Sell Ebooks On eBay?

Can you sell ebooks on eBay? Like, it is a powerhouse of a selling platform, also being the 40th top website in the world- above Twitter in 2021. It has stayed in the top 40 for many years.

But what you would have to think about first is:

would you buy an ebook from eBay in the first place?
Is that where your audience would go to purchase their books?
If they had a problem or concern, is eBay the first place they think of?

Or, if not, would you then use eBay traffic to promote/ sell your own ebooks through other ways?

eBay has had issues in the past with ebooks. It used to be incredibly easy to buy up some Private Label Rights (PLR) and then sell them through eBay. You could throw together a pdf ebook that just had text and sell that. I bought large courses on this in the past- everyone was marketing it. The problem?

Everyone was marketing it. This then led to trash being sold on the marketplace by not so reputable people who also sold ebooks that weren’t theirs. eBay now had a problem.
To solve this, eBay started to put rules on what and where ebooks can be sold.

At the time of writing, you can and can’t sell ebooks on eBay.

6 rules to sell ebooks on eBay

Here are rules, and here they are, direct from eBay:

So:

You have created the ebook and you have the rights to sell it
The ebook (or book) can only focus on one topic. So if your book topic is Dog training then that book and accompanying products within that pack, can only be related to dog training. Description, listing headings and anything related to that can only cover dog training.
If you plan to sell the ebook through the email then it has to be placed in the right category: Everything else> Classified Ads
Everything needs to go through eBay. You can’t list something and have a link on that page that takes the customer outside of eBay.
If you list it in another category then your ebook needs to be sent through the post
If you send by post then you have to state in the item description the text that is in the yellow box above (I will send this ebook by postal mail. Sending it by…etc).

This may sound like a cool idea however the classified ads are notoriously poorly trafficked. That traffic can be of a poor quality and might not match the person who would buy your ebook. The sale also doesn’t occur on eBay so you don’t get any feedback. eBay just gives you a CraigsList-like chance of selling your ebook.

Is it a good idea to go down the eBay "classified" route?

For the very small amount of unqualified traffic you receive and the effort that you put out? I wouldn’t. Some people do as they class any traffic as traffic- they charge $0.99 for a small report and then that leads into your website/ newsletter/ sales page.

Others apply ebooks to what they are already selling. So if you are selling junk that is in your house, you could attach an ebook to the sale on how to actually go about selling junk from your house. It would be free but a nice perceived bonus that has a tie in to what you are already selling. Ebook tie-ins are very helpful because you are now increasing the quality of the people who will read that ebook and they have already bought from you. Selling again to these customer is much easier.

Many companies have “stuffers” that they put into shipment boxes. You have probably seen them when you order something and a flyer jumps out when you open the box. Some companies pay to have these stuffed within the box. Other companies promote their other related products. By saying “thanks for your purchase if you go here www.xyz.com you can download your free ebook (worth $X) about something related.” Now you are building up your mailing list.

What is worthy to note is that when I was researching for the page, typing in the eBay search. I couldn't find any classified ads appearing in that search.

I would also just make sure you track where your sales are coming from then you will know if you can buff up your ads or try somewhere else on eBay:

Is there a way around eBay rules?

You might have seen eBay Power Sellers selling ebooks and wondered how they were doing it? Well, if you check the rules, you can sell and ebook but that would need to be sold through the post. This would then allow you to sell on the eBay site and achieve feedback.

To do this there are 2 ways.

Burn your ebook to a CD/ DVD or even a USB drive and sell it that way. It adds a little to your outgoing but at least you can sell an ebook on eBay.
The better way is to create a package of material and sell that as a bundle/ study course.

That is how the PowerSellers are making their money. They don’t just sell an ebook on eBay they sell physical stuff that has a higher perceived value. Usually they actually created the product so then it is difficult to figure out the price and do a comparison.

Example #1

This was a listing in the Business & Industrial > Websites & Businesses for Sale > Internet Businesses & Websites category.

They have sold 367 packages at $1.99 a go. The seller has a great 100% positive rating. This is a great way to show how low price can work if done well with all the factors aligned (rating, good price, not overloading the bonuses (one had 100 bonuses)).

If you don’t do it this way then $0.99 and $1.99 just becomes too cost prohibitive. Shipping costs and eBay fees will just wipe out any profit that you might achieve. Backend sales? If your initial product is poor then you will not get that revenue stream selling more products to sold users. But as we shall see, not all the listings are this successful.

Example #2

Example 2 shows a package of video courses for a specific niche. This one is $10 with 1 left to sell. Again, the seller has 100% positive rating. This was listed in Business & Industrial > Websites & Businesses for Sale > Marketing.

Example #3

Can you see the fun with the above screen grab? 3 sellers, 3 different prices, 1 exactly the same ebook. The fun part about this is regardless of the price, none have been sold or are being watched. So when you get into a price war, no one wins. If you sell the same PLR (which you probably bought in bulk) everyone else has bought in bulk as well and are planning to do the same thing.

The problem with DVD

The problem that I have found, as a customer, is that it is harder now to find computers that have a CD/DVD drive. They are more likely to have USB drives than anything.

In the music world Native Instruments has a huge collection of sounds that you buy. It would be too much to download, so what they do is put it onto a Terabyte Drive and mail it to you. The cost of the product is worth it without the drive, but throwing that in makes it more substantial. It also looks like you are getting something- its real, you can touch it. On their advertisements they proudly show this drive.

So...selling ebooks on eBay?

You can get more money from eBay if you use it as a customer obtainer. To make money through selling ebooks I have my doubts- but that doesn't mean it can't be done properly with a good package from a reputable seller, you would make some money.

But it seems like the best use of eBay is as a traffic generator that is part of your customer acquisition strategy.

For more ebook selling articles, check out the Jasonera blog.