Make Money Online From Your Own Ebook

Ebooks have been extremely popular for a long time and don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. If there is a subject you’re searching for, no matter how obscure, there is a strong chance that an ebook has been written on it. You might wonder why there are so many ebooks being written every day, even in highly competitive niches like “work at home” – “make money online” – “internet marketing” and many others. Why do people keep writing these? Hasn’t all the information already been covered?

The reason so many new ebooks come out all the time is because they are relatively easy to create, they tend to sell well, there’s always people looking for more information on a topic, and the ebook author stands a good chance at making a lot of money from their efforts. Sounds like some damn good reasons to write one if you ask me!

Even in this digital age, much of the market for ebooks is still surprisingly untapped. You would think by now that every topic would have been fully covered but there is still more than enough room for new ebooks and plenty of opportunities to make money online selling them.

Anyone looking get into making money online via ebooks should definitely not be discouraged by the amount of ebooks out there already being sold because there are plenty of great niches that are still largely untapped. Even in the big time competitive niches like “make money online” you can always expand on topics and improve on existing ebooks with new information and strategies.

Don’t ever be afraid to get specific with your topics. As a matter of fact, targeting very specific sub-niches is one of the best ways to succeed as an internet marketer and ebook publisher. When you write an ebook on a specific sub-niche, you could then follow up with one on a related niche, and sooner than later, you could have a massive empire of hot niche ebooks that make money for you all the time.

Think creating an ebook is hard?

It’s actually a lot easier then you might think! Here are the basic steps of creating a new ebook:

1 – The first thing you should do is research the niche to make sure there is a market for it. You don’t want to waste your time on an ebook that isn’t going to sell. If you find that it is a good niche then move on to step two.

2 – Find a couple of related ebooks to get an idea of what information has already been covered, how the author presented the information and what you can do to make your ebook better.

3 – Research the topic to get ideas, facts, and information for the ebook. Even if you think you already know everything there is to know about the topic, you should still do this to ensure accuracy of your information.

4 – Open up MSWord and write, write, write. Don’t worry about much of anything here except getting the words typed.

5 – Now go back and edit, format, spell check, etc… Have a friend go over it too so you can get a second opinion on everything. Add some graphics and a header and footer to make it look more professional.

6 – Covert it to .pdf

7 – Write the sales letter. Or hire a good copywriter to do this for you. This is probably the most important part for getting sales and making money, so you definitely want to make sure you have good sales copy.

8 – Write the affiliate page and any other pages you will have (tos, disclaimer, faq, etc…)

9 – Get the site up and put it all together.

10 – Set it up on clickbank or whatever you are going to use for payment processor.

11 – Market like a madman!

Marketing your ebook is a whole other lesson in itself. There are many ways to market online and you should take the time to learn all about internet marketing so you can maximize your profits. There’s plenty of information to help you with that right here on this blog, so you don’t have to go far.

One good way to get started is to search for facebook groups and forums that relate to the subject you wrote about, become a member of them, and take the time to answer questions and establish yourself as a credible resource on the subject. You can also politely offer free copies of your ebook to reputable members of the forum to get some testimonials and hopefully some affiliates selling it.

Writing and selling your own ebook is one of the best ways to make money online. Getting one created and up for sale is not a difficult task. It will take some time but almost anyone can do it. The hardest part is getting traffic to the sales page and converting it into sales. So you will definitely need to learn all about internet marketing and conversion rate optimization before you will be successful at making money from your own ebook.

Get started right now!

Not Using PLR? You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

I can’t believe how many internet marketers think that PLR is a waste of money. They don’t have a clue what a gold mine good PLR really is. Well, if you’re one of those who think that PLR is just a waste of your hard earned cash, then you might want to read this article. I promise you that by the time you are done with it, you will have changed your mind completely.

PLR stands for Private Label Rights, but you already knew that. What you probably don’t know is that PLR is one of the most misunderstood and misused items in internet marketing today. That’s right… people just don’t know how to use it properly.

The reason is because they think they can just pull it out of the box as is, slap it up on their web site and sell it… WRONG! That is the worst way to use your PLR material.

