New Idea - New to eBooks

First let me say what a pleasure it was to find this nice community of people helping other people. That’s quite refreshing these days.  This is my first post to your community and I hope I don’t cross any lines.  I have read the guidelines but if I go astray just nudge me back in line.

About 8 months ago I purchased something that I thought was going to help me leave my employer of 10 years in the Web Hosting industry.  I had big plans to start my own web hosting company as I was already doing all the work and knew the technical side of the business better than most.   I’ve had several successes on the Internet in the past 12 years and earn substantial recurring revenue from multiple streams including advertising agreements and paid subscriptions.  You see I am no stranger to the Internet.  It’s my passion.

In preparation for going out on my own and opening up my own web hosting company I did quite a bit of research.  During this research I found very few practical products that would assist me the way I needed assistance.  However, I did find one product on eBay, it was an eBook and the author was positioning the eBook as a full blown company.  I ended up spending $1000.00 on this ebook and had great hopes for it.  However, when it came time for delivery needless to say I was sorely disappointed.  

I had received really nothing more than the authors idea’s on how to gain web hosting clients using ebay.  Being less than thrilled and now down an additional $1000.00 in the cost of my startup web hosting company, Crucial Web Hosting, ltd. (http://www.crucialwebhost.com) I made a decision.  I decided that since I couldn’t find what I had searched for and what I am certain others have also searched for that I would create it and I would do so by using the successes and failures of my own company as the research.

Well, over the past 8 months I have completed that work.  It’s the first ebook/product I have ever created and I am quite proud of it.  The ebook is a roadmap to owning your own web hosting company of any size.  I have written the book to be easy to read and understand by anyone with low level technical abilities, in fact, I tried to leave no one behind and anyone should be able to read and following the step by step guides I have provided.

Now, this is not a sales job here!  I’m just introducing myself and my product.  I’d like to be able to share in your knowledge and gain from others who have been here before me.  I am now at the point where I am ready to market my product, so it’s best to fully understand exactly what the “product” is.   What I have created is a 75 full page pdf  for electronic delivery and ALSO a single CD containing approximately 1000 lines custom code and a few open source programs.  This CD is for postal mail.

I’ve decided to market the book for $149.99 and have thoughts have making it a 50% off deal, “order now and save 50%, only $149.99, etc”.  I understand that this is a rather high price point and I have given a lot of thought to this.  I’ve decided that rather than go low to start I’d rather stay high in the price and adjust down if necessary.  

I have decided that I would use an affiliate program to help market this product.  I have some experience with iDevAffiliate and had planned to use that system again.   Other than the affiliate program I will be doing some eBay ads and using Google Adwords and Yahoo/Overture pay-per-click.  I am familiar with these systems because of our advertising with Crucial Web Hosting, ltd. and have found them to return pretty well for us.

However, I have never marketed an ebook/product like this before and I really just don’t know where to start.  Like I said, the product is sound and something I am proud of and would like to let others know of it’s existence…making a little on the side would be nice too!  But the reality is, this book could have saved me $1000’s of dollars in trial and error software, datacenters, advertising, etc.  I imagine the same is true for others in the multi-BILLION dollar industry.  

Given the background and the product I have described above do you have any suggestions that could lead me to better exposing my product to not only “lots” of people, but to the right demographic?  Do you have any suggestion that might help me to bring my product to market?

Also, regarding my website for this product,www.webpage-host.com– how do you feel about this?  I ask this broadly because I’d be grateful for a broad range of response from the domain name to the layout to the content of the site.  While the site is nearly fully functional, it is not complete and I am at the stage where new ideas would integrate well in my development process – so I seek your assistance.

I’ve likely bored you with enough details and I thank you for taking the time on this beautiful weekend to read my post.

Your hard work shows. Nice and clean web site.

Have you considered a bullet list on the home page that answers a visitor's 'what's in it for me' questions? The first question I had is if it required buying additional hardware and securing dedicated comm. lines or is it possible to lease space. What kind of financial commitment does it take?

Also, check your contact page. When viewed in IE the contact information appears below the right column content.

When you say "article submissions" to promote the book, im not quite sure I am following what you mean?  Do you suggest writing articles for release?  And if so, do you have any pointers to where these articles could be released to?

Thanks for your help, I really apprecaite it!

While you're at it do a some research on the pros and cons of these services. Some benefit themselves more than the client--in other words not all are created equal.