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"Everyone has a book inside,
Waiting to get out."

by Web-Marketing Guru Ken Evoy


I can't remember who said that, but it's a message that has always stuck with me.  As an individual with a unique set of life experiences, you do indeed have a book somewhere inside of you.  We all do.

Obviously, my book got out.  And sooner or later, yours will, too.  And when that happens, sooner or later...You'll be faced with the same hard decision... should I publish a printed version?  Which leads us to the title of this article...

     WHY SHIP MOLECULES WHEN YOU CAN SHIP ELECTRONS?

A short preface...From DAY 1, I have held the following about selling on the Web... 

----------------------E-COMMERCE AXIOM----------------------

Launching a Web business is far simpler than a "real-world business." To succeed in a Web-based venture, you only have to make good on three STEPS, each one directly under your control...

STEP 1 -- Develop a great product & position it for Web sales.

STEP 2 -- Build a site that SELLS with deadly effectiveness

STEP 3 -- Attract targeted traffic to the site.

----------------------E-COMMERCE AXIOM----------------------

 

Not coincidentally, MYSS! devotes an entire volume to each of these three critical steps.  Selling on the Web really is "do-able" -- but you have to *DO IT*, and you have to do it  *RIGHT.*

Let's back up to STEP 1 above -- in MYSS!, we cover everything you could want to know about brainstorming, judging, developing, pricing, and testing new product concepts for the Web. "The 16-Point Checklist" in particular has received terrific comments -- it really keeps you on the "straight and narrow."

Lately, we've worked so hard on getting the print version of MYSS! ready for release, that I've been asking myself why the heck I decided to ever issue a print version!

After all...

sales of the Electronic Version are terrific (50-100 books per day).

our automated, real-time verification and electronic shipping makes the whole process effortless, allowing us to concentrate on upcoming products AND most importantly...

Feedback from readers is simply inspiring -- it's great starting every morning with wonderful letters in the E-MAIL IN TRAY. I've long since stopped adding testimonials to the site, or that page would go forever.

So yes, I ask myself..."Why the heck did you ever want to ship paper molecules when electrons travel so fast and effortlessly?"

The answer is as obvious as it is important...

Customers want it. 

The #1 Rule that supercedes all else is to always stay customer-focused.

People who own the Electronic Version of MYSS! write to say how much they love the readability, and its super-usability compared to paper.  The index and TOC make finding what you want a real snap.  Interlinking between the volumes and out to the Web make it the ultimate reference book.

But HEY...

"I'd like to read the book lying down, too."

OR...

"I want to yellow-highlight it and make notes, but that really messes up the monitor! <g>"

OR my favorite... 

"I'd love to keep a copy by 'the throne.'" 

(Hmmm... not exactly sure what THAT last one means -- hope he plans to READ the paper while seated!)

Bottom line?  Customers want the printed version.  So we're offering it.  Now, we knew that producing a hard copy of MYSS! and distributing it would be more work than the Electronic Version. But we underestimated just HOW MUCH more work!

We've learned a tremendous amount. We'll write a full article about how to develop, produce and ship printed products in a future edition of our sister publication, SALES FROM THE EDGE. For now, here's a summary of the issues that you must handle well if you want to sell printed products on the Web...

-----SIDEBAR-----

Keep this for future reference.  I guarantee that if you're interested in selling on the Web, sooner or later you'll consider a book.

-----SIDEBAR-----

PRINTING ISSUES...

sourcing -- get competitive bids, especially if this is your first time.  Printers love the smell of first-time publishers --> easy money.  So be careful -- better still, get someone with experience to help.

the actual printing of the book -- Change layout?  Digital or offset?  Color? Binding options?  Our final product is beautiful -- I'm fiercely proud of it.  But it took a heck of a lot of preparation and sourcing to get to this point!

first run -- how large?  This is a huge decision.  How much risk are you willing to take?  If you produce too few, you may not be able to meet demand.  If you produce too many, you many end up with expensive kindling for the fireplace.

turnaround times -- know these in advance.  If you can't meet demand, you're in trouble.  So how quickly can you turn an order for more books into more inventory? 

FULFILLMENT ISSUES...

inventory -- where do you plan to store the books? Careful or your whole inventory can be lost.  Monitor daily orders carefully -- develop a strategy for staying ahead of demand. Tie your inventory to your order taking and shipping.  The key is always to automate as much as possible.

picking-and-packing -- organize the people necessary to do this, 7 days a week.

shipping -- there are many ways to ship (Postal, UPS, FedEx, and a host of other couriers).  Lots of investigation to do here (more on this below).

in-house or use a third party fulfillment company? There are advantages and disadvantages.  We chose to keep it in-house -- since we're growing this business rapidly, we decided to bite this bullet now and retain control, rather than build up a dependency on a third party.

