World Of eBook

We have taken another major step towards world domination by releasing our first Newsletter. Through it we hope to harnesses the power of email marketing. This is one of the most important elements we have added to our business so far this year because as everyone knows - email marketing and newsletters are fundamental to the success of any online business.

So what the heck are newsletters and why are they good for business? A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newsletters delivered electronically via email (e-Newsletters or eZines) have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in general is gaining popularity over printed correspondence. They are published by businesses and companies to provide information of interest, upcoming events and company news to their members, customers or subscribers.

It is planned that our newsletter will be published no more than twice per month. The frequency will be dictated and determined by the content, i.e. when we deem there is enough quality content, i.e. important news and information, then we will issue a new newsletter. Subscribing and un-subscribing is made easy. It is important that a newsletter is targeted at the proper audience and that the subscription process is double opt-in in order to totally eliminate any uninterested parties. Also, if a subscriber wishes to cancel, this must be a single click procedure.
Book promotion and sale generation is the best way The eBook Sale can serve its Authors and Writers – and newsletters are one of the most powerful marketing tool available. Hopefully, in a few months, statistics will show that it was a wise investment. We would really appreciate your patronage… please subscribe to our newsletter from our homepage.

We have always insisted that our Authors and Writers must come first. This may be a bold statement, but it is true. Other publishers may claim to care about their writers… but as we all know… actions speak louder than words! Unless you can pay a minimum of 75% royalties to the people who keep you in business, i.e. your Writers, and also equip them with Real-time sales figures and Analysis to keep them fully up to date… you are not providing the service they deserve.

The internet is an amazing beast. It is a worldwide network of interconnected computer networks and databases. Break it down even further into its fundamental elements, and your left with one’s and zero’s (i.e. login 1 and login 0). All that our site designers did was allow two of our databases to communicate at this basic level… thus providing store sales data to be manipulated and displayed in an easy to understand format via our Author’s Administration panel:

The Author’s Area is also the brain-child of our technical staff. Once an Author signs-up, they will have instant access to the Author Members Area. Here they can quickly and easily configure their account to specify contact information, payment method and payment frequency, and of course they can straight away upload a book for us to review for possible inclusion in our store. And now, this new ‘Real-time sales and analysis’ section is available to display sales information, royalty information, payments made and payments due, dates and times. From the Authors perspective, this information is essential for the efficient running for their respective businesses.

Our Authors, including ourselves, are delighted with this development. We endeavour to serve our Authors and Writers as best we can, in the hope that they will reward us by serving our customers with quality Fiction and Nonfiction Books. So far so good!

I’ve decided to take a look at another listbuilding solution provided by ThunderList in parallel with evaluating ListHero. ThunderList is said to combine viral marketing and list building into the most powerful business tool on the internet! Here is how it works:

1. You join - totally free
2. Once you join you get a personal referral link
3. Send people to your referral link
4. When they join and become a member you immediately get them placed in your downline
5. Every 10 days you can send them an E-Mail with your advertising
6. When the members you refer send new people to their downline you also have the permission to send THEM your E-Mail
7. This goes down a full 10 levels! Therefore, it looks like 50,000+ subscribers is possible

You may wonder will you be swamped with E-Mails if you join? According to ThunderList, this is another plus of this listbuilding concept. You might have a massive downline (the members on your 10 levels) but you only have a maximum of 10 members above you. As they are only allowed to send one E-Mail every 10 days, you will NOT receive more than one E-Mail per day on average!

Sounds simple and straightforward. Let me investigate for a while, evaluate the results and the I’ll post the outcome. If you wish to do so, give ThunderList a try and let me know how you get on.

I’m evaluating a viral listbuilding software tool from the folks at ListHero.com. It’s the fastest, simplest and easiest way to build your list that I’ve seen in a long while.

Here’s all you do…
- Create a short ad that promotes your newsletter or ezine
- Add some code to the pages of your website…
- Sit back and watch your list grow.

ListHero helps you generate 1,000’s of highly targeted subscribers for free and pays you generous affiliate commissions as your list grows. I’ll let you know what I think of it once I’ve had a chance to check it out.
Meanwhile go grab access to this free viral listbuilding software while it’s still free.

What an exciting few days for The eBook Sale. As I have detailed in the last few blogs, I want bigger and better things for my site and store… namely, to expand into fiction and non-fiction novels - thus, providing quality new books for my customers. Well I have taken a giant step towards that this week because The eBook Sale has formed a partnership with Raider Publishing International.
 
Raider Publishing was founded in 2005 by Authors and for Authors… and has several locations around the world. As a paperback publishing house, Raider provides a high quality publishing service with constant support for the author, along with a top rate service - a combination that can’t be beaten.
 
