I've been writing a technical book, but after Chapter 1 I realised that it would be more useful to people as a searchable online resource.

I imagine that the customer subscribes and can then search the content for solutions.

So my question is how do I protect online content and charge monthly for access to the content. Is there a service I can use, or script or...?

In practice the content will be created by H&M HTML output, so I probably only need to protect access to a directory.

Member Avatar for iamthwee

Once payment has been processed you send them a link to the content. The content might be stored in the db so it won't be searchable by online resources.

Several content management systems, such as wordpress and joomla have modules you can use to mark pages as only available to subscribers (and to provide some pages marked as free to view that contain a free section from some of your content, so users can see if it is worth paying to get at your content).

Some of these modules / plugins are free as well. Just like Wordpress and joomla.

Install one, get members to pay a subscription, and put most of your content on the subscribers only pages.

Simples.

Have you never seen this done on a professional blog before? A pay to learn site?

Member Avatar for iamthwee

Thats a good point.

I have my own site (Click Here) and have written technical books, but this is the first time I'm thinking of making a tehchical book "online". Those are good ideas joomla and wordpress, I'll investigate further, many thanks!

Simples!

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