How Should You Protect Your Products When You Sell Information?

In the past, I talked about ways you can protect your ebooks when you sell information. One way is to use a password protected website to store your information. Another way is to use software to provide a lever of protection for your products. It is up to you to decide which strategy is best for you.

To find pdf protection software, do a search for either pdf protection or ebook protection to find different options. I personally believe that investing in this type of software is a wasted investment. The reason why is because your money and time is better invested in finding ways to sell more copies of your ebook than stopping people from trying to download your ebook for free. The money you spend on that type of software can be better spent on directing traffic to your website. Creating new products is a better way to spend your business building time. A membership site is a much better way to protect your information.

In my business model I start out by offering a $27 ebook to

get the customer to do business with me. Those that buy the ebook are then introduced to my monthly audio program, for which I charge $19.97 a month. Doing this gives me control as to the quality of prospect that sees my monthly program because only paying customers are learning about it. In addition to that, I also have a gold membership that I offer for more money. This gold membership gives me the revenues that I need to cover the cost of my membership site application, known as AMember. AMember allows me to control who gets access to my website.

I am not overly concerned about protecting a $27 ebook because it is just not worth the effort. The price point makes it unnecessary. The way I prefer to handle it is to place a notice in the ebook letting the reader know it is not a free ebook and they should delete it if they downloaded it for free.

As far as my audio club or membership site the security is built in to my membership program. Because it is a continuous expense, or even if instead I made it like a physical or digital product protected by my membership site, I now have the ability to decide who can access it. This is why I recommend membership site software as opposed to ebook protection software.

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009

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