See, people think that the value of PLR is that the writing has already been done for you. Again, WRONG. The real value of PLR is that the RESEARCH has been done for you. That’s where the true worth comes in.

Think about it. You decide that you want to break into a new niche, say health. Maybe you want to write about acne. Well, you don’t know anything about it, so what do you have to do? Well, for starters, you have to do research… tons of it.

What’s tons?

You have to find out what acne is, what causes it, what the standard treatments are and so on. This research can take you days if not weeks. By the time you get around to actually creating your product, you’ve wasted one month of your life.

Why do I say wasted?

Because let’s just say that you find a PLR product on acne where all of this information, all this research, has already been done for you. What is then left for YOU to do?

I’ll tell you what… almost nothing.

Notice I said almost. See, you do have to rewrite the PLR slightly and make some other minor changes, but the time you will spend doing this is nothing next to the amount of time you would have had to spend doing the initial research.

This is basically the misunderstanding that people have about PLR. You can’t just buy it and sell it. But by following a simple procedure, you can turn your PLR into absolute gold.

How so?

A friend of mine recently purchased some PLR content for $25 then turned around and made well over $2,000 from it in less than a week, simply by doing a few rewrites.

That’s just one small example. There are thousands more!

Video Is Bigger Than I Thought

I have to admit it, I miscalculated. I knew video marketing was growing, but I had no idea it was THIS big. I’m going to give you some examples of what I’m talking about in a second. But trust me on this, if you’re not using video in some way to promote your business, you’re missing out big time.

Okay, now for the examples:

First let me start off by saying that I usually get most of my traffic and sales from article marketing and blogging simply because I do write a lot and I am good at it. Problem is, it’s a time consuming process. Sure, there are voice to text technologies that can make it go a little faster, but it still takes time to compose an article or blog post.

Well, not to long ago, I started getting into videos. I began with one that was simply for fun. It was a video of me teaching my (mythical) “son” about article marketing.

But then I started getting into more serious videos and I started a series called the “Real Truth About Making Money Online.” This series has gotten quite a few visitors with very little promotion. It really doesn’t take a lot to get videos seen because YouTube is so big these days. Basically just putting up a video and doing just a little promotion is going to get you views. And if your videos get picked up by other sites, well, that’s just a bonus.

I also made a video of me playing the guitar and I’ve actually gotten some pretty cool feedback on that one.

Point is, by doing all these videos (I think I’ve done about 20 so far) I am beginning to make a name for myself as a video marketer, which in my opinion is just another name for an internet marketer who does videos. Now, if you do videos that are good quality, well, you’ve got it made because these are gold.

But why? Why are videos gold, especially if you’re physically in them?

The reason is recognition and credibility. See, when somebody can actually see who you are, they’re more likely to trust what you have to say. Let’s face it, the internet can be a scary place and it’s hard to tell who you can trust and who you have to stay away from. Video makes this process a little easier for the prospect, especially if you come across as genuine and sincere, and actually give some value in your videos. On top of that, you can put a link to your website in the description for the added bonus of more traffic and sales.

So, if you really want to increase your online earnings, get into video marketing and start creating videos around the topics your business is about.

How You Run Your Business Is A Reflection On You

I really don’t like going on rants but every now and then I have no choice. In spite of the fact that I have adopted a brand new “what me worry” attitude, it still bugs me when people don’t run their business in a professional manner. Without naming names, because that’s just not cool, I’m going to relate a true story and in doing so, show you an example of what NOT to do.

I purchased a product a while ago. It was supposed to be for one price with no recurring charges. Well, it turned out that the old sales page was never changed and in fact, this was a recurring charge. Well, I was pretty upset about this, but because the sales page was in error, the person did eventually agree to give me access for a year. Well, better than nothing anyway.

But it doesn’t end there. See, then, a month goes by and my year long membership lapsed for some reason. So I had to write again and he fixed it. Okay, that’s cool. In the meantime, I had made an affiliate sale for this product (after he fixed the page) so that people would know it was a recurring charge. Well, I made the sale but then, after my account lapsed and was reinstated, my sale disappeared. Guess what? You got it…Another email.

