Sunday, August 8, 2010

1p Ebooks - A Buyer's Guide To Penny E-books

What are penny ebooks?A quick search on eBay for "ebook"with the price limited to one penny will show hundreds of listings.Most, if not all of these listings offer ebooks that claim to be ableto change your life dramatically. The majority offer unlimited wealth,usually using eBay or the web, whilst plenty of others offer advice onhow to improve your lifestyle, or break a bad habit such as smoking orovereating.Most people's initial reaction to these is either "Wow, that's great - only 1p" or "What's the scam?"This guide is intended to explain exactly how penny ebooks work, whypeople sell them, and why you as a buyer might, or might not want tobuy one.How can people sell them so cheap?A quick look at the eBay fees pages will reveal an interesting point...Mostpenny ebooks are listed as "Buy It Now" (BIN) items. eBay's basiclisting fee for a BIN priced at 1p is 15p. In order to attractattention, almost all listings use the gallery feature, so that apicture is displayed in the listings next to their item. The eBay feefor this is another 15p.Adding these together shows that forevery 1p that the seller gains by selling a penny ebook, they have topay 30p in fees to eBay! In other words, every sale of a penny ebookcosts them 29p!If these sellers are here to make money (a safeassumption), then why are they selling something that loses them 29pevery time someone buys?Why do people sell them?It shouldnot come as any surprise to discover that the purpose of selling pennyebooks is not to make money on the books. If the ebooks were merelywhat they claim to be, no-one would sell them. There are basically twotypes of people selling penny ebooks:Type A - The feedback builderThesimple reason is that it is a quick way to build your feedback. Someonewho is just starting selling on eBay will have a low feedback thatmight discourage buyers. In order to build feedback quickly, they sellpenny ebooks. They consider the 49p cost per feedback a worthwhileinvestment. These type of sellers are fairly easy to spot as thedescription for their ebooks will include some comment like "Feedback must be left" or similar. Beware of listings like this.Furthermore,feedback builders often request that you make only one purchase perperson. This is because your feedback score only shows the number ofunique eBayers that have left feedback for you. Multiple feedbacks fromone other eBayer do not give a higher feedback rating, so are notwanted by these sellers. On the contrary, if they had multiplepurchases from the same buyer, it would cost them a lot more money forthe one feedback point that would be shown.So, are these typesof sellers best avoided, or is there some benefit to the buyer? Theanswer really depends on the nature of the ebook. For the buyer, youare taking a very low risk, and receiving a feedback point in return.That alone could be worth 1p, even if the ebook is not. However, it isimportant to note that the modern eBay user is not as naive as theyused to be. People do not merely look at the total feedback score, theywill often have a quick scan through your recent sales and purchaseswhen assessing you. If someone sees that a lot of your recenttransactions were for penny ebooks, they will be suspicious of yourfeedback rating. So whilst one or two penny ebooks can add to yourfeedback, more than that could damage your overall reputation.Type B - The backend marketeerThesecond, and more common type of penny ebook seller has an altogetherdifferent plan in mind. This can be very beneficial to you, orsomething you will want to avoid, depending on your interest in thesubject of the ebook.A very successful marketing technique onthe web is to offer free information. Contrary to popular opinion, fewpeople use the web with the express intention of making a purchase.Other than those who go online to check their e-mail, the majority useit for gathering information. The job of an Internet marketeer is toconvince the information gatherer to buy. The best way to do that is tooffer them exactly what they wanted in the first place - information -and offer it free.Enter the free ebook. Many web sites offer afree ebook on a subject related to their product line. Some will offerthis as a no-strings download, the more informed ones will ask for yourname and e-mail address before offering the download. This enables themto add you to their mailing list, where they can subtly convince you tobecome a customer.And what of the free ebook? Simple - it's aclever sales device. It will be packed full of relevant information,exactly aimed at their target audience, and will give you helpfuladvice about what products to buy to fulfil your wishes. Obviously, theproducts they recommend just happen to be ones they sell on their website, but as they have now gained your confidence by offering thevaluable free information in the ebook, you don't mind being nudgedgently towards their products. This is where they make their money.Analternative option is for people who do not have their own product lineto sell, but who are affiliates for other people's web sites. Asaffiliates, they receive a commission for every sale that they cause.So if the reader of an ebook clicks a link in the book, and ends up ona web site for which the ebook's author is an affiliate, the authorwill be paid a commission when the reader buys something.Back to eBayTakethe same marketing principle and apply it to eBay, and you end up withthe 1p ebook. You can't give things away for nothing on eBay, so thenext best thing is to offer it for the lowest price. Enter the pennyebook. Someone with an eBay shop, or even an external e-commerce website writes or buys the rights to an ebook, and makes sure that thebook contains loads of links to their product pages. They sell the bookfor 1p on eBay, and they have a stream of targeted potential customerslooking at their products. This is powerful advertising.Afterreading this, you might think that penny ebooks are of no value to thebuyer, and are actually something to be avoided. Before jumping tohasty conclusions, it's worth looking a little further...What are the benefits to the buyer?Ifyou have a specific interest in a subject, whether personal orprofessional, you will always be on the lookout for good sources ofinformation about that subject. More than that, you will always beinterested in seeing quality products and finding good deals. If so,why not buy an ebook on the subject? OK, so the author is going to tryand steer you towards his/her products, but adverts in special interestmagazines do exactly the same thing and no-one complains about them.Thebenefits to the buyer can be quite significant. You are given the(hopefully) useful information contained in the ebook. If thatinformation is no good, then the author will already have failed inhis/her task of guiding you towards their products, so it is verylikely that the information will be worth the 1p. Furthermore, you areoffered targeted information about products and services relevant toyour interest area. Again, this is little different from reading anadvertising feature in a special interest magazine.What are the potential problems?Generally,there are few problems for the informed buyer when it comes to ebooks.You always run the risk that the ebook is simply no good, but when youconsider that it only cost you 1p, this is a minor consideration.Abigger problem comes from unscrupulous ebook sellers. Whenever you makea purchase on eBay, the buyer has access to your registered name ande-mail address. Although it is strictly against eBay policy, somesellers will add your name and e-mail address to their mailing list,and you will start receiving their marketing messages. This is notusually a major problem, as the ones with any sense will remove youfrom the list as soon as you ask them to, as they will be suspendedfrom eBay if they are reported to be in violation of eBay policies.So, should I buy one or not?Hopefullyafter reading this guide, you will see that there can be benefits tobuying penny ebooks, although there can also be pitfalls. As long asyou do not buy too many, and you are a little careful in what you buyand how you judge the information and recommendations contained in thebook, you could find these books to be a valuable source of information.If you found this guide helpful, please vote YES below and help others see it. Thank you.

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