eBook brings in $12K while building business online and off

This is my interview with Sarah Arrow, co-author of the Complete Courier Guide. Sarah and her husband Kevin released their eBook in 2008 and it has sold slowly and steadily — over 300 copies to date — at a price point between $40 and $60. Sarah credits the eBook with bringing increased publicity for their business, opening the doors to joint ventures and building a network of subcontractors.

How did you decide on the topic for your eBook?

My husband Kevin and I started a courier company and bought an eBook to advise us on the best way to do this. It was pages copied from various websites, carried big promises and was filled with pages of ‘contacts’ that were copied from the Yellow Pages website — they had left in the websites links and html coding, the images, everything. We threw it down in disgust, then it got filed away.

About two years later we started getting letters from people looking for work, they were all the same, only the names were changed. Hubby checked the book, and lo and behold, it was a generic template in the book promising them if they used it, they would get work.

We received a lot of phone calls asking for advice, especially after we won two business awards. Kevin said, “right enough is enough, we will write our own book.” So that was how we decided the topic of our first eBook, the Complete Courier Guide.

When did your eBook come out and how did you promote it?

Two years ago at the end of this month. We didn’t sell many at first, the concept of list and launches were alien to us! All the marketing has been through blogging and SEO.

We worked out that we needed a blog to attract people to us and and we started blogging, and lo and behold a steady stream of sales each month. It was interesting looking back on it how naive we were and and how little we actually did to sell the books, and how little we do now… which means I should really do some more things to the site and the book! ☺

How long is your eBook?

Our eBook is around 100 pages. It’s written on a pale yellow background as we read somewhere that it makes it easier for dyslexics to read, and many drivers have dyslexia and other reading problems. We thought if that made their life a little easier, we’d try it. So far, so good.

It’s a paid eBook, we thought, they are paying for this other person’s cut and paste effort, they can at least have a choice – genuine information, from our experience that is updated regularly — or the other book. We didn’t think about opt-ins or lists — quite simply we didn’t understand what they were. We felt people value ‘paid’ more, so the book would always have a price on it.

What was your goal in writing it and do you feel it helped achieve that goal?

Our goal when writing the Complete Courier Guide was to explode a few myths. So many of the adverts for this style book promised the Earth — a job from London to Edinburgh paying £400 – ($600ish)  but no mention of the fuel costs etc, and that you may not get a job back home. People were becoming couriers thinking they could earn this kind of money every day, with little or no marketing. Our goal was to pee on their fireworks and help them set up a real, sustainable courier business.

What advice would you give people thinking of writing an eBook?

I would advise people thinking of writing an eBook to write, write and write. When they are finished, write some more. The editing, the chapters can all be sorted out afterwards but the writing has to take place first or there is nothing to sort out. My husband and I wrote together and edited each other. We’re still married, so it can’t be that bad.

What has been the biggest benefit from writing an eBook?

The biggest benefit from writing an eBook —  wow, it enabled us to learn Internet marketing, blogging and all sorts of other things. It taught us to market information products, it has lead to interviews on the radio and collaborative work with other transport groups. It took us into new business areas such as coaching and ghostblogging as well as organizing events. All from one book… plus we now have a pool of well trained owner-drivers who work to our meticulous standards, all over the UK.

Do you plan to do another/more in the future?

Yes, we will have a free eBook coming out in September 2010 based on our courier services, and hopefully it will help educate people who want to use a courier and help us build a list of interested people to send informative articles to.

What do you like about eBooks vs. other media (audio, video)?

eBooks are a product that need some marketing but help sell your business 24/7. eBooks are green, and they don’t biodegrade, and from the moment you pick them up, to the moment you put them down, they stay the same. We can update them so our readers have the most up to the minute information at their fingertips. The benefits from writing it have been good and whilst we have a video, until I can embed one in an eBook, I can’t see us doing more of them! Audio is something we are looking into, our target market spend a lot of time on the road, driving and something informative and interesting is on our audio agenda, as they say:  watch this space!