This Simple Publishing Mistake Could Be Losing You Half Your Back End Sales!

Many of the Internets biggest ebook sellers are making this simple mistake, and it’s almost certainly costing them a ton of money in lost back end sales. You must not make the same mistake!

I was having a bit of a tidy up on my PC the other day. It really is amazing how many files you accumulate, even in a short space of time.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I was particularly interested in getting all my ebooks in some sort of organized filing system. I wanted to put them into files relating to particular categories. Then, when I wanted to go over a certain topic again, I would easily be able to find an ebook that covered the subject I was looking for.

Then I ran into a problem. The thing is, when I looked at this folder full of ebooks, at first glance, I didn’t have a clue what a load of them were about. I mean, I had read every single one of these ebooks, but from just looking at the file names, I didn’t have a clue what they were, or who wrote them!

The reason was; the ebook publishers had deliberately chosen not to give their ebooks a descriptive filename. Instead of using the actual title of the ebook as the file name, the author used some kind of shortened abbreviation.

Ebook authors must spend ages dreaming up a great name for their ebook that will reflect the topic of their publication. Then they go and ruin all that hard work; by giving the ebook file a 3 letter abbreviated name that doesn’t tell anyone what’s inside.

Why do ebook publishers do this?

There have been a lot of people giving out advice on Internet security over the last few years. One bit of advice that has been going round, is that you should always give your ebooks a weird, un-guessable file name so that Internet thieves, can’t find them on your website. I don’t want to go into exactly how these Internet thieves work because that is not what this article is all about.

Even if you don’t have a website, you may still get influenced by this advice, which is why I want to enlighten you.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Lets say an author has written an ebook called ‘Gold Swing Secrets’. Instead of giving the ebook a descriptive file name like ‘golf_swing_secrets.pdf’, they may name it something like gss-01.pdf or glfsgss.pdf.

Now, the author of the ebook had spent however long writing and compiling his ebook. The file name to him is instantly familiar; after all, he was the one that named the damn thing.

However, little old me ‘the customer’, who may be very keen to read his ebook again, didn’t have a clue what the ebook was about, without opening it to find out. Now you might think that’s ok. I mean, how long does it take to open an ebook to see what it is. My point is, most people’s eyes will be drawn to the ebooks with a descriptive file name that tells the reader instantly what the ebook is about.

What’s the big deal?

I found a number of ebooks on my PC that I had forgotten I had even bought. Some of them I had quickly speed read, with the full intention on reading them properly when I had time. 6 months, a year went by and I kept overlooking them. I just forgot what they were, and just assumed they were some free ebook or something.

The end result being:

* I never read these ebooks a 2nd time.

* I never signed up to any of the newsletters that were being promoted by the ebook authors.

* I never bought any of the products being recommended inside the ebooks.

* None of these ebook authors made a single back end sale from me.

I wonder how many ebook buyers have done the same as me? My very conservative guess is that at least 50% of people overlook the ebooks on their PC with filenames they don’t recognize. If I am right, you could be losing half your back end sales, if you choose not to give your ebook a descriptive filename.

If you have a website and you’re worried about Internet thieves, store your ebooks in a separate folder and give THAT a weird abbreviated name that no one would guess, not your ebooks!

If you have worked hard to write an ebook, do yourself a favor and finish the job off with a nice descriptive filename. Trust me, your readers, AND your bottom line will really appreciate it.

© Copyright Jason Lewis