Online Pay to View
Posted: September 16th, 2006, 12:15 pm
I made a mistake by taking my book on magic theory off of my web site and selling it as a paper back book.
The biggest problem is that the book was the cornerstone of my web site. Another problem is that the book is being updated. I feel like I am cheating those I sold the book to. I cant conveniently send them new stuff about the subject. And I no longer have copies of the book to sell.
I plan on putting the book back on the site.
But there is a problem.
I get thousands and thousands of hits per month on the site. There are at 50 to 100 sites out there that are linked to mine. They generate 70% of the visits to my site. All of them, incidentally, are without my permission.
While I like the attention, the return on this work is not commensurate with the effort invested or the attention it is getting.
Here is a plan.
I will put up the book. However, to view it, the viewer must pay a dollar via paypal.
So, I have two questions.
What do you think of this and might you be, if you are a book seller, interested in the software I use to implement this action?
I wrote a program to build the book that will be displayed on line. The book is written using word. When the program runs it converts the word document to a web document. It inserts pictures into the text, makes a table of contents and organizes the hyper-links automatically. Then there is the CGI code that manages the page delivery. When the viewer pays their dollar, a key is set up for them in my server. They can view the book as long as that key is active. They can even go away for awhile and come back. This key is used to prevent hackers from getting at the material. I will not say it is foolproof but to break it will require some very technical effort. The protection is invisible to the legitimate user. Those not qualified are asked to pay a dollar.
Right now the offer is free. It would be nice if several people implemented this plan so it seemed to be a normal way of doing business.
If you are interested in seeing what my internet books look like, go to www.ovidplce.com
Well, thats it.
Al Schneider
The biggest problem is that the book was the cornerstone of my web site. Another problem is that the book is being updated. I feel like I am cheating those I sold the book to. I cant conveniently send them new stuff about the subject. And I no longer have copies of the book to sell.
I plan on putting the book back on the site.
But there is a problem.
I get thousands and thousands of hits per month on the site. There are at 50 to 100 sites out there that are linked to mine. They generate 70% of the visits to my site. All of them, incidentally, are without my permission.
While I like the attention, the return on this work is not commensurate with the effort invested or the attention it is getting.
Here is a plan.
I will put up the book. However, to view it, the viewer must pay a dollar via paypal.
So, I have two questions.
What do you think of this and might you be, if you are a book seller, interested in the software I use to implement this action?
I wrote a program to build the book that will be displayed on line. The book is written using word. When the program runs it converts the word document to a web document. It inserts pictures into the text, makes a table of contents and organizes the hyper-links automatically. Then there is the CGI code that manages the page delivery. When the viewer pays their dollar, a key is set up for them in my server. They can view the book as long as that key is active. They can even go away for awhile and come back. This key is used to prevent hackers from getting at the material. I will not say it is foolproof but to break it will require some very technical effort. The protection is invisible to the legitimate user. Those not qualified are asked to pay a dollar.
Right now the offer is free. It would be nice if several people implemented this plan so it seemed to be a normal way of doing business.
If you are interested in seeing what my internet books look like, go to www.ovidplce.com
Well, thats it.
Al Schneider