Selling e-books? How to?

[particle]

I know we have some web gurus on this board and I'm hoping someone here can help me out. I would like to find out more about selling electronic files online. Most importantly, I am helping a friend of a friend figure out how to sell his electronic book online. Web-based stuff is not my primary role in my 8-5, but I have done it in the past when necessary. However, I've never sold electronic files.

What is the best, least expensive option? I did a google search, and it seems all of my search results were sites trying to sell their marketing software.

Would it be good to provide a subscription-based registration to a website, where people have to pay first to gain access to a restricted area with a link to the electronic files?

Or perhaps put the file on a non-linked (not accessible via the navigation menu) .php page on the website, let the customer pay via PayPal and receive a link to the page via the PayPal receipt?

Or is there an easier way I'm totally overlooking?

[davidtx]

I know we have some web gurus on this board and I'm hoping someone here can help me out. I would like to find out more about selling electronic files online. Most importantly, I am helping a friend of a friend figure out how to sell his electronic book online. Web-based stuff is not my primary role in my 8-5, but I have done it in the past when necessary. However, I've never sold electronic files.

What is the best, least expensive option? I did a google search, and it seems all of my search results were sites trying to sell their marketing software.

Would it be good to provide a subscription-based registration to a website, where people have to pay first to gain access to a restricted area with a link to the electronic files?

Or perhaps put the file on a non-linked (not accessible via the navigation menu) .php page on the website, let the customer pay via PayPal and receive a link to the page via the PayPal receipt?

Or is there an easier way I'm totally overlooking?

Have you considered selling via Amazon? http://askville.amazon.com/publish-book ... tId=899003

[silverbear]

Particle - sending you an email about this

[particle]

I had not considered Amazon, but it doesn't look like they sell electronic book downloads, unless it's for the Kindle platform - would prefer to keep the generic, cross-compatible .PDF format. I would also like to sell electronic video downloads in the near future, which Amazon doesn't seem to allow either. iTunes might, but it looks like their fees are off the charts!

[particle]

Particle - sending you an email about this

Thanks silverbear - listening to the video you linked me to. I think he's trying to sell a class on how to publish a printed book and sell it on Amazon. Actually, not really sure, he's just rambling on and on about the prestige of having a printed book.

Thanks for the link.

Still looking for the best option for selling electronic downloads of files online. Thinking maybe a subscription-based login to a CMS site might be the best route.

[silverbear]

Yeah, this guy sends semi-useful stuff sometimes - he sure can talk!

As far as subscription based sites, I used those before where paypal was the payment mechanism that automatically provided access, but not sure how all that works. Good luck!

[92f-fan]

Shopping carts can be painful to install and get working securely - especially if you only have one product

why not just use a place like http://www.lulu.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ?

[particle]

Thanks for the help everyone. Someone on another site I'm on just suggested I check out "DigiVendor" - sounds like it's exactly what I'm looking for.

http://www.idevspot.com/DigiVendor.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;