We publish a series of software tip books (www.nerdybooks.com) and
plan to offer both corporate and educational site licenses of our
ebooks. We have several issues that we need help with:
- Give examples of other companies licensing their digital content on
an annual basis to corporations and/or universities.
- List of software that will allow us to charge for a specific number of downloads.
- Do digital content providers offer unlimited downloads to
universities where new students arrive each quarter or semester? If
so, please provide examples.
- If a corporation has a firewall, how can we offer licensing of a set
number of downloads? |
Request for Question Clarification by
taxmama-ga
on
24 Sep 2005 18:06 PDT
Dear Wendrich-ga
While I can't answer your questions about what other universities do,
I can provide you with a couple of tools to control the number of downloads.
What would that be worth to you?
Best wishes,
Your TaxMama-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
wendrich-ga
on
26 Sep 2005 05:05 PDT
TaxMama,
Are you saying you will answer all questions except the third one
about universities? When you said "all questions about universities",
I just want to clarify that there is only one. Correct?
It would be worth the full amount to get this answered quickly. Maybe
you could provide your opinion on the university question.
Thanks.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
taxmama-ga
on
26 Sep 2005 08:05 PDT
Hi Wendrich
I'm afraid I know nothing about companies licensing their materials to
universities at all. Or what they charge. I'd love that information, too.
However, I am aware of two software tools to control the downloads.
One assigns a specific code to each person. You buy a batch of
download keys and you can provide them to university to distribute.
(They are quite cheap, pennies per unit.) You sell the 100 or 1000,
or however many e-books you want, to the unversity and provide the keys.
The other provides a a given URL, which allows you to sell, let's
say 100 or 1000 (or ?)units which can be downloaded from that URL.
Once it's been downloaded by 100 people (or whatever number),
the university has to pay for another batch. THEY become
responsible for making sure their students don't share that
URL with friends. But you can always re-send the URL to someone
who's entitled to use it. (This service doesn't charge anything
per download, but has a monthly fee.)
Will that help you?
Incidentally, in both cases, I believe that you will be getting
the contact information for each user, so you can do follow-up
marketing, depending on your contract with the university.
Best wishes,
Your TaxMama
|
Clarification of Question by
wendrich-ga
on
26 Sep 2005 09:16 PDT
Yes. That's exactly what we are looking for. But I still would like
examples of companies like ours that license their digital material -
even if there is no way of determining to which companies or
universities.
|
Ok Wendrich-ga,
I think I can handle those two requests.
1) Software to allow you sell your digital downloads in bulk, or to license it.
a) Corey Rudl's eBookPro should give you exactly what you need.
http://www.ebookpro.com/
(Although Corey just died, his wife and partner, Derek Gehl,
are still running the company very effectively.)
Read how the system works.
http://www.ebookpro.com/faq.html
I've never actually tried this system, but I know
it is very popular. In fact, it is so popular, that
the next suggestion has incorporated Corey's unit codes
into their download/shopping cart system.
b) www.1automationwiz.com
This is the one I use.
You can get the desired effect by going into cart set-up
and setting up "tracking". Then, going into "add product"
and setting the value for current inventory to the number
of units you selling. You can establish separate unit counts
for each sale to each university, and for each product.
Customer support is by phone or e-mail, from Canada.
(I just called them for the specific instructions.)
Only their most sophisticated clients are aware of this feature.
You can either set the unit price to -0-, or to a specific,
discounted price for the students of that university.
Since it contains an affiliate program, you can even set
the price to full price (or a lower price) and give the
university a commission on all the sales. Lots of options.
That's why I use this system for my e-books.
The program includes a shopping cart which will work with
most gateways, and autoresponders, and you can download
the data into QuickBooks, Excel, etc.
The e-book download feature is only available in their Pro package.
http://www.1automationwiz.com/pricing.htm
They both also have an affiliate program, and will pay you
commissions if you refer it to anyone else.
2) You wanted information about licensing software or e-books.
Well, one person who is really a pro at this is Paul Hartunian.
He explains the difference between resale rights and reprint rights.
He explains the difference between full rights and limited rights.
And you can see examples of what he charges for each, for his various products.
http://www.bestreprintrights.com/
He is the perfect person to contact about detailed information on
how to license your product.
