Today, Joel Comm is really pushing his new book, The AdSense Code. If you're on any AdSense-related mailing list, you're probably seeing messages from the list owners urging you to buy Joel's book on Amazon. If you do, you get access to a bunch of free bonuses from a variety of Joel's partners. Not a bad deal. I haven't read The AdSense Code yet, but I think it's basically a repackaged (and much cheaper!) form of his Google AdSense Secrets e-book (which I have read).
You might wonder why someone like Joel, who has a very successful e-book and a bunch of other AdSense and Chitika products is bothering with a printed book, especially one that's so cheap. The royalties on a $16 book are very minimal, about $1 or so would be typical. When Joel sells his e-book for $97, he pockets half that money if the book was sold through an affiliate and all of it if it wasn't. Even after you subtract promotional fees and so on, it's a lot more money on a per-copy basis than you get for a printed book. So why bother?
There are various reasons to write conventionally-published books. One of them is distribution: Joel will reach a different market with this book. Another is legitimacy: putting out a printed book that's been professionally edited and that a publisher's been willing to pay for (because it takes a lot of money to print several thousand copies of a book, design a cover, typeset, etc.) is considered much more legitimate than an e-book. Up until now, for example, when journalists and others have been looking for someone to interview about AdSense, one of the first places they turn to is Amazon where they would find… me, of course. Now they'll find Joel, too. There are other ancillary benefits, too, like exposing Joel to a larger audience for his e-books and other products.
Then there's the coveted cachet of “bestseller” status. What you're seeing today is a concerted effort to get Joel's book into the top 10 on Amazon, possibly even to #1. (As I write this, it's currently at #147.) Then Joel will be able to call himself a “bestselling author” and have the Amazon ranking to back it up. A lot of book authors do this these days using outfits like ZeroCostPromotions.com (tell Warren I said hi, he's a good guy). If you have a large mailing list, or access to partners with large mailing lists, you just send out an email urging people to buy the book and once they enter their Amazon order ID they get access to a bunch of free bonuses “worth” hundreds or thousands of dollars.
So if you were thinking about buying Joel's e-book and have been held back by its price, maybe today's the day to buy The AdSense Code instead and help Joel reach his goal. Hey, I'd love to get my own book up in the top ten too, but I know it's not going to happen — I wasn't smart enough to get hooked up with all the right people when it was first published. But I do wish Joel luck in reaching his bestselling-author status!
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P.S.: I'm working hard on my own e-book, of course, kind of the reverse of Joel's strategy. I'd love to here feedback from you guys as to what kind of pricepoint would be acceptable. Would you pay $97 for it or not? Do you want an affiliate program for it? Just drop me a line and let me know…
Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. You can read this blog by mail if it's more convenient for you, just send a blank email to memwg-blog@aweber.com to subscribe.