Feb 26 2010
International Volunteering Ebook is in the Final Stretch
It’s been months in the making and now I’m down to the final two weeks before I release my ebook on international volunteering. I’m not exactly ready to launch the thing just yet, but a looming trip to Haiti means that if I don’t get it done and out there soon, I probably won’t be able to do it for months.
So with the pressure on I am working frantically here in Kuala Lumpur on all of those little jobs that seem to add up to a big job. I have a couple of friends proofreading the first draft while I continue to add a few more interviews and bits of information, I’m wracking my brain for a decent title, I’m attempting to come up with a passable design using my limited Photoshop skills, I’m trying to figure out a price and way to distribute it, and I’m trying my best to come up with marketing ideas and gain support from friends out there in Internetland to help create a buzz when it goes live.
As always, I’m turning to you guys for some advice and ideas.
Creative Stuff
My ebook needs a name! If you have been a reader of my blog for any length of time you will know that coming up with catchy titles for my posts isn’t my strong point and coming up with a good title is an even huger pain in the ass. The best I have so far is ‘The International Volunteering Handbook’. Concise, to the point but no points for flare or creativity. As for some sort of catchy tag line, I haven’t got any ideas. If there are any wordsmiths out there with an idea, I would love to hear it. I will pay you with endless amounts of gratitude and a free copy of a yet-to-be-titled ebook, written by me.
I’m a bit of a design junkie who has never quite made the transition to computers as a medium. I could whip up a cool design with paint on paper but ask me to do something with Photoshop and I will be left swearing at the computer screen because I can’t make it do what I want it to. I’m not sure if I want to invest in a design or just go it alone but if anyone has recommendations for PDF designers I would love to hear them. As it stands, Openoffice allows me to convert my documents to a PDF file and I think I have figured out which fonts I want and how to make things go where I want them to. I could do ok with this stuff on my own but the design freak in me wants to take things a step further.
Also, can anyone recommend software similar to this that will allow me to make an image that looks like a ‘real’ book for free or cheap?
Pricing
The whole idea for this ebook came about because I want to raise $10,000 for a good cause. The plan was to sell it for about $10 with 100% of the proceeds going to Hands On Disaster Response. Since that idea was born, the ebook has grown into something a lot longer and more involved than I had originally intended and it has eaten up a lot of my time at the expense of working on my websites. I have also just decided to head to Haiti to work with the organisation there and dropped an assload of money on plane tickets to get me there. With all that in mind, I’m thinking of going 50/50 with half of the revenue going to Hands On and half to the “Get Kirsty to Haiti Fund”, at least for the foreseeable future. I’m also thinking of upping the price to $14 based on the awesomeness of it.
How does all of this sound to you? Are the people who expressed interest in the ebook when the idea was $10 with 100% to charity still interested or does that change things? Do you think going 50/50 will put people off? Do you think web people will still help promote it, even though I won’t have an affiliate program? Is the price too high/too low for a 50+ page, straight-talking ebook with a bunch of interviews, a list of free a cheap volunteering opportunities, reviews of pay-to-see-the-listing type websites and a candid look at paying to volunteer among other things?
Marketing
I’m not much for marketing and self-promotion. I got made redundant from a job as a travel agent because I suck at sales and I can’t stand people and websites that are blatantly trying to sell me something. It seems like ebooks inspire people to put out those long, garish, one-page websites like this, this and this and I’m not sure I can bring myself to do one, even though they must work or why would people make them? Do you think a post on my blog about my ebook along with an image and blurb in the sidebar leading to that post is enough or should I go the whole hog and create a sales-y website and point people to that instead?
I’m also going to attempt to create a bit of a buzz when I launch the ebook and have gotten in touch with about 20 bloggers I really like who have expressed interest in reviewing the ebook or allowing me to write a guest post about international volunteering on their site with a link back to the ebook page. That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Other ideas would be appreciated.
Distribution
I plan on using E-Junkie to get the ebook out there. I’ve seen it used by loads of other people with ebooks and it seems easy. The only downside I can see is that it can only accept Paypal as payment. If Hands On get behind this a bit and let their volunteers know about it, I imagine many of them would want to pay with a creditcard. I’m not too sure how to deal with this except to have Hands On set something up on their website to accept payments. They said they would be willing to do this when 100% of the proceeds would be going to them but I’m not sure what the take on this would be with half going to me. I will email to find out but, in the meantime, can anyone suggest an ebook distribution site that allows Paypal and creditcards?
