Dumb question about selling eBooks

Hi, everybody. Hope this is the right section-

I'm a bit of a moron when it comes to these web things. I'm currently running my "first" website, as the main site for a publisher of comic books and graphic novels. I've written for quite a few websites and been involved with CMS back-ends to varying degrees before, though, so I'm not a total novice.

What I'm stuck on is what the best way of distributing a PDF of our books to customers would be. We will be selling via Amazon, Comixology, and other digital platforms, of course, but we'd also like to have digital copies of our books available on our own site (the most obvious advantage is that this allows us to keep the same price point, but without paying a cut to the storefront) without unauthorized users accessing them.

I've had a number of suggestions, but it all seems to be a bit more difficult than I'd anticipated. One idea was to install a forum with a Store feature enabled, which would allow us to distribute the link to the file to each user individually (or on a hidden part of the forum accessible only to customers), but this wouldn't prevent the link being shared.

So, in short, what I'm looking for is a way of selling a PDF on our website, having a file on our servers that can be made available (via password encryption?) to customers, but in such a way that it's as difficult as possible for the file to be pirated. I realize that nothing's fool-proof, but I'm sure some ways of doing it are better than others, and I'm sure someone here knows!

Thanks in advance, guys!

 

Personally, I'd stick with the external suppliers: running your own virtual goods store involves a frightening increase in complexity - you have to worry about supply, security, payments, customer service and a whole pile of other crap that external sites take care of. It's not just a case of adding a download link and a payment form. In most cases, the amount you'll save in maintenance, staff, time and outright frustration more than outweighs the cut taken by external sales sites.

That said, most CMSs have a plugin/addon that will do ecommerce and handle things like temporary URLs (where they generate a URL for a purchase which either runs out in a number of days or can only be used a number of times). Your best bet will be to hunt around for one, try some demos and purchase the best.

Definitely BUY one, too - the freebies will almost always be nearly as good, but the customer service you'll get with a premium solution will make it worthwhile, especially if you don't want to do technical stuff. And that's coming from someone who never buys premium...!

My 2c.

 

Thanks for the reply! At least some level of distribution is going to be necessary, as we'll be doing a Kickstarter campaign and thus will need to send copies to our backers. Storefronts, as far as I can tell, aren't going to be too keen on helping us with that unless they're getting a cut of the sale. And since it's Kickstarter, there technically IS NO sale.

Would you (or anyone else here) have a good recommendation for a WordPress plug-in that could handle temp URLs like you mentioned?

 

You can send freebies from most storefronts, for example by setting up a coupon code that you then provide to the Kickstarter people.

I've never needed an ecommerce plugin, I'm afraid. The only one I've used (for a very simple application) was called "Paid Downloads" (http://www.icprojects.net/paid-downloads-plugin.html) but I barely touched the functionality so would not be able to offer legitimate commentary.

I'd start by looking at places like WPMUDEV, who regularly do reviews of that sort of thing (as well as offering their own) and asking around on here. Your project is at a more serious level than mine ever are!

 

The easiest way is to outsource the distribution to a vendor who is setup to supply temporary one time use links to download your product. Otherwise you will have to acquire and install software.