Getting Set Up to Start Listing

It’s been a very busy few days since my last post as I try to get set up to start my listings on eBay. The tasks are tedious, especially when you’re in a hurry and don’t properly think things out.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen hundreds of emails and promotions promising that selling ebooks on eBay is just about the easiest way to start earning some online money. They obviously mean that it’s easy after you get everything set up; getting to that point isn’t necessarily hard or ultra-technical, but there’s definitely a lot of work.

Let me tell you what I’ve been doing - and what’s still on the list.

First off, I’ve been going through the books I have to be sure that: 1) they’re any good, that they offer some value, and that they’re written by someone with at least a passing knowledge of grammar and spelling; 2) that they include a clear statement that I have the right to sell them, and that I can sell them on eBay; and 3) that there’s an image of the cover of the book, or at least a graphic on the front page I can copy.  After I got my folder set up with my web page, I got them uploaded.

Then, each one needed to have a thank you page. I’ve touched on this before. The primary reason, at this point in my online career, to sell these books on ebay is to gather names and emails to build a list. A list is what eventually will give you an income. So, the thank you letter has the link to download the book, a signup block with an offer of a free book, and an advertisement for an affiliate program.

This also means that I have to have my autoresponder set up with a “thank you for signing up, here’s the link to your gift” message.

I also need to make an images folder, where I copy the pictures of the ebook covers, so I can include those in the eBay listings. They’ll also need to be uploaded to my web server so I can include another photo on the sales page and not have to pay eBay for the extra picture.

I need to build my about me page for ebay, where I’ll have another signup form, with the free book offer. I should be able to use the autoresponder message I already have for this, although many marketers will say it should be different so it can be tracked. Right now I just want the sign-up; when things heat up I’ll worry about tracking.

Now I’ll need to load up everything in eBay’s turbolister product. From there I’ll be able to schedule the auctions to start automatically. Another bunch of tedium to eventually save me time. Then all that will get put into the automated delivery system.

My web page needs a little tweaking, since I’m trying to get people to visit it, again to get the signup. It’s okay, but pretty boring right now. Also, I found some books that have great content about selling on eBay, but my rights don’t include being able to actually sell them on eBay. This is sometimes done to be sure the value of the book doesn’t get diminished. I imagine it’s a bit disconcerting to see a book you’ve worked hard on being sold for a penny! But they are good products, so I’ll want them on my web page, which means the sales letter and paypal button to collect the money. And a thank you page with a signup bonus offer.

And, of course, along the way I’ve found that I need to redo things. My first thank you letter invited customers to sign up, but without the incentive of a free book. Got that fixed (by redoing them all) and decided that with some of the books I was selling, it wasn’t really appropriate to offer a free book on ebook selling, so I have to redo the bonus.

Have to admit, I got a little down in the mouth at the realization that I’d screwed up an afternoon’s work. But you pull yourself up and start over - admittedly, after taking an afternoon off to read something totally unrelated to commerce and to eat some chocolate.

My goal is to have at least a few auctions going by the middle of the week. That will put it at about a month and a half since I started this blog and started getting serious about doing all this. It probably could have been done more quickly, but I do very much want to get it right. I did read somewhere, in what was supposed to be inspirational, that I shouldn’t worry about right, it was the doing that was important. But that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’d much prefer taking a bit more time to get it as right as I can for now than have to re-do even more stuff.