Question to tut writers
 

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to set up your pdf for sale so that when someone pays with paypal through your website or etsy that the pdf is automatically sent to the buyer instead of you having to manually email it?
Thanks
Jessica

When you purchase from my blog, once you pay via paypal, it will lead you to an instant download. (You still need to click to download it tho, it's not automatically emailed to you.) I LOVE it! I used to have to manually email them and customers get impatient especially on the weekends (I am not tied to the computer as I do during my day job).

I use e-junkie:
http://www.e-junkie.com/?r=57804

You can do it through your website by having Paypal redirect the buyer to the download page, but I don't think there is a way to do it through Etsy.

Okay, so how do you set it up as a download, is it through paypal or your own website? Sorry, I do know my way around a computer but this is new to me. I want to write a tutorial or two but I also don't want to be tied to my computer all day. Thank you so much for all your help!

Jessica, if you are interested in using e-junkie (it's $5 a month), it has very good information on its website on how to upload your tutorials, set up pricing, choose the payment method (e.g. paypal), etc. etc. You will get a shopping card html to put on your website or blog to sell the items. Mine is set up on my blog, link is in my siggy line if you want to see how it's set up.

Hope this helps.

I used a different auto-downloader called direct product delivery but they all work pretty much the same.

You upload a copy of your file to their server. They can generate html code for buttons to put on your website. These buttons are integrated with PayPal. When someone purchases a tutorial, they click the 'buy now' button. They are taken to paypal to pay. After payment they are redirected to their automatic download page where they can instantly download their file.

It's pretty easy and reliable. I had very very few problems with people downloading their files and they almost always involved unconfirmed paypal addresses.

I never figured out how to work it with Etsy (not sure it's even possible) so I still manually emailed those.

Worked great for my website sales though.

There are lots of handlers for this.
~~Mary

Thank you so much everyone!!! I will look into these.
Jessica

I've only sent mine manually, and probably will continue to do so. I like to personalize each email with the buyer's name.

Thanks Sherry! I'd like to be able to do that as well. How do you handle it if you are going to be away from your computer for a day or two?

For me personally, I would rather have the instant gratification of getting the pdf downloaded right after I paid for it than a personalized email. I have purchased many tutorials and frankly can't even remember that the email from Sherry was addressed to me.

Others may feel differently however.

With e-junkie, you compose your own email (it's not personalized tho) stating how many downloads within a certain time frame, etc.

I think that is spot-on, Sherry. I quit using the auto-downloader because it made me feel disconnected. It worked just like it was supposed to, and if I were going away for a few days or something I would use it again and then send thank you notes when I got home...but I'm online so much people were only waiting a few hours at the most so I quit using it as a normal delivery method.

I ended up having to send twice as many emails when I used it because the person would buy the item, they would get a paypal email receipt of their payment, then they would get a backup email from my digital delivery people, then if they didn't get it they had to email me, then I had to email them back...and if they did get it fine, I had to go back through emails to find them and send a thank you. These buyers were getting 4-6 emails per transaction (not all directly from ME...but still).

It was less work just to send the files myself. I only did it so people wouldn't have to wait if they ordered it while I was sleeping or something, but it just felt funny.

I started doing it because I had one person ream me out because they had already been waiting 20 minutes for their tutorial...where the he** was it? I thought there was no way I could keep up with that kind of speed expectation but it turned out to be a pretty isolated sentiment. Most everybody is patient and understanding that we are all human.

Hugs.
~~Mary

Interesting, Mary, I have never had a single issue with customers not getting their instant download since I started using e-junkie since April.

The only problem I had was when someone paid with an e-check and when it clears days later, she couldn't access the download since I set the time frame to 2 days. Since then, I keep an eye out for customers using e-checks and as soon as they clear, I email them the pdf just to be sure.

Hayley, I think out of all the transactions I had through DPD, there were only a dozen total that had hangups. My problem wasn't really with them, it was with my paypal. I had it set to where I had to accept/deny payments from unconfirmed addresses. So if someone paid with an unconfirmed address, they would have to wait until I accepted/denied their payment before their download would go through.

Unfortunately, and I still never figured out why, paypal would say someone had an unconfirmed address even when it was confirmed. They even did this to ME twice. I tried to buy something on eBay the seller told me they don't ship to unconfirmed addresses- but I've been confirmed with paypal (and verified to boot) since I opened my account 8 years ago. It's nuts. Now my account is back to saying 'confirmed' even though I did nothing to fix it in the meantime. Wackos.

In a nutshell, I had to change the permissions on my account to accept payments whether they were confirmed or not because it was causing all kinds of problems.

The same thing would happen with echecks- but those are so rare I didn't even think of that.

Other than those instances, I can't think of any time when a download didn't go through and it was always paypal's (technically MY) hangup- not the download delivery service.


Another reason I changed is because I wanted to be able to sell the printed book, the CD or the pdf version of the tutorials all with the same shopping cart button and I couldn't do that with the processor I had. When I switched over I just discontinued the auto downloads. Most of the tutorials I sell anymore are all through etsy anyway and those never were automatic.

If I were still selling 20 tutorials a day through my site I might have kept the digital download a bit longer just so people wouldn't have to wait. As a BUYER- I would be all over the auto-download. I love instant gratification. As a SELLER- even then I liked it- it did the job. I just wanted to be more hands-on because I felt like it was getting away from me a little bit. Just a personal feeling.

~~Mary

Mary - I really appreciate your taking the time to clarify. By no mean was my post a criticism on how you do business!

I run the business aspect of my glass venture like my graphic design business - although I make beads on the weekends (pretty much the only time I can), I take the days off from the transaction part. It's clearly stated on my venues that pdf purchases will be emailed within one business day after payment is completed. Even tho I never adhere to that completely and have always sent the pdf out on the weekends if I am around the computer. . .

I have had customers who purchased something late Friday or early Saturday and sent an email, an etsy convo AND a LE pm if I didn't email the pdf within a few hours. After that happened a few times, I decided to go with instant download.

I still have my Silver Exchange e-Booklets on both Etsy and ArtFire so I do occasionally have to manually email them. But my Swirl e-book is only sold on my blog and I can't be happier!

Oh, no Hayley, I didn't take it as a criticism at all. I mainly wanted to clarify so I wouldn't scare anyone away from using an auto-downloader even though I had quit using mine. I was just explaining why I made the choices I made so other people could maybe anticipate what their needs would be a little better.

It's all good.
;-)
~~Mary

You and I are definitely on the same page then, Mary! I also wanted to share my experience so others may make decision understanding the pros and cons!

Cool!

In fact, this hasn't happened yet; I've carted my trusty old laptop with me everywhere!

I'm going to be "off the grid" in August for a week or so, and I'm going to suspend the listing, with an explanatory note, giving my return date.

Hayley, it's entirely possible that it wasn't....especially if it was one of the earlier copies sent. For that I apologise, it was a steep learning curve for me, and for the first while I was just sending them out so fast that it was clogging my (pathetic) server.

Once things calmed down a bit I started personalizing each email, but if the Paypal info only gives a business name, I use a generic email. I just feel weird saying: "Hello, AcmeBeadatorium!" or whatever, it doesn't sound sincere.

Thanks everyone! Sherry that is a good idea just to suspend the listing if you are away from your computer. I would hate for someone to have problems when I wasn't around to fix them!

Sherry - no apology is needed! All I was saying was that I never even read the email . . . just too anxious to check out the pdf! lol!