I’m now waiting for response to this one.

Tell me…do you think I’m happy? I can’t remember the last time I had to go through so much with one merchant. Do you think I’ll purchase another product from this person? Do you think I’ll promote another product for this person?

And the sad thing is, the product is kick ass. It’s one of the best products for what it does that I have seen. But the guy just doesn’t run a very tight ship and I have no tolerance for that. I probably lost a commission, unless he can somehow resurrect the records. But even if he can, the experience has been less than pleasant and quite honestly, I have enough headaches without having to deal with somebody who has so many problems.

Point is, if you run a business, like it or not, customers are going to judge you NOT only by the product you sell but by how you run your operation and your customer service. I personally pride myself on my customer service and expect no less from those who I deal with.

You should expect no less and give no less.

Six Offline Marketing Tactics for Your Online Home Based Business

We all know how powerful the internet is for marketing our home based businesses but the internet is not the only way to market your online home business. There are plenty of ways to market, advertise, and promote your business offline as well.

Here are six very good ways to market your internet home based business offline:

1. Business Cards – Every business person should have a business card, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Just because you have a home business or online business doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a business card. Even a basic, simple business card will at least help the people you network with to remember you when they go about their business, and give them a means for contacting you if they need to.

Even better than a basic, simple card, however, is a unique, eye-catching business card that makes a very good impression and is memorable to anyone who has it. A business card is a necessity, and that’s why every business person should have one.

By spending a little extra money to design an attention-grabbing logo, use a colored background, add a slogan or a catchy quote, and maybe even add a small photo of yourself so people who have your card can easily recall who gave it to them – you can maximize the benefits of having your own business card.

2. Giveaways – Everyone loves free stuff, especially when it’s cool free stuff. And if you hadn’t noticed how nearly every big company utilizes this winning marketing strategy, then you must be walking around with blinders on. Giving away freebies to potential customers is actually a tried-and-true method of attracting new customers for your home based business, both online and offline. Just make sure that whatever you give away has some obvious association with your company or product, even if it’s nothing more than your company name engraved, embossed, or otherwise emblazoned on the giveaway item. Otherwise people are liable to forget who gave it to them, no matter how much they love it.

3. Events – Sponsor an event. An excellent way to get the word out about your home based business is to sponsor events happening in your market. Consider intramural activities, sporting events, charity fundraising drives, concerts, popular workshops and seminars – the list goes on and on. Find out what events people who fit your target market are attending, and offer to help sponsor it.

Often you’ll even get your home business’s name printed on any advertising and promotional materials and souvenirs/memorabilia for said event – be they signs, t-shirts, hats, flyers, programs, etc. Associating yourself with an event that people attend for fun and enjoyment is a particularly effective (and unobtrusive) way to spread the word about your home business.

4. Classifieds – Believe it or not, people still read the newspaper. And just as it always has been, the classifieds section is consistently one of the most frequently and popularly read. As a small home-based business-person, you probably don’t have the money to put towards display ads in the rest of paper. Why even bother trying to afford that outrageous expense when the “big leaguers” already have that part of the market dominated? But the classifieds are still the place for small and home business. Just peruse your local classifieds and you’ll see what we mean.

5. Fliers – Post fliers in supermarkets, sign posts, in parking lots under windshield wipers, anywhere you can. This can be a great way to spread the word about your home business offline without spending very much money. But make sure you have permission first! You don’t want to get fined or piss off your potential customers with unwanted advertising.

A particularly good way to use fliers to build business is to hand them out at large public events. The personal touch adds an extra kicker to the effect of the ad, especially if you’re friendly and smiling when you hand them out.

6. Word-of-mouth – Never underestimate the power of a personal recommendation. Nothing spreads word about a worthwhile business faster than simple word of mouth. Ask your friends, family, and current customers to tell people about your business. All it takes is a few people to start talking about your business and it could turn into thousands of new customers.

So, there you go, six ways to take your online business to the offline world. Give them a try and see how much more money you make this year!