Forum Moderators: mack
Thanks
Anyone already selling ebook's / PDF’s have advice in terms of the best way to automate the sales process from website download scripts, security, collecting payments, tracking sales, affiliates…etc.
I know of two ways (I use both).
First the easy way: Clinkbank.
You can set up an account at www.clickbank.com. You provide a page on your site that has the link to the pdf file and any other information a purchaser needs to know (including "thank you for your purchase, your card will be charged $xx). Do not have a link to that page anywhere else on your site.
Then you create a page to sell your eBook. On that page you have a button or text linked to Clickbank. The link contains a number (in case you have multiple products). You then fill in a form at clickbank with the url to the download page on your site and the price of the product.
The user sees your sales page, decides to purchase, clicks on the link. He is taken to a secure Clickbank page where he enters his credit card information (the price you list is shown on the form) and clicks on Enter. If his credit card is accepted the user is then passed to your download page to download the goods.
Clickbank's fee is a combination of $ per purchase and percent of price. I can't remember the numbers, but it works out to about $5 for a $45 purchase. Clickbank then sends you an e-mail of the purchaser, his name, state or country, postal code, and what he bought. This is just for your records. Clickbank pays every two weeks after a two week delay, minimum I think is $25 per check. It all runs automatically. Once you set it up the only thing you have to do is take the check to the bank every two weeks.
The second way is more complicated but the fees are less if you have sufficient sales. That is to have a merchant account to take credit cards and a processor to handle the sale. I use Versign Payflow Link for the processor and Total Merchant Services for my merchant account. The basic operation is similar to Clickbank except that the fee is less and the funds are deposited directly in my bank one or two days after the sale is complete. I get an e-mail and can see detailed information on the Payflow web site. Like Clickbank it is totally automatic after I set it up.
In neither case do you see the credit card number so no one can accuse you of anything.
Also, with Payflow I am a merchant. If a friend owes me money he can give me his credit card number, I can enter it and the amount into Paylflows web site and charge his card. My company name will appear on his statement. That is not allowed by clickbank's contract.
Both work well with little work (after setup, and that is real easy with ClickBank).
Also, how to you manage the ebook format, download automation, security… etc. Do you use a special script?
Thanks.
I had some other reasons (due to other types of business) to get a merchant account. I sell my eBook using the merchant account and some specialized engineering software on clickbank. I haven't added up the cost, including the startup cost, but I suspect a volume of even $50/day would make the two methods equivilant (or close enough). But clickbank is certainly easier to use, particularly if the only thing you are going to do is sell downloadable products.
My basic rule is that the easier it is for someone to buy and use the product, the more money I will make. Once I started selling, the incremental cost to me for each copy is zero, unlike print publications.
My eBook format is simple .pdf files. I just have a link to the file on the download page, with instructions to right click and save target. I do not use any form of copy protection or "digital rights management". My eBook is a niche engineering topic, not something everyone (except for a tiny number of people) would have any interest in. I assume from the beginning that a copy will be shared amoung several people in one company. I have given discounts to some people who wanted more copies and were honest enough to ask. (If you need 10 copies, just run your card number through 5 times and e-mail the files to the people who need them). I understand that there is an engineering school in Bangladesh or some other country where every chemical engineering student has a copy. But they could never afford to pay for each copy, so with protection I wouldn't have made any more money.
One problem with DRM or copy protection is that it can make it more difficult for legitimate users to buy and use the product. For example, people have trouble downloading on an office computer and transfering to a laptop where they will actually read the eBook.