Under the partnership agreement, The eBook Sale will digitally publish the fiction and non-fiction novels and stories that are currently aligned and copyrighted to Raider Publishing International. The initial phase, consisting of 20 brand new publications, will be available in store by Friday, May 23rd. It is planned that subsequent phases will be released on a monthly basis.
 
Each Book will be available in multiple electronic formats… as many as 15. This will ensure that all eBook Reader Software and eBook Readers available on the market will be catered for.
 
This is a very exciting time for The eBook Sale as we endeavor to expand into the fiction and non-fiction book markets with top quality, fresh and new books. Let’s hope it is just the beginning!

 All

Zen Cart™ truly is the art of e-commerce… it’s a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart software package. There are 100’s of shopping cart programs out there, all with different strengths and weaknesses. Zen Cart™ is superior to most in ease-of-use, features and price.
The price part is easy… it’s 100% FREE.
Installation is fast, easy and well documented… it is achieved via a build-in installation tool. You just need to check your server for requirements before installing.
When it comes to the feature list, I could be here all night. The following are just a few:
. Global E-Commerce Ready which means that it supports multiple languages, tax support, shipping methods, currency support and payment methods
. Customer Retention Tools like newsletters, order status emails, referral tools, gift and discount certificates
. Fully Customizable Template Orientated structure which allows you to change colors, fonts and graphics using css; and customize the appearance by adding, removing and altering the physical and visual makeup of the store
. Also the administration panel is powerful and gives you total flexibility over your stores appearance and management.

A few short months ago I had no experience with any aspect of the internet… rather than googling. As my last blog stated, I have recently re-vamped my site which did look quiet unprofessional. One of the fundamental changes was the addition of a shopping cart system and I think you will agree with me that now my site and store look pretty good now… at least better anyway, I have some more work to do before I am 100% happy. Check out my store-front:

And please, let me know of any further improvements that I could make. So if you are an online trader and you are looking for a shopping cart system… look no further, Zen Cart™ has all you need!

Many apologies… I’ve not written a post in some time because I’ve been totally over-hauling my site. The main changes include a new homepage, a guestbook, a shopping cart system and a new Authors Area that includes signup and upload features. There is probably too much information for one post so I’ll talk a little more about my homepage and guestbook here. What’s important to know is that I was able to achieve all of this with nothing but time and less than $20 investment!

Even though my old homepage  was generating a nominal amount of sales, it really looked like an amateur had put it together… i.e. ME! Now, I still categorize myself as a relative new-comer to website design but I have picked up lots of experience over the last 12 months. I simply searched through the iProfit Template Package, i.e. one of the eBook Packages available  in my store, and found a website template that is suitable for my needs… and the added bonus - it cost me nothing.

Here is what my old site looked like:

Here is my new site template:

And finally, here is my new site as it stands today!

So what about my guestbook, I decided to add one to allow anyone who visits my site and store to leave a message or comment. Again, it’s provided free by www.smartgb.com. Hey, I’m not a cheap skate… but why pay for something you can get for free. So go ahead, visit my guestbook and leave a message.

I recently came across this at TalkBiz News and it’s great… so if you’ve been putting off doing videos or using screen captures in your products because you thought the software was too expensive, your worries have just been taken away. Two of the best tools for this have just been released as freebies. Camtasia Studio and SnagIt. Camtasia Studio is the tool used by the most experienced marketers for making screen capture videos. It’s an extremely powerful piece of software, and you can get a fully functional, licensed version direct from the manufacturer, for free. SnagIt is a great screen capture program, with tons of options. It will even grab entire web pages, regardless of length.

So, grab the downloads and install them:

http://www.talkbiznews.com/r/camdownload.html 

http://www.talkbiznews.com/r/snagitdownload.html

… and then grab the keys:

http://www.talkbiznews.com/r/snagitkey.html
 
I don’t know how long they plan to offer them free, so grab them while they’re available. Camtasia Studio regularly sells for $300. SnagIt is $30. You get both for free. Enjoy!

Similar to the previously described Directory Submitter… Article Submitter will submit your articles to directories. Articles, from an SEO point of view, are an excellent way of generating one-way links to your website – in doing so, increasing your rank in the SERPs.

Many of the points mentioned in relation to Directory submitter also apply here so I’m not going to re-iterate them. Article submitter is a simple, fast and effective way of submitting your articles to multiple directories.

Simply enter your information (article, biography, etc), pick the article directory you want to submit your information to and you’re ready to go! Here’s how it looks:

Click here to check out a demo… and download the free version of Article Submitter (which allows you to submit to 85 article directories) before you may decide to update to the gold version (which allows you to submit to 660 directories). Have fun.