Best Way to Monetize a Poker eBook.

[zuutroy]

In my downtime between writing articles for people and my own sites, I've been working on a poker strategy ebook. The basic premise is taking the reader from a recreational or even play money player to one who can multi-table and win at stakes up to $0.25/$0.50 NLHE. This isn't your usual 'play in position' and 'check raise top pair' type of ebook, it's basically condensing my experience of 5 years playing into what a new-ish player needs to know to beat online poker. Everything from bankroll management to game selection, to the importance of learning to multi-table, how to use pokerstove and Holdem Manager, and the use statistics to exploit opponents and giving the reader bins where their own HM stats should lie. I expect it to be probably in the region of 30,000 words once its done. I'd like to think it will be as good as the stuff Tri Nguyen is charging $200 for, but obviously I don't have his reputation!

My quandary is I'm not entirely sure what to do with it when I'm finished to maximize my ROI. The obvious one is to have it as mailing list bait, but I'd prefer a quicker and less labour intensive payoff. I was thinking of creating a single 'sales page' type site and bombing adwords and facebook ads with 'play money to pro' type of ads that require the user to simply make a CPA triggering deposit at a certain site and then they'll be given the book for free. I was also thinking of recording a training video series to may the offer even more appealing.

Other options are to either try and sell it for €1k or so which doesn't really appeal to me or to just put it on a site as static content but I don't think there would be any ROI from that at all.

Suggestions welcome, thanks!

[zuutroy]

Anyone?

[KevinMcC]

Do you have any high traffic poker sites? You could give away the first chapter in exchange for visitors emails, and then once they sign up for that direct them to the sales page for the entire ebook. I would think that a price between $15-50 would sell the best, but you'd have to test that. In order to make more money off it you could include affiliate links in the ebook too.

[pokeraussie]

You are up against some pretty stiff competition in this space. There are FREE ebooks, hard copy books from reputable authors, and online poker training sites. Personally I would offer it free to build a mailing list. Offer a ton of value to the list and you'll earn a heck of a lot more then what you would trying to sell the ebook directly.

[baerrus]

People here are talking good sense. Time of turning a quick buck on books/ebooks is long gone. Try self publishing on amazon and make it real cheap. That way you maximize your potential audience.

[t_roy]

I'd offer a good chapter free on your site, or at least for an email address. Then you offer the option of buying the book or signing up for a poker site through you for a free book. If you do videos I would take a similar approach. I've thought about doing a similar strategy. It has the nice added benefit of making your players better, which should make you a lot more rake in the long run.

[Dave]

Hey zuutroy,

The guys are right a simple ebook about how to win at online poker wont cut it in 2012.

If your info is as good as you say it is you should turn it into a membership site.

Do a case study.. take 10 people who know little about online poker, male and female and teach them your system.

Document everything with lots of video.... make it fun and exciting.

If even 3 of them can earn decent money consistently, say $100 per day at low limit by multi-tabling using you info then you have something people will pay for.

And affiliates will promote your site for you if you offer good commissions.

I'm surprised that more poker affiliates don't offer training courses.

Weather it's online poker, learning a new trade, clipping coupons or how to be a pawn star, people will pay you to learn how to save or make more money for themselves.

That's marketing 101.

You don't have to be a poker star as long as you can prove that your system works.

Get creative, make some phone calls, send some emails and ask.

Bobby Baldwin won the World Series Of Poker in 1978 because two years earlier he called Doyle Brunson and Amarilo Slim on the phone and asked them how to improve his game... and it worked out great obviously.

Don't be afraid of competition, ask for help... you'll be surprised what one simple phone call or email can do for you.

Good luck no matter what you decide to do,

Dave