With the rapid expansion of the Internet and the World Wide Web, electronic libraries have become important. Creating your own e-library business is a great opportunity to earn extra or basic income, and one of the most effective ways to turn your passion into a business and monetize your skills is to sell e-books through a number of publishers.
The electronic library is defined as a digital room that contains collections of books and periodicals in all fields, such as: culture, art, sports, politics, history, technology, economics, etc., and sometimes it comes to presenting a collection of important films and usable recorded music tracks.
Electronic Library
Just as the digital camera revolutionized the photography industry, the tablet computer and the e-book reader have revolutionized bookselling, and today e-books occupy a large part of the publishing industry, for example: in In the United States of America alone, more than 450 million e-books are sold annually, with revenues of $4.52 billion.
Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology, e-books have become a boon for authors, publishers, and readers. As revenues from e-book sales continue to rise all over the world, of course an e-library project gives you the ability to sell more e-books, and through this project your customers will be able to make payments and buy your e-books hosted on your store.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of an e-library project is obtaining the rights to the e-books themselves; So that you have a useful collection to sell, and because an e-book is a file that can be copied endlessly without a trace, publishers have a tight grip on it.
Global E-Book Market
The e-book market is poised to grow by $47.62 billion from 2021 to 2025; It is advancing at a compound annual growth rate of more than 7% during the forecast period, technical development and the evolution of reading devices that provide an experience similar to reading a real book are the main factors driving the global e-book market, and the increasing dependence on smart phones and multi-language features of e-books is also an advantage It is expected to drive global demand for e-books.
Moreover, environmental protection campaigns from governments around the world, especially campaigns to save trees to reduce paper use, increase the demand for e-books, in turn, the printed book market is expected to lose its share in the global market; The reason for this is due to the digitization of books and the possibility of accessing them via the Internet with ease.
Electronic Library Project
It can be said that the electronic library project is one of the most important and profitable projects that have spread recently all over the world, given the great importance of reading and education in the lives of peoples and their ability to create generations that believe Issues that development wheels will not be able to obliterate.
E-books are one of the best information products that most people spend their money on all over the world, and perhaps the factors that lead to the success of the project are not only high demand but also one of the easiest products that can be accessed easily and at any time without having to make efforts.
Creating an electronic library project
You don't need to be a technical expert to start your first business project in the world of entrepreneurship by creating your own electronic library, all you need is a computer, high-speed internet and a set of appropriate tools What is remarkable about this project is that it can be easily managed and operated from home, and it also does not require a large amount of capital to start like other commercial projects.
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The idea of the project revolves around establishing an integrated electronic library for selling and reading electronic books in all fields, such as: literary books, novels, periodicals, political, artistic, historical, economic, scientific, technological, medical, engineering, etc., and some other digital media can also be provided, such as: videos and music tracks And sound effects and some other digital services, and the project aims to cover the growing demand for e-books for various authors and publishers, in addition to earning more income.
Feasibility study of an e-library project
If you are looking to start your first business via the Internet, it is likely that an e-library project will be a great option for you. Feasibility of an electronic library project.
First: Studying the Market and Competitors
Studying the market and competitors in the field of selling e-books is one of the most important steps that must be taken into consideration, when it comes to establishing an e-library project, you can conduct a thorough research on the e-book market To find out which areas are in high demand and to determine the number of people searching online for e-books in various fields.
Studying and researching the market before setting up your business in the field of e-books leads to identifying the latest developments in the market, minimizing errors early in the start of the project, validating assumptions and evaluating the needs of potential customers, and by studying the market you can discover a lot Find out what your competitors are doing and how many people search for e-books each month, as well as the preferences of publishers and authors.
Second: Business Plan
There is no doubt that a clear plan is one of the important necessities for achieving success. As an entrepreneur and aspiring to create an electronic library, you must use paper and pen, start making a list of features and discover if the idea is right. It comes alive on paper, and when you create an electronic library that contains all the books that are in great demand, you need to select the appropriate means of payment; Most online offices receive payments by cards, bank transfers, or online gateways such as PayPal.
A successful plan helps define the specifics of your business and discover some important steps to consider; The most important of which are: start-up and running costs, and your target market. Based on market research, you can determine the quality and nature of e-books that you will provide through your own library.
Third: Determine the Target Audience
E-books seem to appeal to almost everyone, including people of both genders and all ages, however the type of books chosen will determine the particular demographic that your e-library project is targeting, Many entrepreneurs and owners of online bookstores always focus on a niche market and become experts in that market.
Therefore, we can say that knowing your target audience and how to reach it is one of the important steps to creating a small business strategy, and for an electronic library project to sell books in all fields, identifying and understanding everything about the target audience is crucial to achieving success, but this may take time in many times.
