Information product, please.

December 1, 2006 12:21 AM

What are some sites that sell PDF information products developed by the site's owner AND that are not simply in the business of selling information products that explain how to sell information products?

I'm not interested in sites like Lulu or eBay or big media sites -- I'm looking for sites where the owner has written up some PDFs and now sells them. I'm just trying to find some examples of people who sell information products that aren't based on explaining how to sell information products. If you search for "information products", you'll find a zillion people trying to sell you guides to selling information products. But does anyone compete in this market place with another kind of information product? Thanks.

posted by acoutu to computers & internet (10 comments total)

If I understand you correctly, you're looking for websites of people who self-puplish non-fiction in PDF file format who not only charge for the access to said PDF files, but have also chosen to handle the entire sales transaction themselves rather than letting Lulu or eBay handle a portion of the transaction. Is that correct?
posted by RichardP at 1:50 AM on December 1, 2006

Patterns - in the knitting and clothes sense.
posted by Leon at 2:51 AM on December 1, 2006

if I understand you correctly, I think ChinesePod would be an example. They give away the podcast for free but you have to pay for the PDF transcripts. Also the e-book 12 Golden Rules of Mastering Chinese.
posted by trinarian at 3:47 AM on December 1, 2006

Steve Jackson Games runs e23, which sells role-playing game supplements in PDF format.

Some key factors for success:

--low prices
--sample pages available from every product (try before you buy)
posted by jellicle at 6:12 AM on December 1, 2006

PocketPCmag.com sells a few PDFs.

(Full disclosure, in case it matters: I do work for them as a consultant.)
posted by bricoleur at 6:12 AM on December 1, 2006

What about white papers and market research? Like MarketingSherpa.com. There are plenty of smaller outfits that sell similar information in PDF format.
posted by junkbox at 8:05 AM on December 1, 2006

Bird photographer Authur Morris sells the 'Digital Basics File' which teaches you how to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: crop, clone, Levels adjustment, Hue/Saturation adjustment, and Shadow/Highlight adjustment.
posted by of strange foe at 9:04 AM on December 1, 2006

The Pragmatic Programmers have an "beta book" program wherein you can buy a discounted pre-release version of their books in PDF format.

37Signals' Getting Real book originally sold 20,000 copies in PDF. They've since made it available for free.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 9:21 AM on December 1, 2006

Take Control books, which are published by the same folks who put out the Mac e-newsletter TidBITS.
posted by kindall at 11:06 AM on December 1, 2006

RichardP, yes, that's what I mean.

And thanks for all these examples. That's just what I meant.
posted by acoutu at 3:08 PM on December 1, 2006