E-book Publishing Secrets Part 2: Why You Should Lock Your Book And Send Your Clients An Unlock Code

In my past article I talked about e-book publishing and described a simple four-step process for creating an e-book.

Now you should be ready to publish your own e-book. You'll want to make sure you lock it and offer those who download your e-book an unlock code. We'll take a look at why we want to do this.

WHY YOU SHOULD LOCK YOUR BOOK

When someone downloads a locked book, the only way it can be opened is with an unlock code. A person will need the code to gain access to the e-book, so you make them provide their name and e-mail address. They will also have to agree to receive regular e-mail updates from you. This means that if someone wants to read your book, they must opt into your e-mail newsletter list.

It would be wise to use an autoresponder to set up your e-mail newsletter to automate following up with your leads. You won't need a squeeze page to do this. You'll just offer your e-book as a free download and connect the client's name and e-mail address later when they come back to get the access code from you.

This usually leaves people with little to no resistance in collecting the access code because the book has already been downloaded. They haven't provided you with their personal information yet. They have the e-book and are wanting to now open it.

This will also demonstrate your trustworthiness as you provided the book as a free download with no conditions. If your book has a compelling title, you will have achieved two things in giving it away: firstly, you will have stimulated the client's curiosity, and secondly, you will have lowered the clients resistance to giving you his or her e-mail address. This method will give you a much better opt-in rate compared to a traditional squeeze page method.

GIVE AWAY YOUR BOOK AND GIVE AWAY RESALE RIGHTS

You can improve your results with this method by offering full resale rights and giveaway rights to your book. Don't try to sell these rights; simply give them away free with every download. Be sure to let your clients know that they can sell the e-book at any price they like and keep 100% of the profits, or they could just give it away free if they want.

You want to get as many of your clients to distribute your book as possible. Every time somebody downloads your e-book they will have to come to you to get the unlock code. That means that they will be added to your e-mail mailing list. So, if you have twenty, fifty, or 100 people selling or giving away your e-book, your mailing list will grow fast and increase your profits from selling to them through backend sales. This is why you're able to offer giveaway rights to your e-books.