| LED Digest 2009: Facilitate the Flow |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. August 11, 2005 Issue #2009 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Dublin Core and SEO ==-- ~ Trudy Levy "This is like the Dewey Decimal System people talking about books sales." --== E-book Options ==-- ~ Renee Kennedy "I highly recommend that you use an editor." ~ Jim Novo "It's far better to facilitate the flow and profit from it than fight it." ~ Dejan Bizinger "...many people still can't make a purchase via Paypal." ~ Wes Bennett "I've done some research and found some ideas that might help you." --== Not Just Linking ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "It is a time-consuming practice which is fraught with many myths...' ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Recommended Email Clients? ==-- ~ Tom Aman ~ Charles Oertel ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Trudy Levy Subject: Dublin Core > While examining their source code, we have found > that a number of websites appear to be *inappropriately* > including Dublin Core meta tags... - Robin Estlin, LED 2008 I am not sure how one would use DC meta tags inappropriately. Dublin Core is merely a standard for descriptive metadata. From their site: ------------------ "The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems." ------------------ You might use the tags incorrectly. I could not find the reference that you quote, but I would guess, they were telling their constituents, mostly libraries, museums etc, that using DC tags in their header would probably not get them results that they were looking for because no one is looking at meta tags anymore, though the DC tags one would use, wouldn't be of much use for promotional purposes anyway. Can you provide a link to the reference that you quoted. Now I am really curious as to what they could possible be talking about. This is like the Dewey Decimal System people talking about books sales. Thanks Trudy Levy, Consultant Digital Imaging Projects http://www.dig-mar.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Renee Kennedy Subject: Ebooks > ... what is the best way to sell these books? - Brian Rotsztein, LED 2007 Hi Brian, We sell two e-books on the site: http://www.thewritemarket.com/seo-book.shtml http://www.thewritemarket.com/content.shtml (If you look at the top navigation you can see what information we thought it was important to include in order to sell these books.) We use www.ClickBank.com for our credit card processing. They do charge 7.5% of the sale, but when you're dealing with an e-book, you do not have shipping charges or production charges (aside from producing the first one.) ClickBank is set up specifically for downloadable products, such as e-books or software. They will redirect the customer to a download page after payment. I don't think PayPal will allow you to sell a downloadable product, unless they've changed their policy recently. Our books are over 100 pages each. We sell them for $19.95 as printed copies and $9.00 as e-books. The e-book is almost pure profit, except for the 7.5% charged by ClickBank. We make less per sale on the printed publication. We self-published the printed version through www.upublish.com - print on demand. They also will make the e-book for you and sell that for you, as well. But we sell a lot more through our web site than through Upublish - and we make more money on the ones we sell ourselves. I highly recommend that you use an editor. We used Judy Vorfeld of www.webgrammar.com. Judy had some good insight into expanding and making the book better. It's always better to have another pair of eyes on it. She's very reasonably priced, as well. Renee Kennedy -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Jim Novo Subject: Ebooks > ... we are worried about fraud and copyright > infringement. Since our work will be of value > to so many people, it is conceivable that if > one parent or educator likes our work, they > would email the file to "everyone else." - Brian Rotsztein, LED 2007 Will Bontrager has deep experience in this area and provided some excellent direction, especially the comments about spending so much time worrying about security that you neglect other, more productive work. Since Will and others hit the technical side of things, I'd like to pursue the marketing angle, and tell you that if properly set up, it's a net-net good thing that some people will share some of your books. If I could take off from Will's suggestion #2: Provide two versions of the product, one marked "For You" and the other marked "For Your Friends"... First, you have to realize you can buy software that breaks PDF password security in about 30 seconds, and that people who want to get around most any security set-up will. For more info, see: http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt Second, any security system is going to be a hassle for the customer and amplify your customer service load quite a bit. Unless you are dealing with known tech-savvy people, you are going to have a decent amount of service to deal with just on people trying to download and open your books. Add "security" and your load will at least triple. Third, recognize that, especially in an ultra-tight niche like yours, there is already a network. People who care about this topic already know other people who care about this topic. These people are ready to "sell" your books for you to people who already want them. There is no more efficient distribution system that this one. You can't buy that kind of advertising. So, knowing this in advance, set yourself up for it. Make sure you create "content pathways" to **facilitate sharing** that also protect and amplify your revenue stream. Here's an example: Let's say you have 5 books that are all on very specific parts of this topic. You could create a 6th "foundations" book from the content in those 5 that is broadly applicable to the audience. In the foundation book, you make reference to these other books, "for more detail on this topic and additional worksheets, see the book"... Then you make the foundation book a cheaper, "introductory" book, and these other books more expensive. What happens? 