Fourth: Define the Brand
As an entrepreneur who wants to create an electronic library, you need to create a brand that represents your business in the market. Your brand should include a fresh and innovative name, a clear and understandable brand story, and then create strong and engaging designs that go with that brand.
Considering the quality and nature of the books sold through your e-library, you can define the visual elements to define your brand identity; Where it includes: the name and the logo, and this identity must be consistent, in short, if you want to achieve success in the field of e-books, you need to have a strong brand, as it helps your business to stand out from competitors.
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Fifth: Permits and Licenses
Failure to obtain the necessary permits and licenses for an electronic library project may lead to heavy fines, or even the closure of your activity, and most entrepreneurs working in the field of electronic books are always required to collect sales tax on goods or services offered; Therefore, it is essential to obtain the necessary licenses and permits to start your own e-book selling business.
Moreover, your business needs insurance in order to operate safely and legally; Business insurance protects the financial well-being of your business in the event of a covered loss. Of course, there are several types of insurance policies created for different types of businesses with different risks.
If you are not sure about the types of risks your business might face, start with general liability insurance, this is the most common coverage that a small business needs.
Sixth: Opening a Commercial Bank Account
Bank and credit accounts for businesses, specifically those established via the Internet, are of great importance to protect personal assets, when your personal and commercial accounts are mixed, your personal assets are such as: your home Your car and other valuables are at risk if your business is sued, and in business law this is referred to as piercing the veil of your enterprise.
In addition, a business credit card helps you separate personal and business expenses. By putting the expenses of your e-book selling business in one place, it also builds the credit history of your successful business, which can be very helpful in raising money and investing later on.
Seventh: Determine the structure of the electronic library
When all the aforementioned steps are completed, you must specify the designs for your electronic library; Good designs play an essential role in the success of your e-book selling business. So take your time making your library presentation; You can list the categories on the website or display them horizontally as a drop-down list below the project logo.
Moreover, the electronic library website must be simple, which makes it easier for customers and users to search for books that match their desires, and the website can contain the following sections or pages:
Users should be able to log in and search eBooks, and you can also provide options to save searches, create wishlists, and browse downloads.
Most online bookstores list products on homepages, also use your homepage to engage your customers and promote your offerings.
Your e-library will have a page where you list your book products, site visitors can click and buy e-books in your catalog with ease, and some websites may also have a category section to sort e-books based on niches.
The e-library website must have a subscription page, through which users will be able to view and purchase subscriptions directly from your page.
It is essential to tell customers and visitors to your library about you and your anecdotes related to your e-book business, and also use the About Us section to highlight your USPs.
It is not limited to this limit, but you can add more pages if you want to expand the sale of e-books and provide many other products, however, it is better to keep your site simple and not confuse buyers with a lot of things.
Eighth: Search Engine Optimization «SEO»
The step of learning and mastering search engine optimization skills «SEO» is one of the important basics in the success of any business that is established via the Internet. So you have to understand well the basics of search engine optimization so that you can properly structure your site that represents your electronic library so that it is compatible with Google search engines.
You can constantly conduct online studies and research to identify high-value search terms that your potential customers might use. You can do this through keyword research, which can be done in a number of different ways.
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Ninth: Choosing the location of the project
It is certainly possible to manage an electronic library project from your own home. All you need to achieve this is a computer and a high-speed Internet network. Selling electronic books, it may be necessary to establish a special administrative headquarters that represents your project on the ground through which this wonderful work will be managed.
The administrative headquarters can be located in a major city; Where you can rent an apartment of 70 square meters in one of the buildings or administrative towers scattered in the city, and there is no doubt that this step will enhance the confidence of customers and motivate them to buy more books in various fields through your electronic library.