PRICING ISSUES...

All of a sudden, there are two pricing issues, not one.  How much are you going to charge for the book?  And how much for shipping and handling (S&H)? 

The cost of production of your book is almost irrelevant. Pricing of products is well covered in MYSS!.  Suffice it to say that our pricing is more philosophical in nature...I refuse to shut people out by charging hundreds of dollars for MYSS!.  The Web is just too big an opportunity to deny anyone a true chance. So what are we charging for our printed version of MYSS!, a book that everyone agrees is the best single resource for selling on the Web?...

         CAD$45 which translates to USD$30! 

As for your S&H pricing...

pick-pack-and-ship is labor-intensive (there's a word that I truly detest... "labor-intensive" -- it feels like you're back in the Stone Ages... OK, pre-Net ages).  Factor labor into your pricing. If you're a one-man band doing it yourself, don't factor your time as zero!  The whole project must make economic sense after you factor ALL costs in at fair market value.

cost of packaging -- boxes, bubble-pack, tape, etc.  It all adds up -- be professional and itemize every last inch of tape and wrap into a spreadsheet.

Cost of shipper -- you've got to boil this down to a small number of clearly different options.  Best is to keep it simple, usually Regular Mail" and one courier.  If U.P.S. has different rates to 20 different cities in the U.S., K-I-S-S -- average them and offer only a SINGLE "next day" price, no matter where the customer lives in the US.  Same with different areas of the world.  This takes some   VERY CAREFUL consideration.

Once you have all the S&H costs factored in, you have to decide if you want to make a profit on S&H or not?  We choose not to -- our goal is to share MYSS! with as many people as possible, not to squeeze the maximum dollars out of people.  But, judging from the price of US$17 for the Electronic Version and US$30 for the printed, you already know that!  ;-)

SECURITY ISSUES...

Regular mail is less secure than courier. A UPS parcel never leaves the UPS system, for example, until the signature of receipt.  So that's pretty secure.  But people also ask to be shipped by regular mail -- it's cheaper.  However, packages sent by mail tend not to arrive at the destination in certain countries.  That means that you have to send all over again, leaving you out-of-pocket.  And no matter what the country, since there's no signature, dishonest people may simply claim never to have received your package.

Credit card scams -- certain countries are notorious for buying with bad or fabricated card numbers.  Naturally, they want it shipped the fastest (i.e., most expensive) way, since they're not paying anyway... YOU ARE! Remember, now that you are shipping molecules, when you get dinged, you're not simply out the non-cost of a digital file. You're out the cost of S&H and the cost of production of the book!  So think security issues through!

Quickly review all the issues outlined above.  What do you notice? None of them even exist for digital products!  (OK, except for the credit card scam -- but even there, the risk is far, far less.)

Hmmm....

Now, I only write what I have experienced.  So this story is not done yet.  For example, research on the Net says we can expect to sell anywhere from one-fifth (according to some sources) to five times (according to others) as many PDF files!

Not too hard to project starting volumes with that kind of precision, right?

And if we sell five times as many hard copies as Electronic copies, does that mean we'll depress Electronic sales by 80% or that the Printed version will create purely add-on sales? Or some mix of the two?

Frankly, I don't know.  I will in a couple of months.  So we'll be expanding on all of these concepts, and wrapping up the whole story, in a future edition of SALES FROM THE EDGE. For now, we're starting gingerly...

The printed version will be made available to existing owners of the electronic version of MYSS! starting tomorrow. We'll be mailing to small groups of our PRE-ORDER list first. Once we have shipped that list, we'll ease the printed order form onto the site, ready to pull it (if need be) until we increase our production and fulfillment capabilities.

Finally, we'll let our affiliates know about it so that they can actively start promoting it.  Naturally, the active ones will automatically earn commissions on sales of the printed books to EXISTING owners since 98% of our sales is driven by our 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.  That's why we can afford to ship existing customers quietly and first -- the "lifetime customer" concept takes the pressure off affiliates to compete with each other for existing customers when a new product hits the market. The 5 Pillar Affiliates don't have to worry when we do a "private, controlled launch to existing Electronic MYSS! owners (who have placed PRE-ORDERS) first. Commissions are incurred automatically.

As you've seen, shipping molecules is a heck of a lot tougher than shipping electrons.  Is it worth all the effort?  Well... Everything in e-commerce is an experiment.  I'll let you know in a few months.  :-)

+++++++++++++++


Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.,
President of GoodBytes Information Products Inc.
© copyright 1999 GoodBytes Information Products Inc.

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© 2003 MLM Millionaire Training Systems, Inc.