Help! Are these sales statistics normal??

I've just set up a site with a couple hundred articles on it. I've researched and written all the articles myself so they are good quality. I've also written an ebook (also researched and written by myself).
In the last month, my unique visitors to the site jumped from like 30 a day to 200 a day.
Each of these 200 uniques are viewing on average 6-7 pages per visit making the average daily hits about 1200 -1400 (one day they hit 2000+). Therefore i'd conclude that the site is useful and engaging.
The problem is that i launched my ebook a couple of days ago and no ones bought it . I even bought the book myself through the site using my credit card to make sure the payment process was working - it was.
My ebook does have a market becuase there are other books in my market on other sites. However, most of these are 1 page sales letters with an ebook on them as opposed to my site which is a genuine resource site providing a good user experience. I've also priced my ebook similiar to them - $37

I've done TONS of research (2 solid years to be exact), I know what makes a good market, i know how to write decent sales copy, i know how to write easy to read articles (ie using bullet points and short paragraphs), i know all about pr sculpting (though my site pr is still on 0 as it's so new), i've done link building albeit white hat stuff such as article marketing and a bit of BMR.

According to my research, organic traffic (which is what my traffic is pretty much), should convert something like 1-2% (maybe 3% on a good day). Therefore, if i'm getting 200 uniques per day, doesn't that mean i should be getting about 4 sales per day???

I have my ebook advertised on each article of my site with a clickable picture of the ebook leading to the sales page. Currently each day about 80% of the visits are brand new, which basicaly means that approx 40 uniques are return visitors. This got me thinking today, i know customers have to recieve approx 6-8 exposures of your product on average before they buy. Does this mean that only the repeat visitors (ie the 40 uniques) are potential sales?? The thing is that just because a person returns once, doesn't mean they'll return 6-8 times to finally produce a sale.

How many sales in your opinion, should a site like mine with 200 uniques per day be making per day. I know 200 isn't alot but i would have thought it would have resulted in some sales especially as each unique is viewing 6-7 pages. I am hoping though that the site will increase to 1000 uniques and maybe beyond if i'm lucky.

Is it normal to be getting 0 sales at this stage in building a website?

Having 0 sales is probably the most normal thing on the web.

The outliers are the ones making the money. It depends a lot on your niche, but off the top of my head 37 bucks seems pretttty steep for an ebook. Personally I wouldn't pay a dime for an e-book but that's just me.

To address some points you asked:

6-8 exposures before you buy?

While this a genuine statistic that doesn't mean that ONLY repeat visitors are going to buy. I have experience in the banner-ad world and usually what you find is repeat visitors go "ad-blind" (or in your case e-book blind) and ignore your offers more than new visitors.

New visits are the cream of the crop so don't think they are any less valuable than repeats. It's not like the instant a person visits your site for the 8th time they automatically buy a book. THere's a lot more in the mix than the number of times they've returned.


1-2% Conversion Rate

Yeah so a load of your research told you this is a typical conversion rate? That's all well and good, but don't expect to automatically be eligible for this kind of conv. rate. Everyone starts at 0 and it takes A LOT OF WORK to even get to the 1-2% mark.

How many people click through to your offer form? (if it's on a seperate page and not sitting in the sidebar that is). From there how many people fill out the form partially or add it to their cart and then bail?

If both those answers are "nobody" then consider some extensive price or multivariate testing.

For price I would say try an offer that allows the first 10 folks who sign up for your e-book get it free.

If nobody even wants it for free there's a problem with the offer itself.

Also try some new prices - 20 bucks, 15 bucks, even go higher than that if you are really offering something good - the inflated price gives your book a little more "value" in the eyes of some.

It also never hurts to run some multivariate tests on the form itself, but if you haven't converted ANYONE it's gonna be hard to get any sort of legitimate test data.

But yeah stick with it and TEST TEST TEST!!

I would also ask what your click through rate is(how many people are going to the order form). If that number is high, what order form are you using. If your market is non techy, you better make sure your order form is user friendly and looks super secure. Some people are still afraid to give out their info online, believe it or not

Edit: and yeah, couldn't agree more with testing a lot. You also mentioned having hundreds of articles on your site, are the users finding the answers to their questions in all that mess, giving them no need for your book?

considering i'm selling a piece of software for $37, I think the price is the sticking point. An ebook would sell for nothing more than a standard $17 (with bonuses) if you are lucky. you also want to look at where you get your traffic from. It takes aprox. 1000 exposures before one sale. And an average individual in a niche will likely need to see your offer a bunch of times, before they buy depending on how good your copy is.

I see alot of people selling Ebooks, and I always wonder why they don't offer it on publish-on-demand sites like Lulu as well as on Kindle.
Not only does this give you another revenue stream, but it increases the levels of trust, and increases your chances of getting a sale (plenty of people like me who work on computers for a living and don't really want to read PDF's on their time off )

If you don't have one yet, get an account at an autoresponder and start building a list. There are a bunch of way you can capture leads. This is important. Also consider raising the price of your product. If your price is the same as your competitors, differentiate yourself. Charge more.