I've been writing, developing and selling eBooks and e-classes online since 2002. It's a great way to make a living because everything can literally be done from home. However, it is not without its drawbacks.

Following are four problems that will crop up that you'll have to deal with as an information products seller, along with some solutions.

I. Technical Glitches: While technology is wonderful and allows you to run a practically zero-cost business as an information seller, when it goes on the fritz, it can cost you a ton of money. For example, a few weeks ago my web hosting company went down – for an entire work day. This meant that all of my sites were offline, which meant that I wasn't earning any money.

Who knows how much that cost me in lost leads and sales – many of those customers will never return.

Solution

Now while something like this is out of your control, you can decrease the chance of this happening by using more than one host company.

Note: I have three host companies; I found out later that two of these were owned by the same large company, and that's why all of my money-making sites were down.

There's a whole lot more that can go wrong on the technical end, eg, you want to migrate from an HTML-coded site to wordpress; your laptop gets a virus; you upgrade to the latest browser and it causes some of your programs to act wacky – the problems can seem never ending.

To mitigate this, have a tech person on hand that you can call on when stuff like this arises if you're not an expert in this area. Because trust me – it's not if something will happen, it's when.

II. Questions from Buyers: Buyers and prospective buyers will ask questions about your products that you wouldn't have guessed in a million years. Some will be nice; others will outright accuse you of trying to scam them – even before they've plunked down any money!

I'm constantly amazed at just how rude some can be BEFORE they even give an eBook/eClass a chance. Just take it all in stride and answer their questions to the best of your ability.

Solution

Always be honest and get back to them as quickly as possible. One of the things I do is readily tell prospects when I don't think my eBook/eClass will help them. The reason is, I want long-term customers; not a sale at all costs. So if I know/feel that a product is not a good fit for a prospect, I'll tell them so – and why I think so. Some go on to purchase anyway – but at least they do so with full knowledge.

Conducting your online business like this builds trust and although you might not make that immediate sale, the prospect may purchase in the future if you produce a product that is a good fit for them.

III. eBook Theft: If you produce informational products for sale, be prepared for someone to outright steal it. I've come across lots of my eBooks on several sites being sold without my permission. And this is only getting worse. Proof?

Read the Fast Company article, Amazon's Plagiarism Problem. Not only will it make your head spin at how easy it is to steal work, it gives insight into why the problem is getting worse, ie:

The new self-publishing platforms are easy to use and make it possible to publish a title in as little as 24 hours. There's no vetting, editing, or oversight, and if your work is taken down you can always throw up more titles or simply concoct a new pen name and start over. There's even a viral eBook generator that comes packed with 149,000 articles that makes it possible to create an eBook in minutes.

Solution

So how do you deal with this? I simply don't look for my eBooks anymore. I get too upset and really, unless you're willing to spend your days hunting down some no-name scum in California, Russia or Thailand, there's not much you can do without Bill Gates-like money.

I DO list links in the backs of my eBooks to other products and to my online store. This way, readers may click through and find other products they like that haven't been stolen and make a legitimate purchase.

Note: Most buyers are unaware that they're purchasing stolen products, so I never blame them. All you can do is hope to turn them into loyal customers by making them aware of your full catalog of products.

IV. Returns: eBook returns are a fact of life; it just goes with the territory. Mine is relatively low – less than 1% of overall sales. Some outlets like Clickbank and Amazon can run a little higher because of their refund policies, but overall, I don't sweat returns too much.

Darren Rowse over at the uber-popular blog, Problogger takes the same attitude, saying this this about eBook returns and sales:

Here's what I've seen when it comes to refunds on my own eBooks. In the last two and a half years, I've sold around 40,000 eBooks here on ProBlogger and on Digital Photography School. I don't have an exact figure on how many refunds have been requested and given (we refund 100% with no questions asked), but I would estimate that the number is less than 100—at the most it'd be 150. . . . refunded sales make up around a quarter of 1% of my total sales. They're not very significant.

Solution

There are a number of things you can do to decrease your eBook return rate, ie:

Provide a thorough overview of what the customer can expect to receive (eg, a complete Table of Contents);

Deliver promptly via an instant download service like E-junkie;

Respond quickly to customer inquiries; and

Don't produce crap: This really can't be overstated. Provide value in every product you create. This way, customers won't feel like they've been ripped off. Not only will they be less likely to request their money back, they'll become repeat customers – which is what you need to build a successful business selling e-products like eBooks, eClasses, webinars, etc., online.

Conclusion

You are always going to have those schemers, scammers and rip-off artists who want something for free; there's not much you can do about these type of people who request a refund. But, most who purchase your product(s) don't want their money back. They want you to deliver on what you promised.

So do so – and you'll have no problem building a successful business as an information products seller.

Author Bio
Yuwanda has written and self-published over 50 eBooks. If you found the info here insightful,  get more in the complete self-publishing profits package -- which will help you not only learn how to write an eBook in just a few days, but give you some in-depth eBook marketing tips that will help you start getting sales within a week – really!