I’m not talking about print books that have digital versions of them. I mean informational eBooks that people write and try to sell for an outrageous $97.
So, I’ve been trying to get started in internet marketing, mostly affiliate marketing since I don’t have my own product. I’ll get into that in another post later. There are so many eBooks available on the subject that it’s hard for an IM/AM noob like me to know which one is worth my time to buy, read, and implement.
My biggest beef with eBooks is that they’re way overpriced. Sure, if it helps you make money, then it might be worth the investment, but how do I know something’s not just gonna be crap? Most eBooks I’ve seen are written with huge fonts, large margins, maybe more than double spacing, and header/footer graphics on each page just to make their book seem like it’s a lot of pages when it’s really not. Surely, that’s not worth $27, $37, $_7 (what’s with prices that end in 7, anyway?).
I prefer regular print books over eBooks anyway, you get more value for your money. You don’t have to waste your own paper to print them. I don’t know about you, but it’s harder for me to read a book from start to finish on my computer than to read an actual printed book, so I usually end up printing out eBooks before reading them. And if you’re buying a regular book from a B&M store, you can actually flip through the book first to see if it has the kind of content that you want.
When you think about print books, how much do they normally cost? $47? No. They’re usually somewhere around $8.99 to $34.99 (at least the kinds of informational/tech books that I wanna buy). Usually, the digital versions of them are cheaper. The only books that I’ve ever paid more than $50 for were college textbooks and even those had way more pages of material than any eBook.
Now I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be paid for the time and effort they put into creating their product. They should be, if it really is worth every penny they’re charging. But at least give potential buyers a small sample of what they’ll be getting. With at least the first chapter or two as a free download. If your book is good enough, the first few chapters should sell people on wanting to read the rest of it. Don’t give me some other unrelated freebie downloads when all I’m interested in is knowing if your book is actually worth it.
Since I have absolutely no money to start with, I’m better off not buying anything until I’ve at least made some kind of profit. So off I go to scour different IM forums for the teensiest shred of free & helpful info. I recommend you do the same if you’re in the same position I’m in. Don’t waste money on eBooks when you can’t afford them.