In life there are certain serendipitous events that have a perfect timing. This was one of them. I came upon a post by Radical English friend, Judy Thompson, about Jason West. At a certain point she said: "...he absolutely blew me away with his refreshing and highly successful approach to teaching people to speak English comfortably in a very short span of time...". That totally sparked my curiosity. I wanted to know more, so I went to his company website, English Out There, and noticed that I could download one of his e-books about his teaching approach. And it was in pdf. Just what I needed in order to keep checking things that were going through my mind.
I emailed Jason with a couple of questions. He replied promptly in a very nice and helpful way. He told me the stamping is called DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the idea is to discourage unethical sharing by linking the document to a real person. It can be used both in free and paid digital products.
I’d come across a couple of references to DRM, mostly against it. However, Jason’s arguments convinced me. I was going to give it a go.
He also gave me a link to the platform he's been using for a few years, GetDPD.com . He added that they are "very secure, always up and the support is great when I need it".
I immediately explored the site. It offered great features, looked very professional and had a reasonable price for the services I needed. I registered for a 30-day free trial at the beginning of September, when I launched the free sample of the e-dictionary. The process worked seamlessly. I tested it. And friends and colleagues confirmed its user-friendliness.
A month later I registered for the paid subscription and reactivated my PayPal account, linking it to my GetDPD account. It’s been working great!
Last but not least, I need to mention pricing. To sell or not to sell was my question, rather, my doubt, for many months. After several phases of mixed feelings and hesitations, I decided that I would sell the e-dictionary. Not give it away for free.
How much would I charge? What a headache that was! Two main perspectives lingered in my mind. If I charged too little, people could think my dictionary was worthless. If I charged too much, they could think I was conceited, vain... Neither one, nor the other. I just wanted something that had worked so fabulously for my students to be used by other students, learners and their teachers. Because it will make a difference in their language learning and teaching.
I came up with the price based on what I thought was fair. It's subjective, of course. But I had to overcome that hurdle.
Useful materials
Selling your e-book without a publisher (a series of articles about different aspects of self-publishing)