Selling ebooks when the same information is available for free
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I see some people making money from selling ebooks and they doing pretty good. When I look at the titles, I know I can easily get the same information by doing some research & reading using Google in a few hours. It can be just like clicking on 5 links!
It seems there's a large segment of people who are lazy or incompetent or don't know how to search or just don't know better. I guess the sellers are selling convenience.
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2 Answers
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Was there a question in there? I'm going to assume it was: How can people sell eBooks when the same information is available from a few hours of searching?
- Because paying $10 for the answers instead of 2 hours of searching means you value your time greater than minimum wage.
- Because you can't trust random info you find on the Internet, but generally eBooks are backed by someone with some kind of reputation to protect.
- Because eBooks are often written better and more complete than random stuff on the Internet.
- Because collating and interpreting information is useful too, not just searching and finding lots of information.
- Because once a blogger has a lot of readers who like them and trust them, even just packaging up the "same old stuff" as an eBook is an opportunity for their readers to give back.
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The book ReWork from 37Signals applies very much to #5. It's a collection of ideas all mentioned earlier in their blog. (BTW, not a real question. That's why I used the 'discussion' tag) – Tony Henrich 14 years ago
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Sort of, except that with the number of copies they've sold, the vast majority of the readers have NOT read their blog. Also that's not a mere eBook but a real book with an established publishing house and real PR/marketing. I don't think you were referring to that sort of thing... – Jason 14 years ago
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The format of the book, paper or electronic, doesn't matter. It's the repacking of available information and selling it. I am not sure about ReWork. I bet their blog readers thought they might be getting new information in the book. Unless those readers checked out the book before buying it. I know some people were disappointed the book didn't contain anything new. – Tony Henrich 14 years ago
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They make better gifts (maybe in the form of an Amazon card) than a bunch of links to free information.
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I desperately want to test this theory, but am afraid I'll alienate friends & family. ;-) – John Mac Intyre 13 years ago
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