Are 'How to Sell on Etsy' eBooks the Way To Go?

I have a confession to make: I have some of those 'How to Sell on Etsy' eBooks.

When I first opened up shop on Etsy (www.BellissimaMinerals.etsy.com), I was approached by an eBook seller who inititated a trade offer (I know now that trades are quite popular and encouraged on Etsy, and it's done with such spirit of community, they're hard to resist!). And since it was my first 'sale', I didn't want to say no - and in all honesty, I didn't yet know how to say 'no' to a trade. And so I received 4 eBooks in exchange for a few bars of soap (I was proud of myself, however, for having the forethought to collect the cost of shipping so I wasn't paying out of pocket on a trade).

Having sold on eBay and my own website for many years, I thought I had all the basics down. And I do, but I was in for a big surprise. Etsy is different. Etsy just seemed completely alien from all the other online sales venues - and the forums/virtual labs/chat rooms were quite intimidating to me. Etsy is a very tight community, and I felt kind of like the kid who transferred to a new school halfway through Senior year.

And so I avidly read my Ebooks - cover to cover. To my great surprise, they helped me out - a lot. They gave detailed instructions on how to fine tune my shop, enable google analytics, even set up an RSS feed for Twitter. I got a crash course in everthing etsy, from taking great pics to snagging treasuries as well as lots of ideas on how to promote my shop. I even received instructions on how to develop YouTube videos to spotlight my products and drive traffic to my store. The tips, hints and tricks he offered are all things that are second nature to me now and many of the topics he covered have been brought up in the Etsy forums now and again, but having them all at my fingertips - right then and there - was priceless.

And this seller was helpful, friendly and willing to answer any questions I had. He stayed available to me throughout the whole process, checking in with me to ensure that the downloads were successful, that the information was valuable and that I understood the material. Now, this was my first experience with eBooks, but I'm truly - and very happily - suprised that part of his follow-up was to make sure I found value in the books. This is customer service at it's finest when it comes to intellectual property, if you ask me.

Not every eBook Seller is going to offer such quality info, nor are they all as friendly and conscientious as the one I worked with. I didn't think eBooks were 'my thing', but I gained a lot of insight into Etsy from the books - and they went above and beyond to enhance my 'newbie' experience.

EBooks definitely arent for everyone, but I have to admit that I genuinely enjoyed my first encounter with them.