So that’s where I am with the ebook. I’m heading to bed now with lots of ideas in my head and two work-filled, Starbucks-sipping days ahead of me. I want to bang as many details out as I can in the next couple of days and get it done so I can spend at least a week marketing it before I head to Haiti.
Ideas? Comments? Ideas? Questions? Ideas?
Having a product for sale is a completely new thing for me and I’m excited to see where this goes and will share what I learn alog the way.
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Hey Kirsty,
First, congrats!! I don’t have any ideas about a title. I like the price change to $14 and I have no beef with the 50/50 split. And even if they say they don’t, people respond to $13.99 better than $14
We just launched a TOEFL guide ebook. http://toeflnow.com - We’re using ejunkie. You can also use Google Checkout for free, so we’re offering Paypal and Google Checkout.
We created the cover using lulu.com. We started using them because they have an awesome preview function (an example is here - http://careercup.com/book), but the thing got to be a pain in the butt so we kept the cover (with August doing some photoshop hacking) and put the preview onto scribd.
I recommend making it a static page on this blog. No problem. It will be better for SEO too
All my best,
Natalie
You can’t do better than Sirius Graphix (siriusgraphix.com) for the design and the marketing plan. They’ve got an e-book promotion until the end of this month. They took our ugly duckling and made it into a beautiful swan: http://passingthru.com/e-book/
Nomadic Matt did very well with his ebook and used the approach of a single blog post to announce it and collect comments and feedback. Just make sure you promote back to that post in new ways, such as an RSS footer, or a banner you can add to the sidebar.
Given how much you have going on right now, that seems like an appropriate approach. I spent a lot of time - months, learning how to do a pre-launch using email lists, and my fairly short sales page for Travel Blog Success went through numerous iterations based on feedback from others.
Chris Guillebeau has also been successful with the blog post, soft launch approach, though traffic levels and subscriber numbers will play a big part in how much of an immediate response you experience.
If you aren’t completely opposed to outside distribution that may include affiliate commissions, I’d take a serious look at http://www.smashwords.com/
This way you don’t limit your market to just .pdf style ebooks, but include distribution to popular readers like Sony. Smashwords also has a deal with Sony where you can be included in Sony’s ebook store (you may have to register that separately).
You would have to consider the percentage that you will get based on what they will take or what would be the remainder after an affiliate would get a commission, but its no where near as bad as publishing with some affiliate distributors like clickbank.
Ejunkie is great though if you want to do all the distribution yourself.
As far as covers go - quite frankly most ebooks (outside the mmo sector) really just have a flat cover title page type of image. If you take a look at lulu.com, smashwords, and other popular ebook sites you can see what I mean.
What route you take I guess depends on the market and I don’t know much about this one. If you think the need/desire is there, though, you may want to seriously consider more than simple self-distribution as I think you book looks promising and valuable.
Best of luck whatever decisions you make.
I don’t think you need the long sales letter. Your audience here should be enough to get the ball rolling. Why not use the the “brand” of your blog in the title, like “Nerdy nomad’s guide to volunteering”.
I think you can enable your PP account to accept CC payments.
No opinion on the pricing, sorry, but - paypal *is* a way to take credit cards; thats how I use it. You don’t have to sign up for an account, you can just put in the credit card number, so you are covered there
I agree with Lea - Paypal *is* a way to accept credit cards. E-Junkie will work fine as a distribution method but you might also want to consider Clickbank. The downside is that you have to pay $50 for an account, but you then have a built-in affiliate program so you can get quite a lot of people promoting yout ebook without you doing too much.
What other Volunteering books are on the market? do they cover the same topics what price are they and how many pages. Found one after a quick search, $16,95 with 288 pages
you may want to delete this link! : http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781426205293
$14 is very reasonable, considering how much is going to charity for buying the ebook, a bit more wouldn’t be too bad to ask either, $17 is a common amount.
As for the title, keep it simple. Something like ‘Volunteer for the world’ would do nicely with the tagline explaining the book ‘How to volunteer around the world’.
@natalie Nice idea for an ebook, your site looks great. Thanks for those links and I guess it makes sense to offer as many payment options as possible, especially if they’re free. I think I will go for a static page on the blog. That’ll let people post questions and comments for everyone to see which is handy… assuming people like it!
