PDF to Post – Is it possible?
The other day I got thinking that I would really like to change the delivery of my e book WordPress For Internet Marketers from a digital download to an online site.
Here’s why I had that little thought
The problem, from my point of view, with an ebook that is 950 pages long is that it is a nightmare to update. WordPress changes quite frequently. New versions of WordPress come out, new plugins come out, new themes are released, tips and tricks are discovered. Of course, I could update the ebook to include all this information but the problem is it would be an ongoing task and then, of course, it will need to be resent to all buyers…. constantly.
Wouldn’t it be easier if the information was available up- to-date and online? I think so, but I’m happy to hear comments.
Of course, there’s a problem
While I might want to put the book online that will involve something that I’m not keen on at all ….boring and repetitive work, as I cut and paste my way through the 950 pages. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. Yes, I know what you are thinking hire someone to cut and paste for me but I will still need to edit all those pages myself so it’s still ………WORK!
So I got thinking
There must be a simpler way of doing this. Surely there’s a way of either bulk uploading Word documents (or Open Office) and they magically turn into posts or if not bulk uploading PDF documents and they magically appear as posts.
So I asked a coder friend
Sadly, he said Word would be way too difficult but Open Office or PDF might be possible if you understand the .net framework. Thanks anyway Spanky 
Well, I don’t have a clue what .net framework is (the only .net I know are domain extensions) so I asked a software expert. Yep, that’s right I asked Jon Leger who has quite a few products that you might be familiar with like The Best Spinner (my personal fave), Unique Article Wizard, Tip Drop, 1 Way Links, 3 Way Links, 7 Dollar script, Web Comp Analyst (another fave) and probably a ton I’ve forgotten. He’s pretty qualified to answer my little question Well, faster than speeding light, Jon got back to me with a couple of suggestions for apps that will read a pdf and work with .net.
After having a look at the suggestions (which looked like gobbley gook to me) I thought that there still must be a way to do this more easily with WordPress for someone that does not speak pure geek and only WP geek. Surely, I’m not the only person on the planet that wants to convert a pdf to posts? Am I?
What’s on offer in the repository
My plan B was to have a look at the plugins on offer already in the WordPress market place. Just as an aside, I always like to have a plan B and I always am looking for solutions to problems.
Well no surprises there ….
The plugins available that I found are:
Embeddable Google Documents viewer
Issu (by the way the Issu site is well worth looking into – super sexy way to get links for some of your newsletters)
Out of the plugins that I’ve found (and feel free to tell me any I’ve left out!) not one of them presents a solution to my particular problem. The problem with the Google plugins is, of course, I have to convert the whole thing to Google Documents first. Again, sounds like a lot of WORK to me! The problem with SCRIBD and WordPress PDF is that they are embedding pdfs so the information has to be current and up to date. This means that it has to be changed first in Word, converted to PDF and then embedded. When the information changes the process has to start again. It’s not that I’m lazy …..truly but it really does sound like WORK!
What to do now?
I detest not having a solution to my problem at my fingertips! It really, really annoys me but there’s always a plan C. Plan C involves waiting …. maybe one of you guys know the solution????, asking my coders for a workaround and trying out the plugins that I’ve already found. In the meantime, maybe I’ll discover that WORK is good
Enjoy
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My name is Leanne King and I'm an Australian internet marketer and WordPress fantatic. I share my knowledge of WordPress here on my blog, through my products, private coaching and in private forums. In my spare time I like to develop products for WordPress users that are easy to use.
Readers' Comments
a membership site..fixed term would work. Your content is rock solid.
art on February 18th, 2010 at 19:02
Thanks Art you are a star
Now I just need to figure the smart quick way of how to do it!
admin on February 19th, 2010 at 4:15
The easiest way I can see (and I’m not sure on the details), but if you have the book as an OpenOffice document, you could export to HTML. Then parse the result(s) and import into the wordpress database… You’d have to have the parser written by someone though. And this solution wouldn’t categorize or tag your new posts/pages…
Scott on February 19th, 2010 at 22:58
Hey Scott that’s a great idea. I’m going to look into that a bit more! THANK YOU
admin on February 20th, 2010 at 6:49
RT @Leanne_King: [New Post] PDF to Post – Is it possible? http://www.wpqueen.com/wordpress-plugins... #wordpress
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paulmilford on March 1st, 2010 at 1:49
Hi Leanne,
I agree with Art about starting a membership site. It doesn’t have to be fixed term necessarily though, especially if you feel that you will be constantly updating the info. Afterall, any info. based on changing technology lends itself to continuous update, especially if the person maintaining the information wants to keep readers in-the-know. I would mention that the member would be paying to access not only to the ebook as it is now, but for all updates and additions as well. In otherwords, if you were ever to release version 2 of the ebook with updates, members would not have to purchase it as they would have access via your membership site as long as they paid for continued access. Unless information in the ebook that needs updating would be misleading or cause issues for your readers if you released it as-is right now, you could put up the membership site, release parts of the book on the site at intervals (a chapter/section each week or month, etc), then release the updates as additional modules/sections for the members. Or, you could do as I have outlined here, editing the information in the book as it becomes time for that section to be released on the site. This would give you time to spread all of the dreaded work out over time. If you got ambitious and knocked out a bunch of update edits at once, you would just have some of your membership site releases ready ahead of time.
You could charge people a monthly fee or a one time lifetime fee. The only thing I would suggest is that you provide a much reduced or free way for people who already paid for your ebook to access the membership site. Given that your existing ebook has so many pages, if you released sections of these pages at weekly intervals, you would have plenty of time to write updates and additional information for later release.
Yaro Starak is actually an expert on this subject. I read his blog all the time. He actually has a membership site wherein he teaches people how to create a successful membership site. I haven’t done it yet, but hope to soon. It is not cheap, but from what I have read, is worth it. That I am aware of, he has 2 or 3 successful membership sites going. And for the record, I have nothing to do with Yaro at present (am not an affiliate, don’t work for him), I am just a fan. Hope this info helps. If you have any questions about what I have said here, you can email me. Good luck:)
Tracy on June 21st, 2010 at 10:30
Hi Tracy, thanks for your feedback!
My customers had a choice to get upgrades and most chose that option. I don’t have any intention of charging another fee for people to access the online version because I’m just changing the delivery format.
Having a membership site just makes it easier to update the content and gives people a means of accessing the new delivery method. One day I will dive into membership sites but not with my baby
admin on June 22nd, 2010 at 0:42