Selling eBooks online - Any tips?

Hello everyone, here's my story, I've been selling on ebay for the last 3 years with mixed success, but for the last 3 months I've started selling ebooks and sending them by email with great success, but last week ebay decided to cancel all my listings and blocked me from ebay for 1 month, I didn't know that we can't sell ebooks anymore, anyway I was just wondering what I should do, I've been selling now at lulu.com but nothing is selling, I opened up my store but nothing, I don't know if I should opened my own website, anyone here that as been selling ebooks or have there own website, any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks here's my store.
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Hi speedy43ca,

Sorry to hear about your eBay listing being cancelled. What happened? The last time I checked, digital delivery is allowed as long as it is listed in the Everything Else Category, using the Classified Ad format. Should you decide to list the EBook in other categories, a tangible product must be delivered. This is done by burning / copying the EBbooks into a CD whenever there is a purchase. This CD will then be post mailed to the buyers in compliance with this EBay policy. And I can see that this is what you have been doing. Link hidden: Login to view

Unless you have tried in some way circumventing this policy, eBay will definitely not like it. Or if there is a new policy, we'd like to know.

Kind regards,

Hey Speedy,

Here's a post you might also be interested in reading -

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All the best!

Hi speedy43ca,

I went on and visited your store :) I'm not familiar with lulu.com so I tried signing up for a free account to see things from behind the scene. Honestly, I just got even more confused..lol

But seriously, When I visited your store - it looked too plain and generic. Is there a way you can tell more about yourself? All I found out about the seller was the seller's name, address and email add. Perhaps you can tell a little more about yourself - things like your interests or what prompted you to sell ebooks. Share a bit of yourself to your customers - the more you do the more they will feel welcome :)

Also, you may want to try using another store name (that is if it is allowed on lulu.com) - Mario's Store Front doesn't sound too inviting but I do like the bear with the welcome sign.

Have you actually read the books you are selling? If you have, it might be a good idea to make your own summary or book review so that you don't have the same reviews with other sellers selling the same ebooks. Your ebooks are actually priced quite competitively (I did a search using the titles and found your ebook is often the cheapest of the bunch).

Other than that, do consider the tips in the link in Satya's post. I do hope you take my opinions constructively :)

To your first sale!

Thanks everyone for your help, it was very helpful, I will try to put the things you said in practice.

No problem, Mario :) We hope our tips will help you land your first sale.

All the best!

P.S. - Do upload a photo when you get the chance to! And do feel free to update us of your progress :)

Hi Mario,

I just checked on your site and saw that you are the author of your eBooks! :)
Have you considered using Clickbank and attract affiliates to sell these products for you? With Clickbank you just need to give the affiliates commission for every sale, and your chance to earn more is definitely more promising than doing it all by yourself.

Cheers! :)

You can sell e-books Here:

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You have can sell them all over the world

John (aka Bacpro)

Hi Mario,

If you haven't seen this yet, this blog shares useful information about selling digital products on eBay, in case you intend to make use of such platform - Link hidden: Login to view

Cheers! :)

Hi Speedy,

I'm a new Saleshoo member and am just looking around the place. I saw your thread about selling your e-books so I thought I'd give you a recommendation.

Since you are the author of the e-books that you sell, that's good. That means you know the content of your e-books. If you want to really super-boost your selling success, I have a recommendation: Create a keyword-focused CONTENT web site that will funnel traffic to your lulu.com store (or any other site, or even your own store if you like).

There are a lot of people on the internet who are looking for INFORMATION. They use search engines like Google to search for answers to their problems/issues. It's hard to sell from a sales page or a cookie-cutter ebay store often. You'll enjoy a greater conversion rate if you warm up your potential customers by PREselling to them first, via a content web site related to your e-book, and then warmly leading them to buy your product.


They sell a product called SBI which helps you create the optimum content site. I think it's a great product. If you are interested, don't buy it right away though. Send me a message first -- I know a way you can get it cheaper than directly off their site.

By building a web site that generates its own traffic, you can lead your visitors to ebay, lulu, another auction site, or your own store. You'll have the freedom to sell your e-book anywhere you want to and won't be at the mercy of Ebay anymore. Remember, any site can suddenly change its policies so I'd use them as supplemental store fronts only. You should really have your own store front as well as a content site that drives traffic TO your store.

I also agree with irene_salehoo's advice about using Clickbank as your processor. All Clickbank products come with a 8-week money back guarantee (which you would have to honor if you use their system), and that helps your customers buy with confidence. That's why so many digital products merchants use Clickbank.

Good luck. Any questions, message me.

Nice one Realitywiz! By the way, welcome to SaleHoo :)

Hope to see more of you on the forum, cheers!

Welcome aboard Realitywiz! :)

@ Speedy: For free training on creating a keyword-focused content web site and also on affiliate marketing, please visit Link hidden: Login to view

Cheers! :)

I have just opened my own blog, where I will be posting free ebooks for download, I have thousands of ebooks in my collection, I will be adding new ebooks on my blog for the next few months, please let me know what you think, thanks.
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Looks good speedy43ca :)

You might want to add a link to your store, a personal blog (especially one with freebies) is a potential source of traffic so you might want to bank in on that!

All the best.

That's a great idea, I will also try to make money with adsense and Chitika, do you know any other way's I could promote my blog, thanks.

Hi speedy43ca,

There are many ways to promote your blog but most important is that you get the right content unto your blog. You have to be sure that people will want to read it or that it leaves them with a clinging effect - so focus on your content and then disseminate. Here are links to articles a bout how you can promote your blog -

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Hope this helps. All the best :)

Thank you so much, I have a lot of reading to do.

You're welcome speedy43ca :)

Yep! Looks like you do, but I'm sure it be worth it. All the best!

