Distribution

Publishing and Distribution:
What obstacles do you face in actually publishing your eBook? The answers are complex but I will try to sort it out for you. Not more than six or seven years ago there were not many alternatives for wide Internet distribution of an eBook. As a matter of fact my very first venture involved a hardcopy of a small book that I was promoting on the Internet. I realized very quickly that traditional publishing methods were too costly and frankly unnecessary. I learned the hard way.

Today there are so many alternatives to publish online it’s overwhelming. The hardest part of publishing an eBook today is writing it, not distributing it.

Technology has come a long way and in fact not only is the software better, it’s cheaper as well. Consider this: If you were to produce a four-color (cover only ) pamphlet of 40-50 pages and about 500 copies, you would be looking at several thousand dollars just for the printing and typesetting not including any marketing or promotional expense.

Today you can create your own eBook in a few hours with color and as many pages and copies as you want for the time it takes you to write and proof it and pay to have the word processing doc converted into a pdf online for free by Adobe. ( Please see my notes on this earlier in this article.)

You don’t need Adobe to create a pdf. There are other converters out there, however Adobe is the best without any reservation on my part. The biggest issue to get over with Adobe Acrobat is the price.

If you just can’t afford the Adobe software there are alternatives in creating pdf files. One solution is buying a pdf converter such as PDF Printer Pro The price is extraordinary at $37.00 versus $250 or more with Adobe.

The only issue that I have with Adobe Acrobat is that you cannot individually password protect your pdf. You can assign a general password that everyone will have however that would mean that individuals could share it or sell it on their own.

The alternative to pdf eBooks is fully executable eBooks or exe’s. This is a far superior solution to the pdf password issue and it’s a bit more expensive. The issue of cost is moot because what these types of programs will save you in fraud losses is easily made up.
I have three programs that I recommend. The first is eBookPro and it’s put out by the Internet Marketing Center which has been around for many years.

I have personally used eBookPro6 and it’s an awesome product. You can customize it any way you want or use tons of templates already in the software, plus you will receive bonus templates when you buy the product. What I really like about eBookPro6 are the security features. You control the user id’s and upload them to eBookPro’s server. Let’s say that you upload 100 ids, each one is unique because it’s automatically generated within the software. Each customer gets a unique id. The control is really, really good. Here’s the feature that I like the best. If a customer tells you on the 29th day of a 30 day unconditional guarantee of satisfaction that they don’t want the product, refund there money and disable the software! That’s right you can disable the customer id so that they can’t use the product after the refund.

The other software that I recommend is from the Get Response Group under Simon Grabowski. The software is called eBook Gold and it’s also an exe type program. eBook Gold is a great piece of software and operates similarly to eBookPro6 but doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles. You can evaluate it for free by clicking here.

The third product is a major departure from the other two. It’s also an ebook compiler but the major difference is that it creates an ebook of pages that actually turn, like a book, from page to page. It’s not just a gimmicky page turning ebook but a very different way to put all different types of information such as video, audio and print in one package. The software is called Desk Top Author and it’s totally unique. You can create digital page turning ebooks of any size. Desk Top Author can also include pages with video and audio to create a complete multi-media ebook. Although it’s the flashiest of the alternatives, it deffinately has a place in your toolbox for special purpose ebooks.

The other reason why Desk Top Author I like is that you can offer a demo version of the ebook and only allow a specific amount of pages to be viewed in demo mode allowing only a specific number of pages to be viewed and (This is a separate function and requires a free sign-up with Digital River a large Internet provider of downloadable software) then the individual must buy the ebook to get the full version. It’s a great marketing technique and a very slick way of adding another dimension to a standard ebook.

There you have it three great solutions to creating great eBooks.

ADDENDUM:
Although creating ebooks with pdf type software is the easiest way to create an ebook, The issue of security does become a problem. You can alleviate this with a special program called DL Guard. DL Guard is a unique program that encrypts your download link so that thieves cannot find your thank-you or download pages. DLGuard is also much more. It works with all of the major payment acceptance services like PayPal, PayDotCom and 2CO just to name few. DLGuard also has a multiple product shopping cart and a Membership Page function. We use it on our principal site Home Business Research and have used it for several years now. It’s easy to implement and effective.

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