I think doing the $13.99 thing would annoy me as much as a long sales-y website would… but again, it must work!
@betsy Thanks for that. I have a designer friend who said she would take a look at it awhile back and offer some suggestions so I will see what I can come up with and then go from there if it all goes tits up.
@dave Ya I think Matt’s approach was a good one and I will go with that.
@melanie Thanks, I will look into that link. I might start out with e-junkie and then look at other options once I get a bit more time.
@mike That’s an idea… although I don’t think my ‘brand’ will go that far. It might actually serve to confuse people who buy it through the HODR site. But I will consider it for sure.
@lea and mike thanks for the PP creditcards heads up. I have no idea what PP is capable of from the other end as I’ve never sold a product. I will set that up for sure.
@richard An affiliate program will make sense down the road but for now I’m going to set it up so that HODR are my only affiliate which will make collecting the money and paying it to them very easy. Once I’m happy with the amount I’ve raised, I will probably switch to a split between me and affiliates but I don’t see this happening for a long time.
@jez I have thought about that a lot… why would people pay so much for shortish ebooks when they can get actual books with more pages for less. There are a lot of ebooks out there that initially seem overpriced. I think ebooks can be worth it if buyers get updates and if the info in there is really up to date stuff with lots of relevant links, first-hand info and crap like that. I think $14 is probably a good price but it’s till up for debate. I wouldn’t go much higher than that.
Kirsty,
Here is what I am going to do:
1. Find 2 or 3 things that are laying around the house collecting dust.
2. Put them up for sale on eBay.
3. Use the proceeds to buy your eBook (or maybe two)!
Anybody else want to do the same? It’s a good way to get rid of a few things that you don’t need any more and put the money to good use.
Hi Kirsty,
Congratulations on nearing the finish line! I can tell you that volunteering is one of the favorite topics for visitors to my site - your book will definitely be popular.
On price, I keep hearing that those ending with the number 7 draw in more and sell better when it comes to e-books. So I’d go with $17.
Your topic is hugely popular, especially with Haiti right now. So why not go with affiliates through Clickbank? Just in addition to what you’ll already have. Certainly you’ll make less per unit but you should make it up on quantity, and get plenty of additional free exposure as affiliates do your marketing for you.
To answer one of the comments above, I think you can charge a decent sum for an e-book 1) because it’s instantly downloadable and often an impulse buy - people may not want to wait for Amazon to ship and 2) if you offer plenty of practical advice. Problem with printed books is the advice goes out of date quickly, URLs change etc. With an ebook information can be as fresh as yesterday so yes, I don’t mind paying a bit extra for that immediacy.
I don’t see a problem with the 50/50. Most people keep most if not all of their proceeds. I think telling buyers that fully 50% of the proceeds of their purchase will go to a charity is pretty darned good.
Looking forward to the book and the post!
Title: How To Give
Subtitle: Change Your Life and The Lives of Others By Volunteering Internationally.
Other options…
The Underground Guide To International Volunteering
The Volunteering Black Book
How To Make An Impact: 67 Ways Volunteering Will Change Your Life
I could go on forever. (Seriously, if you need more options, just e-mail me and we can skype chat about it.)
As far as price: hard to say. Launch price of ~$10 is good. And then you can test out other price points in the future.
Karol
Good to see you are nearing a release date.
I’m not great with catchy titles the one thing that comes to mind is to include the word “travel” in the title somehow.
paypal has some really cool stuff coming out primarily a new website for the developers www.x.com I was in a session last week with them for an afternoon and the thing that comes to mind is you can now split payments
I.E Create a button and split the funds up so they go multiple email addresses seamlessly no need for CB or the likes any more…
You could create one button for your own sites with a straight 50/50 split
And another Button for those wanting to promote the book with a three way split or whatever you have in mind.. as you are selling just a single product you can easily create the buttons manually over on the regular paypal site.
The other thing that is nagging at me, is the whole charity thing, I’d make sure you understand all the legalities and dot all your P’s & Q’s before letting this fly.. If you get it wrong and break some law you will be in a whole host of crap..
As to price n’all I think $14.99 is more than fair I would do a simple three way split Hands On gets $4.99 of each sale, Stating this in bold at checkout the other two parts would be divided between your self & the other promoters “where you are the promoter” you would get two parts.
