By Marcia Yudkin / Published on October 31th, 2007 / Business
something a "brochure" and no one will want to pay for it.
Call it a "booklet" and it sounds small and insignificant,
perhaps worth up to four or five dollars. Call your digital
document an "e-book" and people instinctively compare it to
tangible books and will pay no more than what they'd pay for
something they can pick up at the bookstore. Indeed,
according to Angela Adair-Hoy, co-owner of Booklocker.com,
the magical price point for e-books is just $8.95.
Consider these alternatives.
"Special report." In the business world, people will spend
much more money for timely business information or
instruction when it's called a "special report" than for an
"e-book." A dollar per page is not unusual -- $4.00 or
$5.00 for four pages, $97 for 90 to 100 pages. My research
turned up many even higher priced special reports, where the
author already had impressive credentials, such as $195 for
a 114-page report from usability guru Jakob Nielsen's firm
and $945 for a 245-page report on Russia's aerospace
industry from Jane's, a well-known U.K. security and
international affairs information company.
"Manual." Contrary to what you might expect, packaging
material in an old-fashioned three-ring binder or a copy-
shop coil binding, sent through the mail can also increase
the perceived value of information, compared with "e-books."
This can go for as much as several hundred dollars when it's
up-to-date, advanced professional knowledge not available in
bookstores, libraries or on the Web. Fancy packaging may
even lower a manual's perceived value because it counteracts
the implicit exclusivity of such a purchase.
"Course." Instead of calling the sections "chapters," try
calling them "lessons." Presenting information as
instructional material also raises its perceived value,
because people are accustomed to paying much more for
seminars and classes than for books. A writer I know sells
120 pages of printed material, divided into eight lessons,
as a $295 course. The price includes feedback from the
instructor on assignments, which most purchasers do not get
around to submitting. Likewise, copywriter Joe Vitale has
charged as much as $1,500 for a limited-enrollment seminar
consisting mainly of five e-mailed lessons.
So before jumping on the "e-book" bandwagon, ponder the
alternatives!
Marcia Yudkin is the author of Profiting
from Booklets & Special Reports
and 50 Ways to
Turn Content into Money
, from which this
article is adapted.