Selling Ebooks And Ebook Competition Go Hand In Hand. So...How To Beat eBook Competition, Easily

Don't worry about your ebook competition. Most of them are leaving simple "money on the table".

There are 4 areas where your competitors are not really taking into consideration. Understanding these 4 areas can make your ebook selling so much easier.

is it worth anything
what are my competitors selling their ebooks for
should I be selling it
is an ebook the right medium for me?

So lets go:

Is it worth anything?

I could write articles all day about the things that I enjoy. Highly likely there is someone else that is going to like them as well. But is one person enough? It depends on what they do. If they buy everything in sight then probably. If they don't then what is the point? So we normally:

we have a good guess of what people are looking for- keywords
if they like our stuff then we can see that on our stats and create more content around this
if they really like our stuff then we can invite them to join our email list
we can then ask them what they like and get a discussion up and going. This is the ultimate aim- actually knowing what people want and giving it to them.

Creating an ebook just because you can is nice, but will it give you the same results as if you targeted that ebook to a specific audience?

If you have been creating content for your website then probably you will have a nice idea of what people would be searching for and see which articles were ranked higher. You then create the ebooks depending upon that demand.

Now demand and price don't necessarily join up or are related that much. It becomes more related when people need that item. A need is much better than a want. Wants tend to become wants when people have more time/ money to cover all of their needs.

The only way to figure out needs is if you look for them. Finding out what your ebook competition are doing is OK but they might have completely missed what people need and you have just copied them.:(

You need to check out forums, the comments on competitors products- see what they have missed/ what people don't like about the product. Join social media platforms where your customer hangs out. You will find a good deal of information on needs that are highly likely not being addressed. You can even ask your mailing list/ followers of what their needs are.

Once found this is priceless because there are products out there not filling a need, you come in and can charge a little higher and grab that custom.

Selling ebooks and price?

Now should I sell my ebook depending on what my ebook competition is selling theirs for?
Some people will say yes, others no.

I am in the "no" camp. Unfortunately Amazon kinda forces you to be anti-this. Their logarithm compares your ebook to others with a fancy graph on sales of ebooks and price. But what if those ebooks are junk and you know it?

Your competitor prices are just a guide. For this price you get this content with this authors name attached. Thats it.

So if your ebook competition has just an ebook selling for $2.99 what should you do?
How about increase the value of your ebook?

There are no rules to say you can't link out to bonuses from your ebook. This is what I have done. You buy the ebook on Amazon and then a link directs the customer to a bonuses webpage where they can download extras. These extras you promote on your sales page. Now your "just text" ebook has gone up in value. This also increases your price. Now your ebook is not worth the same as a competitor, it is $9.99.

There is also the issue of is your audience willing to buy something anyway.

There are some audiences that might not want to pay for something and there are other that need to.

Medical people need to keep up their training so they pay for courses to do this. Some courses include cruises and are in the thousands of dollars. This is a group that is prepared to spend money that is a requirement- a need. So your $1.99 ebook might be actually too low a price to consider.
Then we have people looking for MP3s. The standard is now around $0.99- $2. It is very difficult to charge higher because that audience is not willing to spend more. However what some musicians have done is to sell direct from their own websites and include a package deal. You buy the album/ cluster of MP3s and they'll throw in different bonuses on a tiered level.

Again it is that idea of giving back and increasing value.

I read an ebook recently about someone who made $100k from selling their ebook. Cool, I thought. But then I looked into their audience.

This audience was in the financial market- so their income was (assuming here) large. Other financial products had higher mark-ups. And the ebook sold was a package- incorporating a huge amount of relevant bonuses. Out of the thousands of people that were promoted to, only a very small percentage bought. However because the ebook package was in the hundreds of dollars then they only needed a few people to buy to make a lot of money.

Should I even start to sell it?

Sometimes an ebook is not good as a primary product to sell. Regardless of bonuses that you add, people just sometimes don't see the benefit of an ebook- regardless of the marketing you do.
But what an ebook is good at is creating loyalty and reciprocation. The idea that here, here is something for free. I don't want anything for it, It's for you. People love that and sometimes can't handle that you gave them something for free. So they reciprocate and give you a link back, email address- even buy something from you. They also give you some trust, especially if the ebook is good.

Some businesses use ebooks as "thank you" product for a physical purchase. This seems to work very well for eBay sellers, or items that need some training. You stuff a flyer into the package and say "thanks for the purchase, click on the link for a completely free ebook on 101 tips to use your product". make it totally free with no email subscription but have links back to your site within the ebook and notification of your newsletter.

But there is also a "too much free". If you give away free stuff all the time you have to figure out where you are going to be making the money/ keeping your business afloat. It is very easy to feed into the free machine. people take you up on it, they download and wait for more free stuff. You enjoy it because people are using your stuff and the downloads are cool. But then what?

This was the issue of the early dotcom days. They weren't stupid, there was some huge names behind the websites. They burnt through tons of money trying to make people come to the website and gave a way a tons of free things. The problem was twofold.

They had to burn through tons of cash to re-engage in the same customer. They didn't take into consideration how to keep a customer, e.g. newsletters, RSS, forums etc
They didn't know how to make a profit. They burnt through money to get people to come to the site and then they charged similar prices for goods that people could find cheaper at the local store- they also didn't have to pay for shipping.

Selling an ebook for $1.99 is great- But what is the ultimate goal? To make money, to generate subscribers, to get traffic to your site, to make you an authority?

Is an ebook the right medium for me?

Some people just love ebooks, some people don't.

You need to figure out what your audience is after.

I had a $50 gift card to Amazon. I wanted a certain book. I found tons of ebooks on Amazon regarding a certain subject but not a book. I wanted a physical book that I could take to work and read at lunch (I see a screen all day and want a break from an electronic device).

Could I find one? No.

Now I have $50 waiting to give to an author if they had just clicked on "convert my ebook to a book". Amazon does it for you, there is no need not to have an ebook and a book selling side by side. You don't even store the books or send them out- it is print on demand (POD)

I even know some of these authors (and maybe your ebook competition) have promoted that they are making $X from a $1.99 Kindle. But it is highly surprising how much money is being left "on the table". Some have huge websites where a $19 book would have sold easily. I know because I went there first to see if they had anything.

Same with video. I love Youtube and I watch it a lot. But sometimes those hour long videos are too long for me. I want it as a download package with ebook/ book. But there is never a link to a package like this. Some videos are getting tons of views and yet they are only bothered about Youtube Ads revenue. With additional packages for sale they could increase the revenue from that one video.

But again, they don't.

I have also seen comments asking the uploader about packages, ebooks, merch....they get no response. Now these are people who are asking to buy the stuff and they get no reply. That is also not counting the people who haven't publicly asked for the merch.