Turning a popular article into an ebook

[webturtle]

Hi -

I have an article I wrote back in 1997, on my site - which is downloaded 150-200 times per week. It is on a topic that many people want to know about and I frequently get compliments on it - plus it is often reprinted by others, sometimes with permission and often just stolen by competition. So, I assume from that two things - it has good keyword placement and it isn't a bad article.

The thing is, its only 2 pages long - and the people who show up in my stats are looking for specific detailed answers that aren't explicitely answered in the article. I would say half of them are coming for the topic at hand - and the others are using more detailed key phrases. My page shows up at the top page of many search results for those too.

Frankly, I've given away TONS of free info online and I am ready to start making some money on it. So I've started writing something longer - much more detailed, and answering the questions I see in my search results. It probalby won't be longer than 15 pages and will include resources, visual examples and so on. I want to sell it from my site - maybe even with an affiliate program so that people in my same field who aren't designers can offer it as well (I don't want them to be able to remove my branding though). But I have some concerns:

* Not sure what to price it as since its fairly small - but still very informative for people who don't know the subject

* Can I do a bait and switch on my current page which is so highly ranked? Perhaps replace the existing article with an excerpt from the book (one section perhaps) and then launch into sales language with a method to pay and download it? Or will people be too alienated by that?

My hope is that I can take advantage of the traffic I've built over the last 8 years for that topic - but if I continue to offer the shortened article (which will remain available elsewhere that it is reprinted) then i'm sure people won't buy the additional info. Has anyone every done this?

* I have a merchant account but it doesn't have a cart or digital downloads - so I am considering payloadz - my merchant account could be upgraded but it seems like overkill (and overpriced!!) for one little book. I do have another, much larger ebook in process that is taking me forever so if I go with simple now, i assume i can just change later...

I'm very close to finishing this book - any advice is appreciated!

[Lynn Terry]

Now there's smart marketing at work!

Instead of a book, you might consider referring to it as a 'report' or 'guide'. Of course, that depends on the subject and your market. As does the pricing. What range are you considering - $10, $20, $30 or more?

I think it would be fairly easy to turn this into a sales page, obviously using those search terms within the copy (and maybe specifically in your bullet lists). You might offer the intro or first section on the page itself, and then place a call-to-action at the end where they can download the entire report.

Too, this sounds like a good opportunity to build a highly targeted mailing list that focuses specifically on that topic.