Tenth: Equipment and Requirements
Numbering | Equipments and Requirements | Usage | 1 | Administrative Headquarters Equipping | The administrative headquarter is a major reference for either clients, authors, or publishers. Therefore, it must contain all the basic capabilities that help in accomplishing all daily tasks, such as: administrative offices, some pieces of furniture for the reception, an electrical system, a number of chairs, and other requirements. |
2 | Communications Network | The administrative headquarters of the electronic library must be provided with a high-speed and high-quality Internet network, in addition to installing an internal and external communications network to send and receive calls, whether from clients or publishers. | td> |
3 | Administrative offices | 5 administrative offices must be provided supported by 7 chairs, provided that one office and 3 chairs are allocated for the project manager and other offices It is allocated to employees specialized in e-business and digital marketing. | |
4 | Computers | The project headquarters must be provided with 5 laptops for the project manager and staff; So that they can exercise the functional tasks required for the success of the project, and the ability to communicate with clients, authors and publishers. The project headquarters calls for the installation and operation of 3 electric air conditioners to distribute cold air in all offices; So that employees feel comfortable and able to continue working efficiently. | |
6 | Surveillance cameras | It is always preferable to install a network of surveillance cameras inside and outside project headquarters; So that the project resources are not stolen, and cameras can be used to monitor work and employee performance while not in the office. | |
7 | Printing machine | < td>The headquarters needs to provide a printing machine; It is used to print important papers and documents that organize the work within the project, and it can also be used to print contracts and papers for deals concluded with authors and publishers.||
8 | < td>An illuminated billboardThe project owner must prepare an illuminated billboard to be placed on the facade of the project's headquarters; Where it must include the trademark and some special means of communication; To facilitate customers. | ||
9 | Buffet Tools | It is always preferable to provide the project headquarters with a buffet section, provided that it is equipped with all the required capabilities; So that employees can prepare some quick food and drinks during their break time. |
Eleventh: Create your company website
After defining your tag business and create your logo, the next step is to create a website that represents your electronic library across the Internet, and some may fear that it is out of their reach because they do not have any experience in building a website, but web technology has witnessed tremendous developments in the past few years that make the lives of small business owners more simple.
In the beginning, there are three basic things that you will need to create your website, which are: «domain name, hosting plan, SSL certificate» With these things you can start your electronic library with a small budget that you may not need to break your bank account.
First: a domain name or the domain which is the address of your website such as: «.com», when the user needs to access your library they will need to type this URL in the address bar of their browser to visit the website and start the shopping journey, in addition In addition, the domain name must match your brand that you will select.
Second: Hosting the website, which is the server where you store all the files and data of the website safely, when a visitor comes to your website the server will send the data to his browser and display your website on it, of course the servers are expensive but you don't have to buy one a year First, instead sign up for a hosting plan from a web hosting company and they will allow you to rent space on their servers.
Third: SSL certificate, when people start visiting your website the data will be passed between your server and their browsers, if a hacker is able to intercept this data he can misuse it, to make sure this does not happen you need to install an SSL certificate, This will encrypt any data sent to and from your website.
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Twelfth: Gathering Content
According to the quality and nature of the books that you will provide in your electronic library, start filling and filling your store with books, novels, periodicals, and all the readable products that you will present through your project. Of course, there is a need to provide a lot of books before you can launch your own e-library.
Your website is bound to have a wide and unique mix of eBooks; Since everyone has different taste, and they will all search for the product in your online store in line with their goals and aspirations, avid readers are generally the ones who visit your e-bookstore, and read anything that interests them just because they love to read.
For the aggregation of readable products, more agreements can be concluded with a number of authors and publishers; To make your electronic library a home for them to display their books and novels to all readers, and here we always recommend contracting with authors and publishers who enjoy wide popularity among readers, which helps you attract more customers and users.
Thirteenth: Write the title and description of the product
Of course, the sections of the electronic library are of great importance to the success of the project. As it is the place where customers go to learn about the available e-books and decide whether to buy them or not, there is no doubt that the details are very important, and the right information, from pricing to the author or publisher, through the text or visuals, can make all the difference.
There are many things to keep in mind when populating the content of your e-library; The most important of which is: The title of the book must be clear and understandable, and the price for each book must be known to all; What helps customers or visitors find what they are looking for in your catalog, try to make the description suitable for everyone, such as: display, colors, font size, etc.
Fourteenth: Defining Purchases in the Library
Your e-library website can have all the features; It accepts credit cards and PayPal, calculates sales taxes and VAT, fulfills orders automatically, and often has support too, plus you can add a shopping cart to your site, some shopping carts may cost a monthly fee, some are free but charged, others He does a little of both.
Fifteenth: Determine the sources of your inventory
Once you know the nature and quality of the books that you will sell through your electronic library, you need to decide how you will supply your inventory of books in your own library. Determining what you will do about the inventory He will tell you whether you will need to contract with many authors and publishers in various fields, such as: literature, novels, history, politics, art, economics, etc., or buy these books from an e-commerce website builder.
The great thing you can do in this step is to have a group of authors and publishers to work with, which will set you apart from all the competitors and you will have the power to beat them; You must check the quality of the stock of books and ensure that you are providing the best possible experiences for your target audience.
Sixteenth: Workforce
As an entrepreneur, you probably realize that working alone in this project will help you a lot in reducing expenses related to wages. However, if you are looking to expand and enter the circle of competition, you need to benefit from the expertise of some specialized persons; Where you can appoint a professional web developer who has the ability to deal with all programming languages, a designer who has the ability to create new and attractive designs, a marketing team who has the ability to reach the target audience, and an employee who specializes in the field of public relations and advertising.