1. A higher percentage of visitors buy from you, because they can check out the value of your content by purchasing the introductory book at a lower price. Simple supply and demand. 2. The introductory book sells your other books to the same people. 3. Some percentage of these people will distribute the introductory book to other people who are demanding this kind of information. Some of those people will go on to buy your more expensive books. This is a bad thing? If you want to really dive into the sea, make the Introductory book a free download! Will some of the more expensive books be shared? Sure. But that's a cost of being in this business, just like shrinkage is in retail. It's far better to facilitate the flow and profit from it than fight it. One other point, and that is people generally hate reading PDF's, especially on detailed or difficult to understand topics - they can't make notes on the book, it's not really portable, etc. You can pretty easily "tier price" a paperback POD (Print on Demand) version of the book into the mix and many people will pay for it, e.g. PDF is $12.95 and paperback version is $29.95. In the scenario above, I'd do the Intro book as PDF only so it gets wider distribution, then the others as PDF / POD combos. Or if you are really paranoid about security, do the advanced books POD only. That way you physically protect the more advanced work. If you decide to go the POD route, check out BookLocker as a vendor: http://publishing.booklocker.com/ That's who I use; they are **very** smart about this area. They will provide you a lot of development / marketing advice other vendors can't provide, and you keep a higher percentage of your sales than the Amazon route. Plus, they take care of all the technical stuff for you. You just write. Jim Novo http://www.jimnovo.com jim, jimnovo.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: Ebooks It is a standard procedure that after your visitor completes the payment form that he / she be re-directed to a download page. Of course like Will Bontrager said in his 4th advice, it should be a temporary download links. Beside Paypal, you can start accepting major credit cards as well because many people still can't make a purchase via Paypal. You are right about your concerns. However there are specialized ebook software like Ebooks Writer http://www.ebookswriter.com that offers very good security features like disabling printing, you can set an expiration date, password protect complete ebook or some parts, assign different passwords for different users. Very important feature is that it offers "lock to PC" option. The "Lock To PC" means that when your ebook is installed on the customer's computer, it will require a personal key that will be generated online so that the ebook will work only on that customer's computer. Hope this helps, Dejan Bizinger http://dejan.bizinger.biz -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Wes Bennett Subject: Ebooks Hi Brian, Those are understandable concerns, but easily addressed for the most part. I am the Editor & owner of a monthly print publication that offers our magazine in PDF format for download from our website (URL below). In preparing to charge $1-$2 for d'loading back issues of Qmag from our site, I've done some research and found some ideas that might help you. A number of web companies are set up specifically for sales of downloadable digital content like Ebooks, music, images, etc. We signed up a while ago with www.payloadz.com after seeing their ads on the Paypal.com website. Each piece of digital content you sell through them, can be uploaded to their servers (or linked to your own dedicated server if you prefer) and they handle the e-commerce aspect, as well as providing the customer with a secure link for downloading their content. Another great suggestion is www.iuniverse.com, a new twist on the idea of independent book publishing. They handle e-commerce, POD (print on demand) books sales, and Ebooks sales for new authors. While there's not a 100% fool proof method of keeping content from being copied or stolen, there's a couple ways to make it much more difficult for people to steal and/or resell your content. First, make sure everything is copyrighted, trademarked, etc., and properly noted on each piece of content. Second, when you create your PDF in Acrobat professional, use the security settings to require password protection, restrict printing capabilities, and restrict any modifications of the document without proper authorization. Third, make use of photographs or other bitmap images in the book and embed them with a digital watermark. My other business is a photography studio (yeah, I stay busy), so I've found that www.digimarc.com and other watermarking services offer some great solutions for protecting & tracking the use of images across the web. If your unique digital watermark is embedded in the pixels of an image within your PDF book, the digimarc tracking spider should be able to keep tabs on any illegal uploads of your property for sale anywhere on the web and alert you of the situation. They also provide a wide variety of other tracking & digital watermarking for security purposes. The websites I mentioned, are just the ones I've used and by no means the only ones offering those type services. Hopefully my suggestions are some help to you. Best of luck with sales of your new e-book! Let us know when it's available. w/peace, Wes Bennett, Editor, Owner, Photographer QNortheast Magazine www.qnortheast.com wesbenn, aol.