James S. Fell Has Internet E-Book Scams Pegged… Almost.
James S. Fell, the author of the “In-Your-Face Fitness” feature in the L.A. Times, has a great column this week: “Friend Through Thick and Thin?” With tongue firmly in cheek, he dissects a stereotypical ad for a weight loss/fitness e-book sold on the internet… and he zeroes in on the “red flags” that any prospective purchaser should be aware of.
You told me you knew the “secret” to turn my body into a “fat-melting machine” without doing any aerobic training and by focusing on special “super foods” like acai berry. You said I could lose 30 pounds in 30 days, which got me questioning your math.
There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. My sedentary metabolism burns about 2,300 calories a day, and I can’t go much below 1,800 a day without risking metabolic slowdown (and an overwhelming desire to eat everything in sight). So even if I watch everything I eat, that still leaves 3,000 more calories to burn off each day. Does your program involve the equivalent of running a marathon each day, except without any actual aerobic exercise?
…I typed your name into Google, followed by the words “scam” and “ripoff.” (Sorry for not trusting you, but in this economy we all need to be careful with our money.) I have to tell you, it was like slipping into the Matrix. I couldn’t find any real complaints about your program. Did they disappear into an alternate universe? I wonder whether the search results were carpet-bombed by robots creating an endless stream of semi-legitimate-looking reviews with four-and-a-half and five stars, all with links to buy your book. Are the machines rising up?
I also learned that your “special introductory rate” has been in place for the last few years. Isn’t that sort of like a used car salesman saying he’s got a few other buyers on the line?
He IDs (and mocks) it all: the inflated, too-good-to-be-true promises; the use of stock photos; selected testimonials, bogus supp recommendations and phony “review” sites. Good stuff.
Almost…
For the record, I do have some reservations about this bit:
I like to read and have many fitness books on my shelf. Most of them cost about $20 to $25, have instructional pictures taken by professional photographers and are professionally edited and sold by respected publishing houses.
I noticed that if I want your book I have to act fast to get the “special introductory price.” The special price is $39, which is quite a bit more than I’m used to paying, and all I get is a PDF document that I have to print myself.
I wonder: Does your book have pictures? Did you hire a professional editor? After looking at your website I’m thinking the answer is probably no.
As someone who knows more-than-a-little about e-book layout, typography and production, I’m well aware that there are a lot of cheesy-looking, poorly-produced e-books out there. Many of the “books” I’ve seen are just haphazardly assembled Word files, printed to pdfs. And, yeah… when I see an unimpressive-looking doc, I tend to do exactly what Fell did above: assume that poor production values are symptomatic of a scammy product.
And often, this turns out to be true.
Except that I’m also well aware of certain exceptions to this “rule” – homely-looking e-books that are virtual goldmines of solid information.
Deal is: there are some sharp cookies out there who are very, very good at what they do… but are NOT good at the aforementioned layout and typography stuff. And getting published by a conventional (dead tree) publisher is a real crap-shoot. And if you don’t have a lot of surplus cash at your disposal, and are unsure of your eventual sales, it’s tough to invest in a professional editor, photographer and graphic artist/designer for a self-published book – you could end up thousands of dollars in the hole before you sold even a single copy.
Thus, the unimpressive Word-file-turned-pdf. It isn’t always a due to indifference… sometimes it’s just due to a lack of $$$ and/or skills.
And, the reason for the higher price Fell mentions is because such books are typically marketed via Clickbank or other affiliate marketplaces. A typical split from an affiliate sale is 30% to the author, 70% to the affiliate. This might seem like a bad deal for authors, but the use of affiliates means access to their lists… which leads to sales that wouldn’t have been made at all without their help. The higher price gives the affiliate an incentive to market the book through his/her network AND provide the author with some profit as well.
So, with all due respect to Mr. Fell, you can’t always judge an (e-)book by it’s cover (I do, however, draw the line when it comes to typos and grammatical errors… a legit author ought to at least be able to write and spell correctly… or find a proofreader who can).
Like I said, though, he’s got the other stuff pegged, so go… read… enjoy!
October 20, 2011
I have seen and purchesed my share of fitness e-books. As you point out, some are very good, some are pathetic. I think I have become a better judge of content than when I first started getting interested un fitness.
Like Mr. Fell points out. It seems there are certain “giveaways” which could mean ripoff. The 7 pounds a week fat loss, the gain 10 pounds of muscle in 2 weeks.
