Automating Your Ebook Delivery System: Part One

by Eva ALmeida of eBook Basics

All ebook authors and epublishers could benefit from an
automated system that delivers the ebook to the customer
after authorizing their purchase. Manual credit card
authorizations and emailing each customer one by one is
fine for a small business, but it can be quite cumbersome
for larger operations. Using a few simple techniques,
I can show you how to automate your system to save you
time and money.

Here are a few delivery methods to consider:

1. Via Email:

This method involves customers having to wait until
they check their email to receive their ebooks after
purchasing the ebook from your site.

Advantages: No chance of customer sharing download
links with others and it is very simple to set up.
A message on a thank you page stating for them to
check their email is all that is required. Works
well with manual credit card transactions.

Disadvantages: Customer must wait for delivery which
decreases satisfaction. Time consuming to manually send
each copy of the ebook, which ultimately decreases your
efficiency. You may end up having to hire extra staff to
handle the workload. Plus, there is still the possibility
of customers sharing ebooks with others via email but
not the download url.

2. Via Autoresponder:

You could utilize a form on the thank you page that they
would fill out (name and email address) to confirm their
purchase. The form would be connected to an autoresponder which would send an automatic email to your customer.

Examples of autoresponders include:

ProAutoresponder

Getresponse --
 
Sendfree

Autoresponse Plus

The customer receives an automatic email after purchase
with the download link. Then they can download the ebook
via your download url at their leisure (you could put a
time limit on the download url too.)

Advantages: More automated since you don't have to
manually send the emails to the customer. The form would
be easier to track unwanted visitors to the site since
they wouldn't be able to "guess" your download url.
Works well with automatic payment systems such as
Clickbank, PayPal etc.

Disadvantages: Still the possibility for the ebook
or email being passed around once it has been downloaded
unless some form of security is used (which we will discuss
in a future article.)


3. Via Download

I have noticed that plenty of self-publishers use PayPal or
Clickbank. Clickbank seems to be more popular since a customer has to be a client of PayPal first before they can use it. Most customers are automatically re-directed to a download page (also known as a "thank you page") after Clickbank or PayPal approves the payment.

If you want to automate your ebook downloads, you need to create a "thank you" or download page which is very easy to implement. You create a "thank you" html page with a direct link to your ebook such as:

<.a href="yourebook.pdf">Click here<./a> to download ebook.

I used a period in front of "a href" and /a so it will show up in your email software. You would need to remove this when you place the code on your page. Make sure to mention that they should right click on the link to save it to their hard drive for pdf files if they are using Windows. Or you could zip up the file with Winzip and the ebook would be "yourebook.zip". You could even password protect the zipped file for a little extra protection.

Advanced Clickbank Authentication is a script offered by
William Bontrager of Willmaster.com that incorporates secret
keys into your download pages for Clickbank. A low-cost
but valuable resource for Clickbank users.

Advantages: Instant delivery which boosts satisfaction. Saves you time and manpower since everything is automated -- then you can focus on writing and promotion instead. :-)

Disadvantages: If people can right click (view source) your
page, they can see where your thank you page is for PayPal. This is a serious problem. Luckily, there are some simple ways to prevent this from happening through Javascript codes or encrypt them using software such as HTML Sentinel.

Also has the highest possibility of fraud or theft due to easily accessed download pages and urls. You can minimize these using protective scripts such as easyClickGuard which will hide your download page using PHP scripting (takes a bit of knowledge to set it up but it would be well worth it if you have a host that supports PHP.)
 

© 2002 Eva Almeida