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Linking Re Steve Pronger's post on Linking in the last issue: Since I didn't say anything abut nullifying reciprocal linking, rather than incorrect assume that is what I really meant and telling me (and the rest of the list subscribers) that is what I meant, the appropriate response would be to ask for clarification. When reciprocal linking first helped with Google, they had not yet developed the ability to identify link farms, link circles, and artificial link exchanges. They have long since learned how to detect them. Reciprocal link programs will still get your site crawled, but Googleguy warns people to be careful about where they link: http://snipurl.com/gv8z [forums.searchenginewatch.com] Again, the point he makes here is reiterated in their Guidelines: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html ----------------- "Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links." ----------------- So, has Google "compensated" for reciprocal linking? Yes. Does that mean it's been "nullified"? I haven't seen any evidence of that. I only said that reciprocal linking is not necessary. It's NOT necessary because you can (and should) get free inbound links from other sites without reciprocating. Furthermore, if your goal really is to build up your PageRank (either one), then reciprocal linkage holds you back, because you diminish the value of your own internal links when you link out to other sites. But wait! Michael often says you should link out to other sites. Indeed, I do. I believe strongly in the practice. But then, I don't worry about PageRank. I'm only concerned with getting good rankings for my targeted keyword expressions. It ain't all about links. > Do sites reach the top for a particular keyword without > recip linking? Sure they do. Do those sites operate in > a highly competitive marketplace? Not usually. Wrong again. Here are searches for competitive expressions where the top sites clearly don't reciprocal link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=hamburgers http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=pizza http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=real+estate http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=britney+spears http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=posters http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=books http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=news So, let's dispense with the myth of "reciprocal linking is necessary in competitive searches". > How many of those webmasters would be willing to remove > all their recip links on the assertion of that's not what got them > to the top? They have adopted a linking strategy. They are at the > top. Which has nothing to do with the fact that reciprocal linking is not a necessary means of getting to the top. It is a time-consuming practice which is fraught with many myths (such as the notion that you should only link to PR4 sites and higher). Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: Email apps > If you run Windows, and switch to Mozilla-Firefox for browsing, > and Mozilla-Thunderbird for email, and practice safe computing, > then you can throw out your anti-virus scanner too. - Charles Oertel, LED 2006 I cannot believe that anyone would even consider connecting to the Internet without good anti-virus software running on their machine. And to even suggest such a thing to others is totally irresponsible. It is a case of, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". It does not matter what browser or email software you are running or how strict your security settings within the software may be, there is always an element of risk that your machine will become infected and very often viruses / worms / trojans use infected machines to spread themselves further, thereby making the infected machine "part of the problem". While I would agree that the Firefox / Thunderbird combination will greatly reduce the risks, IT DOES NOT ELIMINATE THEM. "May 8, 2005: There is currently a security hole in FireFox which allows a page to install and run code on your machine." (http://www.spamblogging.com/archives/000662.html) - actually, the hole only exists based on some browser security settings but many surfers may not be using the "safe" setting) If you check the Firefox site you will find that security updates were released on July 12, May 11, April 15, March 23, February 24 in 2005, October 1, 2004, etc., etc. See http://www.mozilla.org/security/ For a full list of the security updates for Firefox, Thunderbird and the Mozilla Suite, check out http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html. Firefox/Thunderbird are safer, but not totally risk free. While there may not be much (if any) malware aimed specifically at Firefox / Thunderbird, the ever increasing popularity of this software carries with it the ever increasing risk that the "bad guys" will decide these have become really worthwhile targets since there are lots of users, particularly when many of these users feel they are "safe". Please, everyone, run good anti-virus software and make sure it is always kept up-to-date since new malware is always being discovered. There have been at least 20 new ones found since mid-July so your anti-virus software, particularly under Windows, should have had a number of updates over that period. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Charles Oertel Subject: Email apps I practice "safer" computing by running Linux on my desktop rather than Windows. But I have a colleague who runs Windows, all day, doing internet development. He has no anti-virus scanner and has not had any virus problems in five years due to his practicing "safe computing". "Safe Computing" is just: 1) Do not open attachments you are not expecting 2) Do not follow unsolicited links to websites 3) Do not use Internet Explorer for web browsing 4) Do not use Outlook or Outlook Express for email 5) Do not download and install software without checking its credentials 6) Do keep your software updated with security patches 7) Do use strong passwords It's common sense really. regards Charles Oertel FineBushPeople.net ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish." - Ovid |
