any circumstances) you will further your authority within your respective niche.
Play you harmonica in a beautiful melody, and people will flock to have a listen.
Disadvantages
As every musician will tell you, a bad album will hurt your entire career. Your name is on the cover and it is the only impression you will get the chance to leave on hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the globe. Before you officially launch your ebook, make sure you giving the people what they want, whether its price-wise or content-wise. Offer a couple of advance copies to people whom you respect, and get their honest feedback before you launch. Otherwise you will definitely fall trap to incorrect pricing and content in some capacity, and this will hinder your success.
Jst like you wouldn’t perform a song that is only half-written, you should never publish a book with your name on the cover that is still in draft format. Your mistakes may cost you your profile online and will almost certainly hold you back from hitting your long-term ebook sales targets.
If you are still um-ing and ah-ing about whether to give your eBook away, a potential solution to your quandary is to give away only the first chapter.
This will also allow you to avoid xxx’s trap whereby, “offering your products at the sum of $0 devalues not only your product, but also your personal brand”, because your free chapter becomes a teaser to a paid version.
eBooks are generally written to assist, to entertain or to educate readers. But let’s face it, as much as you have the best intention of helping people, writing an ebook takes a significant investment in time and effort, and is therefore generally written with a specific business goal in mind. I have detailed four key reasons an individual or business should consider embarking on the journey of writing an eBook below. (Before you read on: I strongly suggest choosing just one of the four reasons listed below as your point of focus rather than a hybrid, as otherwise you run the risk of diluting your progress towards the end goal).
In my experience, the most common reason to write an eBook apart from selling it, is to generate a list of future leads by growing your email database. This is a relatively straightforward process, most often initiated as a simple call-to-action on your website prompting your website visitors to leave their email address in exchange for a downloadable copy of the eBook.
For example, on xxx’s website you will see a simple online form, where visitors simply type in their name and email address to get their hands on xxxx book. When you consider the alternatives for growing your email database (such as running competitions promoted by Facebook Paid Posts or Google Adwords) which can easily end up costing in excess of $2 per database lead with high attrition rates, writing a compelling eBook and offering it for free proves to be a cost-effective method of drip-feeding a constant flow of high-quality leads to your email database.
Traditional publishers of books and magazines will be all too familiar with the concept of a ‘cover price’, and the revenue model for selling eBooks is no different. The main difference is that in comparison to the traditional print media, there or virtually no overheads to physically produce the publication. Even better, the ‘supply’ of your eBook is uncapped, which means your shopfront or resellers will never run out of stock.
While selling through your own website seems like a logical place to start, and allows you complete control of your marketing, relying on your website alone will significantly restrict your revenue potential. Just as books and magazines are predominantly sold through major retailers online and in local shopping malls, eBooks can be sold to the public through specialist eBook stores such as Clickbank and xxxx. Due to the strong reputation of these retailers within the global market, you will unprecedented reach to new audiences globally. Some of these retailers (namely Clickbank,) double as affiliate networks, allowing even further reach to new audiences while only charging an agreed commission per completed sale.
Whilst the overheads are low and therefore offers an attractive return on investment, the revenue model for eBooks is not foolproof. The relative ease of sending an email with a pdf attachment, means that the risk of your eBook being unlawfully redistributed is always real. Piracy is a reality in the modern digital age, so a small loss of sales due to piracy should always be factored into your revenue projections, though surprisingly rarely (if ever) has piracy been reported as significantly impacting the sales of a great eBook.
Let’s say that you are a new player in your field, and you are looking for a way to increase awareness of your brand. A great way to build rapport and trust within a community, is to offer qualified free advice to those in need, and an eBook can be an ideal method for achieving this at scale. Why? Because you could spend an entire lifetime speaking to people individually about precisely the same solution to precisely the same problem. Alternatively, you could add each individual to a group email, and send them a pre-written solution in eBook form which still solve their problem and therefore still boost your reputation, but with a fraction of the time. And the best bit about this approach is it usually leaves them wanting more; this desire is a powerful force for a brand to have with a consumer.
The approach to writing an eBook to grow the reputation of brand (be it a personal brand, or a business) is relatively uncomplicated. The first step is research, research, research. This could be through conversation with a sample set of your target market, it could be through online research on social media and in forums or it could be through Google keyword research . The next step is obvious – write and publish an eBook that addresses the common problem or need that you identified during your research. Once this is complete, hatch an eBook marketing plan to get your digital publication in front of them. Simples!
Did you know that you can improve your visibility in Search Engines and achieve great SEO results by releasing an eBook? SEO = Links, and the better the book, the more links back to your website (where the book lives). There are a couple of ways to encourage even more backlinks. Firstly you can become an active participant in newsgroups and discussions related to the topic of your eBook…just make sure your posts are informative and valuable and are not just spruiking your book. Secondly, you can submit your free eBook to eBook directories such as:
The more quality links which point back to your website, the more website’s rankings in Search Engines will improve, so get creative with your outreach strategy and maximise those link opportunities.
When I woke up this morning and heard the ocean pounding, I couldn’t resist heading over the hill to the point at Burleigh Heads, one of the best vantage points on the Gold Coast to a decent swell rolling in. While the ocean is well and truly out of bounds for swimmers and families today, with some of the biggest waves to hit our coastline in years, experienced surfers are being treated to some seriously amazing waves. Here’s Burleigh Heads firing on all cylinders this morning.
[Read more…] about Beaches closed as huge 4m waves hit Gold Coast
A delightful surprise hit my inbox earlier in the week.
Jake,
How about you take that lovely lady friend of yours out for a lazy Saturday afternoon, our treat!
Go pick up the keys to your weekend cruiser from your local Mercedes dealership.
Oh, and there’s a pre-paid credit card on the way for fuel and goodies.
Enjoy!
The Smart Crew
Saturday couldn’t come around soon enough.
[Read more…] about Surprises in all shapes and sizes
