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Want to sell downloadable e-books or audio books from a WordPress website using PayPal (not credit cards)? Then check out the easy-to-use and free WordPress plugin, Simple WP Shopping Cart.

At Tips and Tricks HQ you can watch a video explaining how to set up this plugin, once it’s installed.

To install the WP Shopping Cart plugin you can go to its home page, left click on the “download” button, unzip the downloaded folder, and then upload it by FTP to the plugins folder of your WordPress files. That plugins folder is found inside the “wp-content” folder of your WordPress files, and those are generally found inside a folder labeled "wp".

Here’s a much easier way to install the Simple WP Shopping Cart plugin:

• First, log in to the back end of your WordPress website.
• Hover your cursor over the name of your site, found in the top left of your screen, and click on “Dashboard” in the drop-down menu.
• Hover your cursor over "plugins" at the left margin, then left click on "installed plugins".
• Left click on the "add new" button at the top of that page, and type into the search window, "Simple PayPal Cart" and press the "search plugins" button.
• In the list which comes up, scroll down to "WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart" and under that entry, left click on "install now". The plugin will install. Click on "activate plugin".

You might also want to install another plugin, the UI for WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart plugin, which makes setting up your selling pages a little easier. However, the steps in the how-to video above are quite clear, so you may not need to install that second plugin. Your call.

To sell downloadable products you will first need to learn how to use an FTP (file transfer protocol) application, because that’s what enables you to place your products on a server (from which they can then be downloaded by customers). This CyberKenBlog post explains how to install and use the free FTP application, CORE light (for Windows).

Please note that the byte size of an audio book is likely to be very large, so you might want to sell your audio books by chapters, which will decrease files sizes and download times. If you want to sell audio books in their entirety, suggest to your customers that they use BitTorrent for downloading.

Related articles

• Best Shopping Carts for WordPress
• Best WordPress Plugins

Image via CrunchBase

Below, in eight easy steps, is how to post a book review at Amazon.com. Happy customers sell products, and unhappy customers protect other consumers from unsafe or unworthy ones.  So, your review is counts!

1. Log into Amazon.com.  If you don’t have an account there, open one.  It’s free.
2. When you are signed in to Amazon.com, go to the page of the book you want to review.  You can find that page by typing its title into the search window at the top of the page you are now on.
3. There may be several books listed bearing the title you searched for.  In this list, click on the link of the book you want to review.
4. This brings you to the page where you can buy and review that book. If someone else has already reviewed the book you will see a link to his/her review directly below the book title.  There may be more than one review.
   If no reviews for that book have been posted yet, you will see a link that says “Be the first to review this book”.  Click on that link.
5. If at least one review has already been posted, click on the link to see those reviews.  On the page that comes up you will find a button that says “Create your own review”.  Click on that button.
6. Give the book a rating by clicking on a star (one star is very poor, five stars is top rated).
7. Type your review into the text window.  Actually, it’s a good idea to have typed your review beforehand in another application. You can copy and paste it from there onto your clipboard and paste it from your clipboard into the review’s text window.  That way, if you take a long time composing your work, you won’t lose what you’ve written if the Amazon site times out.
8. Once you have entered your review into the text window, click on the “preview” button at the bottom of the page.  This will show you how your review will appear on Amazon.com, among the list of other reviews.  If you are satisfied, click on the “publish” button.  Otherwise, click on the “edit” button and continue to perfect your review.

Now that you know how to do it, please post a review of my ebook, Double Exposure:  A Veteran Returns to Vietnam.  It’s a memoir of 22 exciting and provocative reflections about my combat tour in Vietnam in 1970, my return to Vietnam as a tourist last February, and memories in between. It’s a good read for veterans.  Click on the book cover above to get the book at Amazon.com.