Showing customers their purchased PDF books

[SaranacLake]

I am working on a website which sells various content, including books/guides in an online format.  A lot of people - including here - have stated that they wouldn't make a purchase on my site if I didn't also offer a PDF version of books/guides.  (I guess more people read offline than I do personally?!)

Right now, I am working on the ecommerce portion so people can browse a catalog, choose a book/guide, add it to their cart, and check out.  (Just your textbook ecommerce metaphors.)

After making a purchase, when someone logs in, then they can navigate to a gallery which contains thumbnails representing all of the books they have purchased.  And by clicking on a given thumbnail, they will be taken to that particular online book which is a series of linked web pages protected from outsiders behind a paywall. 

I am comfortable with all of this, however I'm stuck on what to do with the PDFs...

First off, when someone is in the Product Catalog picking out books and guides, should I give them the chance to specify if they want a PDF version, or should I just give everyone that buys a book/guide both access to the online book/guide PLUS the PDF version as well?

Next, for customers who get a PDF, how should I deliver it to them?

Do I make the PDF available when they navigate to their online book?

Do I build a second gallery which only shows PDFs that have been purchased?

Do I leave links to the PDFs up indefinitely, or should I just offer a one-time download?  And if so, how would I go about that?

In summary, something that seems so simple actually is very confusing the more I think about it.  This is probably because I have never bought online books or PDFs before and so I don;t have any examples in my mind to go off of.

Could definitely use some advice here, and am hoping this won't be as difficult as it currently seems?!

Thanks.

 

[Barand]

14 minutes ago, SaranacLake said:

or should I just give everyone that buys a book/guide both access to the online book/guide PLUS the PDF version as well?

That's what I would expect.

 

14 minutes ago, SaranacLake said:

Next, for customers who get a PDF, how should I deliver it to them?

Give them a link to download the PDF file/chapters (perhaps zipped)

 

15 minutes ago, SaranacLake said:

Do I leave links to the PDFs up indefinitely, or should I just offer a one-time download?

If I paid for expect I would expect access any time. Have a "Your Library" page where they can go to and view or download (as they want) stuff that the purchased.