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Seventeenth: Creating a Promotional Plan
No matter how good the content you offer through your e-library, it will be worth it to build a large inventory of e-books and sell them if you can't convince people to buy; Therefore, before you take a step forward, develop a strong and effective strategy to promote your e-library. In order to ensure that you get the most out of it, a good promotional plan usually includes a combination of tactics.
It's time to tell the world about your new e-library. Get ready to dedicate serious time to marketing before and after launching your e-library. Create buzz with your audience and use that to increase sales. Use social media platforms such as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Telegram And others, and start advertising the most interesting books to attract more readers and users, and you should not forget your email list as an invaluable resource.
Eighteenth: Expected Costs
Numbering | Equipment and Requirements | Usage |
1 | Branding Design | The cost of branding for an e-library project ranges from $325 to $375. |
2 | Permits and Licenses | The cost of legal procedures for obtaining the necessary permits and licenses to establish an electronic library ranges from $415 to $460. |
Administrative Headquarters Rent | The cost of renting the administrative headquarters for the project, with an area of 70 square meters in one of the main cities, ranges from 450 to 600 dollars per month. | 4 | Supplying the Administrative Headquarters | The cost of equipping the project's administrative headquarters, which includes administrative offices, chairs, some pieces of furniture, electricity and water network, etc., ranges from 2850 to 3420 $. |
5 | Communication Network | The subscription cost for operating the internal communications network, including the Internet, ranges from $165 to $210 Monthly. |
6 | Administrative offices | The cost of purchasing 5 administrative offices with a group of chairs ranges from 840 to 900 dollars.< /td> |
7 | Computers | The cost of purchasing 5 high-end computers ranges from $1,950 to $2,250. | < /tr>
8 | Air conditioners | The cost of purchasing and installing 3 air conditioners ranges from $985 to $1,240. |
9 | Surveillance cameras | The cost of purchasing and installing a network of surveillance cameras inside and outside the administrative headquarters ranges from 460 to 570 dollars. |
Printing Machine | The cost of purchasing a printing machine with medium capabilities ranges from $230 to $265. | |
11 | Luminous billboard | The cost of purchasing and installing an illuminated billboard ranges from 125 to 140 dollars. |
12 | Tools Buffet | The cost of purchasing buffet items ranges from $110 to $125. |
13 | Website Design | The cost of designing a website using the latest technologies and advanced and secure technological means ranges from 2300 to 2650 dollars. |
14 | E-book Stock | The owner of the project is the one who has the ability to determine the costs of his book stock according to the size, nature, and quality of the books that he will sell through his electronic library, however, about $5,000 can be allocated as a first budget to provide the appropriate stock. |
15 | Employee wages | The cost of project employee wages ranges from 2100 to 2350 dollars per month. |
16 | Marketing | The cost of marketing campaigns ranges from $850 to $1,150 per month. |
Nineteenth: Total Expected Cost h3>
1 | Expected Total Cost | – Variable costs: $3,565 to $4,310 per month. Fixed costs: ranging from approximately $10,590 to $11,750. |
In the end, we confirm that the aforementioned numbers in the above table that relate to the costs of the details of the project feasibility study A modern electronic library that is up to date with the year 2021 and is based on official sources. It is possible to return to some famous electronic stores, such as: Alibaba; To review some prices of the equipment and requirements necessary for the project, and they may increase or decrease according to the environment or the geographical location in which the project will be established.
Twenty: The amount of money from selling e-books
In fact, the amount of money from selling books through your e-library depends on two things: “marketing strategy and product pricing”, which may lead to the success of your business and entry into the circle of competitors or backtrack until you reach the closing point.
In more blunt terms: hiring authors and publishers for exclusive content can result in additional costs, if you overprice your ebooks you are unlikely to make enough to sustain your business, on the other hand, overpricing Your products may discourage readers and users from purchasing.
So how do you find the right pricing balance? One of the most common strategies is mid-market pricing. It will definitely put you in the same category as your competitors. Your product will not be cheaper or more expensive than the average price of the competitors. It's a safe option for targeting a large, mid-market value-buying audience, but it's also tougher because it will set you up against your competitors.
The most effective strategy is to price the e-books you will make available through your online library above or below the market average; Where you can increase the prices of books while maintaining the average price, for example: you can add a gift to the side of the book, or make some great offers, and this will make your e-book look more attractive, in return you can reduce the price of your product while maintaining the quality, suppose that The average price of an e-book is around $5, if you lower it to $4 you might get more customers.
Twenty First: General Tips for Project Success
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