As I continue to build up my own blogs, as well as other blogs, I watch as people make a fair bit of money, through selling their content in an e-book form. After reading more than a dozen of these so-called “expert” accounts of how to increase traffic, get more RSS subscribers, boost your PageRank and otherwise build up your blog into a money making system, I realize that many of these books are completely useless.
Many are missing the context on how to enact the tips they give you, and basically give you step one, step three, and step five in the process, making sure they you make the e-book publisher more wealthy, while not really creating any real advantage to you. The information is valid, and if you had the full process, it could help you, but another thing they don’t tell you is that their ideas only work for the first people that try them out. Users, search engines and advertisers quickly get wise to new “systems” (schemes) and quickly block, remove or otherwise change their system so such tactics no longer work.
Are e-books just playing on our hopes and dreams of striking it rich online or can they provide real value?
I have gone and read some of the most prominent ones, and I have to say that there are very few that I have learned anything from. Most give out information which can be freely found elsewhere, and they really don’t convey their lessons any better than the free sources.
They question then becomes, why do people buy e-books? Does the fact that it isn’t free drive people to place value on the product? Are we all just lazy hopefuls? Or are there some e-books that are really informative, helpful and worthwhile? Not that we would ever do it, but if Devlounge became a paid site, for $25 a year, would you all pony up the cash to continue to read, or would you move on to other free sources?
Please feel free to have your say in the comments below.
