Obviously, that's a great question. If anyone could accurately determine salability of an e-book before it was written, that person could be a billionaire. Every aspiring author would hire him, or her, to judge their idea.

The truth is, there is no guaranteed way to 100% accurately test an idea for an e-book before you actually begin to sell it. Yes, you can run ads for your e-book and see if it will fly or not. But that's not totally accurate. Or guaranteed. And if people buy and you don't deliver that e-book within 30 days, it's also illegal.

But there *is* a way to massively improve odds of your e-book being something public will want. This is something you can do right now, before you write a word of your e-book.

Let me explain this system to you:

I researched 1800s to write my book on P.T. Barnum.

I researched 1920s to write my book on Bruce Barton.

I researched last 150 years to write my book on ads.

And I've been researching ancient Roman history to write a forthcoming book on old world marketing practices. What I discovered in most unforgettable way is that in every era, people wanted exact same things.

People never change. They will always have same basic desires. Technology will change. People won't. Today we have e-books. That's a new technology. Yet what people want to read in those e-books will remain same as always. Human desires are hard-wired into our DNA.

That's good. By knowing what people want, you can profit from their desires. And since their desires are predictable, your ability to make money from your ideas just got a lot more bankable, as well.

So, what exactly do people want to read about?

First, top three general categories are these: Food, sex, and money.

There will *always* be a market for new cookbooks, new books on love, and new books on ways to make money. That will never change. Ever. So if you have an idea that fits in one of those categories---and if it's a new spin on existing ideas---you may have a wining race horse.

Second, Jim Edwards and I identified TOP Ten tried and true subjects for e-books in our own e-book, "How to Write and Publish Your Own e-Book in as little as 7 Days."

Our own research proves these ten resaons are just as reliable as three more general ones that I discovered. These are subjects people will *always* want to know about. Since those subjects are listed in our e-book, I won't discuss them here.

I always knew something like this could happen, but never thought it would happen to me... and so soon! I have only released my e-book a few months ago, and already "digital pirates" went to work.

E-book theft is biggest fear authors have, especially if they are working on their very first e-book, their "baby". Most new authors take months writing their e-books, and are worried that as soon as their e-book "hits" Web, it will be stolen, copied, illegally sold, or even given away.

I. How exactly does an e-book get stolen?

Sharing computer files between friends, family members and colleagues is not a new concept. People have been doing it for decades. But now that they can do it remotely, number of files shared (e-books and software) has greatly increased.

This is not authors' main concern, though.

It's people who get their hands on your e-book and make money reselling it to others in some shape or form. An e-book may be copied, re-written, extracted from, packaged with other e-books, and illegally sold on thieves' web sites.

The worst case, though, is when a thief decides to really make a big chunk of money on your e-book and offers Resale Rights to his customers. This simply means that anybody who buys your e-book from him will also be "allowed" to resell it to others.

Now Internet is literally flooded with your e-book, and you begin to notice a huge drop in sales AND your income. Every author's worst nightmare.

II. Why would anyone risk getting caught?

While e-books are extremely easy to publish, they are just as easy to steal. "Digital pirates" know it, and take this risk in exchange for making a few bucks (well, actually "my" thief claimed to have made over $10,000 selling my e-books. To this day I don't know if this is accurate, but I am sure it turned out quite profitable for him).

Most people who steal other people's digital products have no respect or appreciation for hard work and talent it takes to produce a quality product. "You put a few words together and now charging $50 for it!", complained thief in one of his messages to me. (How ironic - I thought it was my place to complain!)

An e-book is mostly prone to theft when 2 things are true:

a) The topic is hot and in demand, so it will be easy to make money selling it.

b) If you sell Master Reprint Rights to your e-book, which makes it difficult to track who resells it legally and who has not paid for rights to sell it.

(See more about Reprint Rights at: http://www.firstbusinesswebsite.com/articles/reprint_rights.html)

III. What steps to take when it happens to you?

If you have just discovered that your e-book is being illegally sold on another web site, stop. Take a deep breath. Has your e-book been really stolen? Go through this list to rule each situation out:

a) You sold Reprint Rights to this person and forgot about it b) This merchant simply sells a demo version of your e-book c) This merchant has purchased Reprint Rights from one of your authorized reseller (who holds Master Rights to your e-book) d) The e-book has a similar title and content, but is not YOUR e-book. e) The seller may be not aware that he is infringing on your rights, and is selling your e-book by mistake (this is only case if you offer Reprint Rights to your e-book)

If you ruled every item on this list, it's time to take action.

1) Find out name of person who is reselling your e-book. You can do this by doing a "Whois" search on Network Solutions web site (www.netsol.com). The search will reveal to you name of person who registered domain name for illegal site, his e-mail address, mailing address, and a phone number. There is no guarantee that this information is 100% accurate, but it's worth a try.

Your perpetrator's web site may also contain his name and e-mail address. Your first step is to send him a polite but firm message. Ask for an explanation, and wait 24 hours for his reply. If you do not get a response, or he refuses to remove your e-book from his web site, move on to next step.

2) Find out name of hosting company, domain name registrar, and Internet Service Provider (ISP). The hosting company may be listed under Technical Contact when you do "Whois" search, or under "Domain Servers" at bottom of listing. It may look something like this: NS181.PAIR.COM. Enter this address into your Internet browser location bar and you will see that this site belongs to www.Pair.com.

The ISP may be located right in person's e-mail address. For example, if e-mail is jsmith@earthlink.com, then ISP is Earthlink.com. If web address is hosted by a free hosting company (e.g. www.tripod.com/members/~jsmith) then grab phone number of their customer service or even a fraud department.

Contact as many of these agencies as possible to inform them of situation. Firmly ask them to suspend their services for this client. Always be calm and polite in your first message.