Question

Topic: Other

Need Recommendations For Selling E-books & P.o.d.

Posted by Anonymous on 2/13/2009 at 11:08 AM ET 500 Points
I'm looking for a service that would allow me to sell e-books (PDFs) of various sizes, some of which would also be available as a print-on-demand book. I'd also like to be able to sell CD products on demand.

Here are my basic requirements.

+ Secure, simple payment system.
+ Add sales taxes (U.S. and Canada) only in the states we specify -- which may vary from product to product.
+ Add the correct S&H fees, including fast-ship options, as applicable
+ Able to sell inexpensive products (like $0.50).
+ Able to sell packages (e.g., book plus CD)
+ Provide reports that show me revenue by product

If possible, I'd also like to have these options.

+ Sell the same product at different prices based on source code
+ Attribute sales to special marketing codes (i.e., a sale from a google adwords link would get a different code than a sale from my website) and get reports based on those codes.

Here's what I'm looking for.

1. Intelligent comments on these requirements (e.g., am I missing something important? Have you done this and found problems, solutions, etc.?)

2. Recommendations for services that can do this.

Thanks much,

Greg
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 2/13/2009 at 8:45 PM Accepted
    I have a traditional publishing company (hardcopy, ink-on-paper books) and have been through most of the issues you cite. Lots of different things to discuss and consider.

    The most important is your business model and plan, and your marketing strategy. You need to be very certain that you lay out your objectives very clearly, because publishing in general is not a high-margin business, and marketing costs are substantial if you want enough volume to make up for the low margins.

    The mechanical stuff is relatively easy/straightforward, but -- like most things -- it takes some planning and money up-front.

    If you have your business and marketing plans in place I'd be happy to share what I've learned about POD and eBooks. I have had recent conversations with the Amazon folks about both for one of my titles that needs to be reprinted soon, so I feel like I'm up to speed on what's happening in the ePublishing arena and with POD (which is sort of digital, or at least digitally assisted).

    Contact me offline if you like. But be sure you've thought through WHY you're doing this and what success looks like for you.

  • Posted on 2/24/2009 at 11:54 PM Accepted
    Greg,

    I'm in the market for something similar, specifically a service that manages the sale of ebooks. I ran across a site called "e-junkie", and some preliminary online research has turned up lots of positive reviews. I haven't tried it yet but am very intrigued; in my case it looks perfect, especially since they handle the issue of sending registration codes in addition to the shopping cart features.

    Anybody out there have any experience with the site, good or bad?

    The url is: https://www.e-junkie.com
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