Hey im kinda confused on this process of ebooks, and exactly how to get them licenced so i can sell them. Im also looking for a steady income from a online business is there any body who can help me get started.

Hi Million-ells,

Maybe this will help you understand better the ins and outs of selling eBooks - Link hidden: Login to view

Also, what products are you interested in? We would be happy to help you locate suitable suppliers.

Talk to you soon!

to be honest i exactly dont know, im thinking electronics but also have dealed with weomans clothing so really im trying to find a nitch i have a ebay and i would love to have a store! more in the line of dropshiping and trying keep a variety of items. Im pretty much learning on my own which im down for the challenge but it gets hard sometimes! i do have some knowledge of selling on ebay just need a every day item to start things off... or maybe 10 items and 1 sold every day thats fine with me as well... but i appreciate all the help!

Hi Million-ells,

If you haven't I would suggest reading through our eBay selling portion of our education tab. You'll find a lot of very useful and informative guides in there on eBay selling like -

* How to find out what sells well on eBay
* How to optimize your eBay tools
* Beginners/intermediate and advance seller guides
* Sourcing and traffic generation tips

Here's the link - Link hidden: Login to view

Hope this helps :)

Ok i think ima go the ebook way for awhile, i see on somebody ebay whos selling ebay ebooks says comes with rights full resell rights, what is exactly does that mean??

Hi again Million-ells,

That means that you can re-sell the eBook to your customers - reselling rights is like a license stating you can distribute a particular product, in this case an eBook.

Hope this helps :)

Man i swear you the best help i have ever came across!! i thank you greatly!!!!!!! so if i buy one that has selling rights i can sell them back to who ever else i want to. and do you know if i simply can just make a copy and send it to them on cd rom.. and is this against ebay rules in any form

You're welcome Million-ells,

It's your call, if you want to burn it on a disc then you can. But from what I can recall most sellers will just send the ebook (as a file online) or will send a download code for the customer to download his copy of the ebook.

Personally, I think burning it on a disc would just be additional expense for you and may make your price less competitive.

Hope this helps :)

but i heard if you actually selling on ebay you have to ship somthing...

Maybe I can help you with this, I have been selling ebooks on ebay for the last 3 years, you can still sell digital download as long has you list in your listing that you can ship it by Postal Mail on a cd if they want, make sure to do this or you will be banned from ebay for 1 month, I know what I'm talking about LOL, but I can tell you that people want digital download not by Postal Mail, it's the best way to go, no cd to buy and no shipping charges, on a another subject, I just opened up a website selling ebooks, It's almost ready, I will be posting the link in the next few day.

so where can i buy these ebooks from

Mostly you can find them on the internet for free, just type free ebooks in google, another place is the website tradebit.com, they sell digital downloads for very cheap prices, also you can check my ebay listings, Im selling right now 10,000 ebooks + software & web templates, starting bid is $0.75, its a great package, check it out.

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I finally finished my website, it's up and running, 6:00am in the morning, I'm so tired, but very happy, it's my first website, I will be selling mostly ebooks, webpage templates and software, all ebooks are $0.99 I will be adding new ebooks everyday, take a look and tell me what you think, thanks.

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Congratulations speedy43ca!

The site nice looks good, but I have one suggestion though - Maybe you can make your ebook suggestion window slide instead of the jumping/poping out motion. Having the ebooks slide in and out would definitely look smoother and will be easier on the eye :)

All the best!

Congratulations on your new site, speedy43ca :)

I tried buying one but the checkout keeps saying "Paypal does not allow your country of residence to ship to the country you wish to". I have set my country as USA, and then as Canada, and then as Australia, but it keeps giving the same message. Just to let you know so you won't miss your sales.

Cheers! :)

Yes I just saw this, thank you very much, I will fix this right away

It's weird, I received a email, it say's order is pending, I checked everything and everything is find, maybe I missing something, can you tell from what country your from, I registered with another email and bought something and everything worked fine.

Yeah, I think it's queer. I am from the Philippines, I shop from US sites using my Paypal, have the items sent to our Oregon address, pick them up once a year, and things go through without fail. :) I also set the address in your website as USA, besides I don't think location would matter since it's an ebook for digital delivery, right? Let me know if it's the end of my shopping days (lol). :)

Thanks!

Hello Irene, I am still looking into the problem, can't find what's wrong, except for one thing, my PayPal account for my website was not verified yet, I hooked up my bank account today, it will be verified in 3 to 5 days, I thought if I put my visa it would be okay, but it still say's not verified, so maybe I think that could be the problem, I will let you know when my PayPal account as been verified, sorry for the problem.

No worries speedy43ca! :) I just checked on your site to help see if everything works out fine. Hope you sort things out soon. :)

Hi Irene, I think the problem as been fixed, well I hope lol, anyway here's the link for 1 of the ebook you tried to download before, I put the ebook on special at $0.01 for you, so you can try again to see if everything works, thanks again and have a nice day, Mario.

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Thaks for the link.
I didn't know this ebook store.

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Hello everyone, I changed a few things on my website, can you please tell me what you think, thanks Mario.

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Hi Mario,

I just saw your link and your message. I did try twice on separate books, but it still won't go through for me. :(

The site looks neat! I wish you the best!

Hi Mario,

Just had a look at your site. You have a good selection at reasonable prices. Hope it all goes well for you.

Cheers

Hi Irene, I think I found my problem, I need to update my Virtuemart, I'm using a old version 1.1.4, I need to upgrade to 1.1.7, thanks again I will let you know after an update as been done, thanks Mario.

To all eBook sellers: I have just started a website called “eBooks-all.com” it is not up and going just yet but I would like any and all who are interested in selling their eBooks to contact me at wrightway4391@yahoo.com