Are Ebooks Dead?

I’m on a bit of an ebook kick. Previously, I wrote How to Write an Ebook that Doesn’t Suck, which assumed that writing ebooks was a good thing. But what if it’s not? What if ebooks are dead?

Who Says Ebooks are Dead?

Why would anyone think ebooks are dead in the first place? This isn’t the first time this question has been asked, but I’d like to take a shot at it.

I believe this post might have something to do with the notion that ebooks are on their way out. Here’s a chunk of it:

Question: Late last year (2007) you changed your business model to a private subscriber community. What caused you to make that switch? Is the time of the ebook over?

Aaron Wall: I think the ebook model is dying.

Most marketing ebooks tend to be of low quality, so calling an offering an ebook is sort of like wrapping an information product in a coat of garbage – which is not good for building perceived value.

Producing and distributing how-to videos does not cost much money. The Web is interactive, search is powerful, and many cheap and/or open-source content management systems make it easy to build a powerful community site that offers community interaction, and can quickly change to match the wants and needs of members.

My friend Brian Clark created a great report called Teaching Sells, about how to run membership sites. One of the things he mentioned was that traditional information products like ebooks are like monologues, whereas online interactive learning environments create a dialog which allow customers to help shape your offering to create the products and services they would like to buy.

Basically, ebooks are dead because we all want to sell membership sites now, which make money month after month, instead of just selling lousy ebooks for a pitiful one-time price.

All sarcasm aside, the truth is ebooks aren’t a great delivery system for complex or extended learning. What if you have a lot of material to learn, and you want to address multiple learning modalities? That means you would use different media and interactivity. Ebooks just aren’t the right tool for the job.

And ebooks can get huge. People don’t like an ebook that’s so big they can hardly download it, open it quickly, or move around in it easily.

You could break up your information product into multiple ebooks, or, as I did with WordPress SEO Secrets, distribute the videos and the audios alongside the ebook instead of inside it. You could also deliberately design your ebook so that it’s more “web like.” But once you start doing things like this, your product will be a huge download. It will probably require its own multi-page site that only buyers will be able to access in order to download the pieces as they need them, and dang if you’re not one-third of the way there to a membership site already!

Instead of having the content delivery system be a PDF, it makes hella sense to have it be a site which can only accessed by buyers. You can then add other features to the experience which will provide great value, such as forums and “insider” blogs. It’s easy to add new content to or edit existing content in this kind of delivery system. It can be as big as you need it without worry about an overall download. You can even make the content available on a time-release basis, according to a lesson plan you ‘ve set up in the order people need to learn the material. And since it’s possible to run web-based software tools on a site, now, such tools can be available for members, something that’s not even possible in an ebook.

These kinds of sites can deliver incredible value to the customer, way beyond that of a simple ebook.

In the world of blogging and internet marketing, there are several well-known proponents of these kinds of sites.

• Brian Clark and Tony Clark of Teaching Sells, which specifically focuses on producing membership sites called ILEs, or interactive learning environments designed to teach valuable skills and information. Teaching Sells has some impressive names associated with it, such as Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, Aaron Wall (mentioned above) of SEO Book, and Jon Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame. I’m a member of Teaching Sells.
• Yaro Starak has had much success with membership sites and is preparing a membership site to teach others how to create and run profitable membership sites in his new Membership Master Plan online learning program (get a free report about it).
• Ryan Deiss recently launched his program called the Continuity Blueprint (continuity is the business term for a program where customers are charged on a recurring basis instead of all at once).

It seems people are falling all over themselves trying to create membership sites. Therefore, ebooks are dead.

I have absolutely nothing against membership sites as a delivery system–I think it’s fantastic. In fact, I think it is so fantastic that I’ve teamed up with Grant Griffiths and created a new company designed to partner with subject matter experts and transform their expertise into a profitable membership site. Blawging Lawyers is the first product of this. Grant is also a member of Teaching Sells. (We’re so stinkin’ busy we haven’t even put up our own site yet).

My point here is that you might easily believe that ebooks are indeed dead based on all the membership site action now happening. And it certainly makes for an attention-getting headline.

Why Ebooks Are Not Dead

Interesting details about these membership sites:

• Most membership site marketing includes a report prospective customers can use to learn more about why the site was created, what it offers, and what it will achieve for its members. Guess what the delivery system is for this report? Give yourself a gold star if you said “ebook!”
• Many membership sites provide audio which may be from coaching calls or interviews. These are often accompanied by transcripts. Long audio sessions can make for a hefty transcript. I bet you know what document format these are in (hint: it starts with a P and ends with an F).
• Some membership sites have PDF versions of the web content so that members have a choice of staying online or having a more portable version of the content.

So, as far as membership sites go, ebooks are still very much a part of the picture. In this case, ebooks are freebies and extras.

But what about as a standalone product? Does anyone still buy ebooks?

Uh… yeah. By the MILLIONS. Ever heard of Clickbank? Case closed.

You have to remember that if you’re running an online business and you engage in blogging, social media, and internet marketing, you’re practically living in the future compared to the rest of the world. The rest of the world still thinks it isn’t safe to buy anything online, and they’re certainly not about to allow some stranger to remove money from their bank account every month. Ebooks, on the other hand, are a much safer purchase in their view.

You could argue all you want that people are silly for thinking that. We know that ecommerce is perfectly safe. I’m right there with you. I know it’s ridiculous, but perception is reality, and that’s their reality. You have to market to their reality, not yours.

What do YOU Think?

Are ebooks dead? What’s your take on this? Shout it out in the comments!