eBook Profit Spiral

Face the Competition: How can you Make Money when Competitors Give Away the eBook Store?

It’s time to face just how difficult the eBook market place is right now.

In fact, some eBook pundits think that the eBook is dead.

Others think that the general low quality of eBooks that have flooded the market have spoiled things for real writers who finally have an affordable way to publish their writing.

When eBay allowed eBooks to be sold in downloadable formats, the competition was so stiff that prices dived down to the "One Cent Auction."

eBook owners, especially Master Resell Rights (MRR) owners were competing for market share, so they kept undercutting one another.

But, they were also competing for "Feedback Scores" so the "One Cent Auction" meant that the vendor was loosing money on each sale because eBay’s listing price was higher than one cent.

The next trick was to place the item in an eBay store, and require that the bidder be pre-approved. This kept the auction active, and forced the buyer to purchase the item in the eBay storefront, at a lower listing fee.

Now that eBay has shut down this slick set of maneuvers, PLR (Private Label Rights) has become the rage.

Here, you purchase content that allows you to do just about anything you want with the material.

So, now there are content spinners that alter the text, so that a collection of articles can be twisted into new material. So, what happens? The price of all this PLR stuff starts to take a nose dive as competitors try to beat each other on price, and on mammoth package size. (eBook Profit Spiral’s article on the Monster PLR Business Model exposed some of these issues).

Giveaway projects, may also decrease the perceived value of eBooks. Our article on Giveaways to promote your eBook business explains the issues.

With the Giveaway strategy, savvy marketers unload free copies of older eBooks with lagging sales. Of course, the information is stale, almost sour, and the perceived value of the eBooks decreases still more.

Another example of the forces of downward pressure on eBook sales prices is the "Bonus Offers" that some marketers employ. In this case, they add together the supposed "value" of a collection of eBooks, and hint that the bonus adds value to the "now sweetened" deal.

And even big named gurus stoop to this technique.

Take for example, Cody Moya’s 200 eBooks Giveaway.

Of course, Cody is being honest when he values this Resell Pack at a $397.00 value. Since we count 182 products in this package, this brings the average value to $2.19. Of course, some would be more expensive, some less so.

But, this shows how difficult it is to profit in the eBook business. Imaging how many eBooks you have to sell at $2.19 to be able to quit your day job.

And, it takes just as much work to sell a $2.19 product as it does a $47.00 product or a $97.00 product.

See our sample list of what you can expect to get for free in Cody Moya’s giveaway.

In fact, this is what Cody Moya does. He uses the free eBooks as bait to keep folks coming back to his