There is also this entire community created around marketing
e-books with resale rights
http://www.iprofit-ebook-package.com/faq.html
You can reach the owner here - or via the site's contact page.
http://betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=iprofit-ebook-package.com&x=47&y=18
I hope this gives you a good start on the project
with the tools to make it work.
Best wishes,
Your TaxMama-ga |
Request for Answer Clarification by
wendrich-ga
on
20 Oct 2005 15:55 PDT
A few things: we've known about ebookpro.com for a while, but that
doesn't really suit our needs. The reason is they use a proprietary
format for which users have to download reader software. It's a
competitor to Adobe Acrobat/Reader, which has such a high installed
base, it's ubiquitous. The problem with Acrobat is that to protect
your PDFs, you need the Adobe Content Server, which costs thousands of
dollars. So neither ebookpro nor Adobe Content Server is appropriate
for us.
As for the download software: corporations (understandably) don't want
us to know the e-mail addresses of all their users. Will the software
you mentioned let them remain anonymous? I'm not clear how the
download keys work. If we get a suitable answer to this question (one
that works for us), we will gladly pay for that.
Regarding 1automationwiz.com: we've been using them for our shopping
cart software for a couple of years (found them by posting a question
on this very service). They're great for putting physical & electronic
merchandise under one roof with affiliates, too. But their software
locking service requires integration with ebookpro, which is why we
aren't using it.
|
Clarification of Answer by
taxmama-ga
on
20 Oct 2005 19:19 PDT
Dear Wendrich-ga
Remember, before I answered the question I asked if you wanted me
to answer this even if I couldn't give you the information about
any companies?
You said:
--------
TaxMama,
Are you saying you will answer all questions except the third one
about universities? When you said "all questions about universities",
I just want to clarify that there is only one. Correct?
It would be worth the full amount to get this answered quickly. Maybe
you could provide your opinion on the university question.
Thanks.
-----
As I said, I can't find that information for you.
I wouldn't have answered the question if you had said that
you still needed it.
I am so sorry.
Best wishes
Your TaxMama-ga
P.S. Heading out of town. Won't be back until Wednesday.
|
Clarification of Answer by
taxmama-ga
on
21 Oct 2005 10:06 PDT
I'm sorry, looks like I missed your question - and just found the
original clarification.
I'm still here for an hour or so.
You said:
Regarding 1automationwiz.com: we've been using them for our shopping
cart software for a couple of years (found them by posting a question
on this very service). They're great for putting physical & electronic
merchandise under one roof with affiliates, too. But their software
locking service requires integration with ebookpro, which is why we
aren't using it.
You can use 1automationwiz's system, without ebookpro.
They just make that option available.
When the customer buys a book, 1autowiz serves up a URL that's temporary.
They must download the e-book within about 48 hours, then the URL disappears.
You can re-issue a download URL manually IF you want to, if they lose it.
One way to make copying irrelevant is to include affiliate links
througout the book to products and services and tools related to
your topic.
If they do copy the file, whoever uses it will generate affiliate
commissions for you.
Also - offer free updates on the subject to those who own the book.
If your subjects are important or valuable, the few bucks you charge
will be well worth paying to get the regular updates.
I do that kind of thing in my books and never worry about theft.
There are a lot of good tools built into 1automationwiz and
1shoppingcart that most users don't really use to their full advantage.
Incidentally, doesn't Adobe have a locking system these days,
that prevent you from copying a file? I think they do.
Best wishes
TaxMama-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
taxmama-ga
on
11 Nov 2005 05:13 PST
Hi Wendrich-ga
I've been looking around for another way for you to
put security on a PDF product - and found a good tool for you.
ClickLocker
http://clicklocker.com/home.php
It will let you add a code to your e-book file that licenses
each download for one machine, period. They won't be able to
share the product with their family or friends. Copying won't
help, because the product won't run on any other computer.
You can use this for other sales, besides the institutional sales.
You see, you're able to shut off their license if they request a
refund, or you see any indication of abuse, right from your own computer.
It does have a monthly cost - but that's under $25, so, that's not much.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes
Your TaxMama-ga
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