Don't Call it an E-book!

by Marcia Yudkin 

Terminology greatly affects how people perceive value. Call 
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 <marcia@yudkin.com> is the author of Profiting 
from Booklets & Special Reports 
<http://www.yudkin.com/bookletsreports.htm> and 50 Ways to 
Turn Content into Money 
<http://www.yudkin.com/downloads.htm>, from which this 
article is adapted.