{"id":5713,"date":"2010-02-17T09:46:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T09:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=5713"},"modified":"2010-02-17T09:46:31","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T09:46:31","slug":"why-i-dont-worry-about-people-giving-away-ebooks-i-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/content-creation\/why-i-dont-worry-about-people-giving-away-ebooks-i-sell\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I don&#8217;t worry about people giving away ebooks I sell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2010\/02\/kick-butt_pubhound_125x177.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5714\" style=\"float: left;margin: 5px 10px\" title=\"kick-butt_pubhound_125x177\" src=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2010\/02\/kick-butt_pubhound_125x177.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound\" width=\"125\" height=\"177\" \/><\/a>Twice this week, people\u00a0who want to create ebooks but are afraid that the content will be plagiarized, or that their customers will\u00a0give the ebooks to their\u00a0friends,\u00a0asked me how I prevent that from happening to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">my own ebooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t\u00a0worry about it. Period.<\/p>\n<p>With one slight exception. When you turn a document into a PDF,\u00a0the security settings allow you to prohibit people\u00a0from cutting and\u00a0pasting\u00a0the text. I always do this to prevent someone from\u00a0stealing my content and turning it into an article with their byline. They can retype what I&#8217;ve written, of course, but preventing cutting and pasting makes plagiarizing more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>But if people are able to download the ebook and save it to their hard drive, there\u2019s nothing I\u00a0can do to prevent them from passing it along to their friends.\u00a0Let&#8217;s say somebody passes along my ebook, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound<\/a>, shown here.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lots of reasons not to fret<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Throughout the\u00a0ebook,\u00a0I include\u00a0links to sales pages where I sell related products. If somebody who has received it for free\u00a0clicks on one of those links and buys a\u00a0product, I win.<\/li>\n<li>Ditto for links to other people\u2019s products and services that I sell for a commission. If somebody who has not bought the book clicks on a link and\u00a0buys a product from a vendor who pays me a commission, I win.<\/li>\n<li>My ebooks include a list of \u201cRecommended Resources\u201d at the end of each book. Many of these resources are products and services I sell for a commission. I\u00a0only include products and services from vendors I know, and that I can stand behind 100 percent.<\/li>\n<li>My ebooks also include\u00a0a list of places where readers can find lots of free content, like my free\u00a0&#8220;The Best of The Publicity Hound&#8217;s Tips of the Week&#8221; ebooks. Every December, I give away a free ebook filled with the best two dozen tips from that year&#8217;s ezines.\u00a0I encourage people to regift the book to their friends.\u00a0Every item\u00a0includes links to my own products, or to products and services I sell for a commission.\u00a0I&#8217;ve even written about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/blog\/information-products-a-major-revenue-stream\" target=\"_blank\">12 ways you can use my free ebooks.<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>The person who gets an ebook that somebody else bought\u00a0might not know me. Because my ebooks are content-rich, the reader might think, &#8220;This is pretty good stuff. I wonder what else she has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">at her website<\/a>?&#8221; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When creating your ebook, think of all the\u00a0ways you can use that book to sell other things.\u00a0Build in\u00a0links\u00a0to your website, links to product pages, links back to your blog, affiliate links, and links to places where a reader\u00a0can find more free content by opting in with their name and email address.<\/p>\n<p>I always include references to my free ezine, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/tips\/\" target=\"_blank\"> &#8220;Craigslist: A Valuable Publicity Tool.&#8221;<\/a> and tell people how to subscribe. If somebody who gets the ebook for free subscribes to my ezine, I now have their email address. Again, I win.<\/p>\n<p>Authors and publishers, particularly those who publish printed books and other materials,\u00a0have taken me to task for this attitude, but that&#8217;s OK. Let them spend time worrying about how to protect their content. I&#8217;d rather spend my time creating more helpful content that my readers might pass along to someone who doesn&#8217;t know me.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Am I wrong? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you publish ebooks, how do you deal with this &#8220;problem&#8221;?\u00a0Do you think I&#8217;m wrong?<\/p>\n<p>By the way, if you&#8217;re looking for content for your blog, pay attention to questions that people are asking you. This blog post originated because two people asked me the same question. If you want more ideas on how to find blog content, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging<\/a>,&#8221; a teleseminar I hosted a few weeks ago with blogging expert Patsi Krakoff.<\/p>\n<p>One of the handouts includes 101 ways to find content for your blog. Here&#8217;s a list of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/blog\/9-easy-places-to-find-content-for-your-blog\" target=\"_blank\">9 easy places to find content for your blog,<\/a> from those handouts.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twice this week, people\u00a0who want to create ebooks but are afraid that the content will be plagiarized, or that their customers will\u00a0give the ebooks to their\u00a0friends,\u00a0asked me how I prevent that from happening to my own ebooks. I don&#8217;t\u00a0worry about it. Period. With one slight exception. When you turn a document into a PDF,\u00a0the security\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/content-creation\/why-i-dont-worry-about-people-giving-away-ebooks-i-sell\/\" class=\"rmlink\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":10,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[608,43,195,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-5713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-content-creation","7":"tag-authors-publishers","8":"tag-book-marketing","9":"tag-ebooks","10":"tag-ezines","11":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}