I also agree with you about finding the occasional diamond in the rough e-book.
I can’t comment to much on the spelling and grammer, mine is awfull! lol
October 20, 2011
LOL – well, you’re not selling e-books, are you?
A lot of people struggle with spelling, syntax, etc. – it’s no crime. English is horribly taught at the K-12 level and most people don’t study the subject past that point. You know your limitations, however, so if you intended to self-publish a book, I don’t doubt that you would have others proofread it first.
You would do that because you have a sense of responsibility, and the desire to put your best foot forward. To me, nothing says “I don’t give a damn” more than a supposedly professional publication that mangles the English language.
Tom Venuto’s “Holy Grail of Body Transformation” book is an excellent example of a homely-but-awesome e-book. It’s a Word file that uses probably the most “plain vanilla” sans serif fonts available (Arial and Verdana). Needless to state, there are no pictures (other than the stock photos on the cover). It’s quite obvious that Tom a) put it together himself; and b) doesn’t know much about using Word (beyond the basics), or creating pdfs (which can be made to practically sing and dance, lol).
BUT…
“Holy Grail” is also well-written and organized. It may be a very plain-looking e-book, but it’s also a very “clean” one… Tom obviously cares a great deal about the content. And this is ultimately what I (and most people, I think) value most in an e-book. I’d happily take it over the more sophisticated-looking crap you find in bookstores.
October 20, 2011
The problem I have with e-books such as Venuto’s Holy Grail is how they’re marketed. The site is the epitome of poorly designed infomercial product. You have to scroll for 30 minutes just to get to the bottom of it and it contains all of the pitfalls that Fell points out. It was one of the biggest issues I had with Will’s BBR program. Whenever I tried to recommend it I’d often get replies saying that the site itself turned people away from it. For me, I no longer buy e-books from an author that sells in this style of website delivery. If they can’t invest in a decent looking, professionally designed site then I’ll go elsewhere.
October 21, 2011
I hear ya.
FWIW, the BBR site is FINALLY being redesigned. I’ve seen the new template, and it’s a 1000% improvement. Dunno when it will be up, but hopefully it’ll be soon. Unfortunately, it still uses that UNBELIEVABLY OBNOXIOUS alert script that tries to keep people from leaving the page, but whatevs… at least the graphics look sharp and the loooooong scroll is gone.
These days, there really isn’t much excuse for having a site that looks like it was designed in 1995… there are a ton of good, inexpensive templates out there for DIYers, if you can’t afford to hire a designer… or just don’t want to deal with one. Trouble is, there are some real jerks out there doing web design… they’re technically quite competent, but it’s almost as if they deliberately design sites that the ostensible owners can’t manage on their own, and then proceed to nickel and dime them to death for minor changes. I certainly don’t consider myself to be a web designer/developer, yet I’ve had people come to me because they’re sick and tired of their designers erecting barriers between them and their sites.
I’ve got stories… don’t get me started…
But there ya go once again. If you don’t have a good grasp of technology or understand what all of your options are, then it’s not easy to avoid the pitfalls. And you’re right… if I didn’t know Tom or Will well, I’d likely avoid their books like the plague, too. The looooong scrolling page used to be de rigueur, and I suppose it still works for a certain kind of customer, but when it’s tough to tell the difference between a site selling a good book and one selling a POS, then methinks it’s time to shift gears.
October 21, 2011
Most points have already been covered in this discussion, but I’d like to weigh in on one; the length of sales copy and the “long scrolling page.”
Now depending on which advertising expert you ascribe to you’ll get different “rules” for copy length. Some will say short copy rules the day. Others say long copy.
The truth is that sales copy needs to be as long as it needs to be and no longer (I know, it’s a sneaky answer).
In general, you shouldn’t need reams of sales copy to sell a $30 ebook. That’s largely because the greatest likelihood of a sale lies on the strength of the referral from the merchant’s affiliate partner. The more credible the partner the more impact a referral from him or her makes – and that’s what tips the balance in favor of a sale when an author isn’t nationally known.
However, I can tell you from my days at SiteSell.com that just because you or I finds long copy tedious doesn’t mean your market does. Sometimes, long copy coverts better, despite all assertions to the contrary.
The good news is that no one has to guess – it’s a simple matter to implement A/B split testing (or A/B/C) and measure the conversion rates of various sales copy pages and lengths.
Without data, the ideal length of your long sales copy is based on assumptions and your personal biases.
And that may cost you money.