eBooks...

What are some of the eBooks that you could honestly recommend to others? And why think that eBook is worth to review/glance by others...

And what is your general opinion of eBooks...

 

I must say that my general opinion of eBooks is that they never really state anything new or overwhelming (else obviously the author would never write an entire eBook to give away any real secrets) (again obviously we all know that, but that doesn't mean we should not read or just quickly familiarize one self with a book)
So nevertheless there are some OK books that are worth a quick look at - just to make sure you are on top of things - just like any other professional would take a look at books in his profession (not expecting to find anything overwhelming but just to make sure he is familiar with current events)...

Having said that I can vouch for the following two publications:
- seomoz.org - Beginner's Guide to SEO - seomoz.org/articles/beginners-1-page.php (nothing new to experts maybe just a few tiny facts, but may still be good for a review, check list but great for beginners to SEO)
another is
- The Rich Jerk - richjerk.com (after seeing another member recommend it (search the site)) Nothing really spectacular at all, but the author does get to the point quickly and very bluntly points out the game plan, todo list, a few resources and interesting schemes and techniques like "Cloaking" (save your money you can get a quick run down by any member who has seen it... but it was worth a mention)

Maybe it's just for the fact that I like the way the above books are written (structured) and worded... but they do provide sound information...

But this has just been my experience going though some books lately...

Please share your experience...

 

I agree, I'm not a huge fan of e-Books. With a few exceptions, I think that if someone has enough valuable information to share, they will share it in the form of a real book.

 

I couldnt disagree more.

Ebooks are fantastic, and not every market will have a demand for a print book. Its cheaper to create an ebook for a market thats not that big. Sure, if you want to sell millions of copies of a dieting book, create a "real" book and take it to book stores.

I love being able to read the information I want instantly, not when Amazon will ship it to me.

Yes, I prefer to read real books, but sometimes the information I want I want now, or I cant find it in a printed form.

I agree with the above, The Rich Jerk didnt say anything new really, just it was the information I needed, in a way I understood and it made me take action and thats what ebooks are great for.

No fluff, no muss, just the info you want when you want it.

 

99 Cows by Seth Godin is a good exmaple of a free ebook.

You can get yours here;

http://www.fastcompany.com/secret/

Seth Godin is the author of many top selling paperbacks on Marketing and Internet Marketing.

 

Ebooks are good, we can download instantly & learn right away.

There are lots of junk ebooks around, there are also some good ones. In fact some of the shorter ebooks are actually packed full of great content despite the length.

You can check out my sig, I wrote a few reviews.

HINT: 1 of them is a very short but killer ebook!

 

I don't mind ebooks - they can be very useful and have some great information. I have bought loads and use them to help me work online. The 2 that I have appreciated the most are:

Holly Mann's - Honest Riches aka Thank You Rich Jerk

and

Steven Wagenheim's - Honest Income Programs

There are many free ebooks going around although I think the information in some of them are pretty useless. It all really depends on what you're looking for.

 

eBooks are great.
The point about eBooks not having "ground-breaking" information presents a good point, however there are a lot people that are not willing to go searching and sifting thru many websites to find the information they want when they can just buy it in a nice little .zip file.

I'm a fan of eBooks

 

The only one I have ever found to be usefull contained instructions on how to lucid dream.

 

I run an ebooks site since last year and I can tell people are interested in reading. Since September my site had about 900 views at least every month. Now it is PR4.
Ebooks are easy to download and easy to read most of the times, that's why people prefer them. Plus they are much cheaper than the real books. For example I have The DaVinci Code much cheaper than buying the real book

My opinion is that the ebooks will become more popular and more professional in the coming years

 

I could easily recommend the Free Blogs Guide from The Smart Boy.

 

E-books make 'easy', passive income, but the competition takes away the easy part. I found a great, useful e-book on memory improvement, and am giving it free to the first 100 people.

http://4memory.info/osc/


ps. FYI: The site is for sale here at DP, but I participated in this thread because I am actually interested in the topic.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=107926

 

E-books are tricky and have very low "yeld ratio" - too few make money in my opinion.

 

me too..not a fan of ebooks. Tried to purchase some, but the sale page and reviews are too dominating. I think the ebooks do not have the same respect as that of print books. If big publishers get involved in ebook publications, then people may start buying seriously. Are there any big publishers already in the business of selling ebooks?

 

I believe NOLO offers electronic versions of their print books (business and law... great stuff when you're just starting out). I prefer the print versions still, especially since it's only a few dollars more, but if you want it instantly at least you can get it. I think publishers are moving towards this a good bit. You can access plenty from major publishers at places like www.netlibrary.com (depending on your library's access).

 

I think ebooks are a real breakthrough they are instantly delivered and can have some great info the problem is since anyone can create one you will end up with rubbish ebooks

 

You know what would make an excellent eBook and one that I would buy?

An eBook that takes the meatiest morsels of information from DP and puts them all into one, easy to read resource.

So many times I've seen people criticise this eBook or that eBook saying that all they're doing is regurgitating information that is available for free on DP. Absolutely. However there are just under 1.5 million posts on DP. Anyone read 'em all? Didn't think so.

 

Yeah, but if you did that, by the time it was written, there would be thousands of newer posts, and many with updated information. Besides... you don't have to read everything on DP. You just have to know how to use a basic search function.

 

But isn't that the benefit of an eBook? You publish it and can update it within seconds by simply changing a hyperlink or by adding one.

In printed format it would take a year to republish the book with the new information. Electronically? Seconds.

As an exercise I typed in the topic of the mock article above and found over 125 pages of search results. By my reckonining that'll be somewhere close to 100,000 posts to wade through. Sure you can narrow it down by using an advanced search but the best I could come up with using even the most narrowest of search terms was over 40 pages. Just how many times can you read "submit articles...add a signature...join forums..."?

I guarantee that if one of the top rollers on this site were to create (or more realistically endorse) a DP eBook that it would sell. How many people sign up to this site every day and ask the same questions?

41.5k registered members. $49.99 eBook. I'll let you do the rest.

So rather than patronise me by suggesting I use a simple search function, think about what I'm saying first.

 

If you find 40 pages of results for a search term, and you're noticing that they're all saying the same thing, then logic would tell you that you've found your answer and you should stop reading. It's not that I don't understand your point.

But in my opinion, logistically it would be nearly impossible to do. To lend any credibility, everything would have to be cited to the person who gave the advice, and with so many people saying the same things, I don't think it could likely be done without causing an awful lot of problems.

And from just reading the forum rules for registration, I didn't see any mention that DP takes ownership of the copyright of anything posted here (unless it says it elsewhere that I didn't see), meaning you couldn't just pull content from the site to write an ebook legally.

On the surface, I don't disagree that it sounds like a good idea. If it's something you personally wanted to undertake, there might be other ways around it that would serve the same purpose without the extra hassles... like perhaps interviewing a select few DP members who are experts in different topics covered repeatedly. I don't think anywhere even close to the number of registered members would realistically buy the ebook, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't appeal to enough to make it profitable. Best of luck if you ever decide to give something like that a try.

Jenn