I’d go this way to simplify but more so I could easily explain in bold to the buyers what went to charity $4.99 from each sale donated. is easier to explain & incorporate in the design than if bought here X * XX over here.
@steve Nice idea! Someone should write an ebook on minimalism and suggest that.
@scribetrotter Glad to know that volunteering is a popular topic on your site. I will get working on your guest post this week and send it along to you. Thanks for the advice. I’ve heard a few people say that ‘7′ numbers do well. Strange how all that works.
@karol Thanks for those titles. I might just hit you up for a few more once I get to the UK. I think testing different prices and sales type pages is probably a good idea and something I should do, but I’m not sure I would be able to dedicate the time to that sort of thing. I think I will launch at a certain price with a page on my blog and reassess in three months once I’m back from Haiti.
@neale That Paypal stuff is interesting and if I could divy up the sales price like that it would make things really simple. What has you so concerned about the charity thing? What sorts of things should I be looking out for? I don’t see what should be complicated about it… I sign HODR up as an affiliate using e-junkie and half the proceeds go straight to them that way. Where’s the issue?
Kirsty their are a whole bunch of Laws concerning selling products offering services in the name of a charity.. and they are I believe governed by federal law, it is no small thing if you get on the wrong side of things… I know your intentions & actions are all good…. just do a little research first..
I like the price point around $15 and think early pre-promotion is important to get sales rolling. I liked both Matt’s and Dave’s approach in their marketing efforts which did a good job of building anticipation. If you can convince people that your ebook will meet a need or give a result they can quantify somehow I think you’ll do well in sales.
I like @karol’s title “The Underground Guide to International Volunteering” and I’ve come up with the tag line “For experiences that go beyond beaches and the backpacker trail.”
What do you guys think?
Congrats on getting close to finishing your ebook. I highly recommend you look into promoting it through an affiliate program. Using a network like clickbank would be one of the easier ways to make that happen.
You can also host a contest or two on your blog to give away free copies of this ebook. You can ask people to tweet about your ebook or write a blogpost to get an entry into the contest. This kind of contest seems to work very well for other blogs.
I like that idea Kirsty.
Hi Kirsty,
Congrats on nearing the end. 14 sounds good to me, and the 50/50 doesn’t bother me none, especially if its going to help you get to Haiti to help out. As for names…Im not sure. I suck all sorts of hard when it comes to that. I like the above comment regarding branding it as Nerdy Nomads guide to volunteering, or whatever. But then short and simple is always nice too. lol. Can’t be much help. I suck at selling pretty much everything.
Best of luck, can’t wait to read it!
[…] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Last Saturday our new location really jumped off to a great start. When we get settled in a little more you can expect a more detailed update from Chris. This week I want to tell you about Kirsty (aka Nerdy Nomad) whose hard work to produce an International Volunteering Ebook is in the final stretch. The ebook will be packed full of helpful steps to get people making a difference in exotic locales all over the place. A significant portion of the ebook will be interviews, free or low cost volunteering options, and reviews of paid opportunities. When it launches the book will be available for purchase online for around $20. Of course all the proceeds will go to Hands on Disaster Response and to help fund Kirsty’s post-earthquake return to volunteering in Haiti. Don’t worry I’ll post a reminder once the book launches, but for now enjoy a sneak peak of the type of information you’ll find in the ebook, with a list of my favorite volunteering options in Bangkok. […]
I like that idea Kirsty.
I think you can enable your PP account to accept CC payments.
From now on I will always seek out a volunteer gig when I leave my country. It is a best way to connect with the people and places, coming back with a much more rewarding experience. Good tips!
Do you think going 50/50 will put people off?
No, providing you are up front with people where the money goes, for instance, you should be honest and say 50% is going directly into your bank account - ok you are using the money to pay for flights to get you to Haiti, but what about after you have paid for the flights with proceeds? Maybe say it goes towards expenses?
Paypal has been fine for my ebook, doesnt appear to have put people off buying, although I will never know how many have been put off!
Great stuff Dwight. This is going to be so helpful. Thanks for putting this up. Gonna tell all my friends about this.
how exciting. ebooks are much simpler to make nowadays although marketing them can sometimes be tricky. Goodluck.
This is a truly great idea. I hope that you do well with it. Wish you the best of Luck with this venture!