There seems to be business model shift in the Internet marketing information product market. First Jeremy Palmer pulls the plug on his e-book, High Affiliate Performance Marketing (which you can now get for free). Aaron Wall has pulled the plug on his famous and fantastic e-book: SEO Book. Teli Adlam also pulled her outstanding e-book, Optiniche. What’s going on?
I’m an affiliate of the SEO Book and this the email Aaron sent affiliates:
Dear Alan,
Over the course of the past couple years it became obvious to me that the perceived value of ebooks was dropping, the field of SEO was getting more complex, and many people who purchased my book wanted to be able to interact with me and ask me many questions. This caused me to need to change the SEO Book business model away from selling a downloadable ebook, and toward selling a web based information product backed by a community forum that helped turn it into a service more than a product.
I find it interesting that he believes the perceived value of e-books has dropped. He sold his e-book for $77. Teli and Jeremy are also forming more a of a social/community type business model over selling an e-book priced on the high-end scale of the market.
Could it be? Are the days of $47-97 e-books gone? It appears folks prefer short and dirty (but with good info) e-books that are cheaper than longer and more expensive ones. And in order to compensate that these folks are going the membership route where they can charge X amount per month per customer. Makes sense over one e-book sale.
I’m keeping this trend in mind for my next product. I think of my own e-book, Niche Podcasting-perhaps I should have made it into 3 smaller e-books (how to podcast, how to video podcast, and how get traffic via podcasting) and sold those three on their own instead of creating one 130+ page e-book.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on the market reception to my e-book once it launches on ClickBank. So far I’ve selling at a discount during the pre-launch phase. I’ve sold around 75 e-books so far. What will happen once I list it on ClickBank for $47? Only time and testing will tell.
Hey this is an interesting post.
The most I see ebooks going for these days is $47. Outside of the IM niche, $28 (the good ones).
I do think, though, that ebooks will always sell… because you have the people that would rather read than listen or watch.
Just jivin’…
See ya.
Podcast consulting it also a highly competitive place now. Once a person learns to podcast they feel they can then make money tellign eveyrone how to podcast. Some are charging thousands. Some are charging 20 bucks. Best of luck with your books.
Dave Jackson
http://www.schoolofpodcasting.com
Hi Dave,
Interesting business model. I hadn’t thought of offering podcasting consulting services. I’m already doing this for a coupe of friends (0ne is a personal trainer, the other a broker). Time to see if I can find paying clients.