How To Sell And Market Your Own Ebooks

You must have noticed that these days ebooks have transformed into one of the best viral marketing tools. Almost anyone can write their own ebooks and either give them away for free or sell them for a very reasonable price. In fact, selling or giving them away is the very first question you have to ask yourself when you decide to write your own ebooks.

So what is it, sell them or give them away?

The benefit of selling your ebooks, of course, is that you can take nearly all of the money for yourself. On the other hand, giving them away for free does have its own merit in that it gives your blog or website more exposure and therefore more traffic. And, because they're free, more people would want to download them and even pass them along to their friends.

The rule of thumb here is that if your ebook has 60 or more pages of good useful content, then you should charge people for it. But, if it's a mere 30 or so pages, even with great content, you should just give it away for free and benefit from the backlinks instead.

Now, to set up your own storefront is very easy. First, open an account at www.lulu.com. It's totally free. Then, simply upload the ebook you've written. Don't worry if you don't have a PDF converter, because Lulu will automatically convert your Ms Word DOC file into a PDF format. If you can create your own design for the cover, it's good. But if not, there's a whole list of templates you can choose from and customize.

And voila! The only thing left to do is set the price. The deal with Lulu is that it takes 25% of the royalty you set.

My suggestion is, you browse Lulu a little before you decide how much your ebook is worth. Setting the price too high will put the buyers off, while setting it too low will make it look amateurish and not worth buying.

Set the price to zero and people will be able to download it for free.

Now on to the marketing!

Since most of Lulu's visitors are sellers like yourself, it's kind of hard to just rely on their storefront display to sell your ebook. It is now up to your creativity to advertise it in your blog. Write a review about it. If your friends or relatives have read it, then quote them. Nothing attracts a reader more than a genuine testimonial from another fellow reader. Lastly, put the catchy picture of your ebook in the top left hand corner of your blog (or your right, if your blog is still in a two-collumn format).

Another way to make some extra sales is by subtly promoting your ebook in related forums. You can place the ad in your signature and start posting as many times as you can, or you can simply look for opportunities to mention about your ebook in your posts. The key here is to always be genuinely helpful. Write down some lines of very useful answers before mentioning your ebook. It could be something like, "If you want to know more about it, then I suggest you check out this ebook." (It's best, though, that you don't use your real name as your nick there, so that it appears like it's an unbiased suggestion from a reader.)

One more tip!

If you decide to give it away for free, you can actually start a thread in forums saying that you've just found this great ebook that really works and it's free to download. Believe me, they'll thank you for it.


More Cool Stuff You Can Do With Lulu

Lulu also allows you to sell all kinds of digital stuff from music to photographs. If, for instance, you happen to have your own band but are having a really hard time selling your music, or if perhaps you're an aspiring photographer who wants to earn some bucks, then try your luck here. As with the ebooks, you get to charge your own price.

With your creative marketing techniques, you can surely turn your hobbies into another money making opportunity.


Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide

Give Your Visitors These Reasons To Bookmark Your Blog

If you've been following my blog for quite some time, then you must have known that about a month ago I started getting bored with writing for this blog and almost called it quits. Then I wrote a post about a new quest that was to find out what it is that makes people want to come back to your blog.

I never actually got to finish that quest. And just when I had almost forgotten about it entirely, the answer suddenly jumped up right in front of me, smacking me in the face.

Here's what I found out.

People come back to your blog because of need. Need is the main motivation behind it all. Maybe they need to come back and visit your blog again because you keep it updated with new stuff. Maybe they need to read your blog again because it's full of useful and easy to understand materials that they can apply to their own blogs right away.

People come back to your blog if your blog kinda has it all. A lot of us can surely name a web encyclopedia they visit quite regularly. Wikipedia. Britannica. And why should our blog be any different? If you blog about making money online, then your blog should have the A-to-Z of making money online. Why should your visitors bookmark tons of other blogs if your blog has got it all?

People come back to your blog when they start to feel like they know you. Giving your blog a bit of personality (not too much of it) is good. An even better way to achieve this is by commenting in other blogs creatively in ways that will make them remember you.

People come back to your blog NOT because it has a beautiful design. Don't get me wrong, having a beautiful design other than the Blogger's template is good! But don't expect that that will bring you more traffic. People come for content, not for the appreciation of your sense of design.

People come back to your blog because they want to see how you've progressed. If you're an online money seeker like myself, then it'll be nice to sometimes visit other fellow online money seekers to see how they're doing and maybe steal a little trick or two.

And finally, people come back to your blog because your blog is just so much fun. Okay, I got to admit that I myself am struggling in this area. I still can't think of a way to make a blog about making money online FUN. There are a couple of ways I've come up with so far, though:

• Have a little "Something of the Week" stuff. It could be a fun quiz you found from some websites. It could be a poll. Or it could be your own wisdom, one smart line to summarize what you've learned during the week.
• Simplify your posts. Write in short sentences. If possible, include a drawing or a diagram under your every post to sum up what your post is about.

So that's it, then. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more reasons to bookmark your blogs.

Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide

Where The Rest Of The Goldmines Are

If you're thinking about starting a blog, here's an advice that I can give you: don't blog about your journey to make money online. I know I did, and so do hundreds of others, and it's sure getting kinda lame.

There's a whole lot of unexplored territories out there with more goldmines than you could ever find here. And to rule there is a whole lot easier! Here's why:

• Most people blog simply for fun. They don't monetize their blogs like you and me. They might not even care that their blogs are forever at PR 0 or that they should be pinging every time they post something new. What this means is that if you could identify these unexplored niches, you will undoubtedly be able to conquer them right away, because you have the weapons and knowledge to do that!
• People visiting those unexplored lands might know even less. They could be surfers who've never even been blogging in their entire life! It would be a lot less difficult to guide those readers to click on your ads or fill in forms offering free stuff.
• You can use more general forums to advertise your blogs, and no one would mind! Again here, most forum members are simply there for fun. They have absolutely no idea that you're trying to make money out of them.

Now, just what kind of niches are they? I'll give you six here, you figure out the rest that will suit your own interest.

1. Art

You don't have to be a painter or a photographer to blog about art. You could just browse the web for great pieces of modern art or whatever and post them in your blog. Promise your readers that you'd be posting daily for more great pictures, and that's it! You don't even have to worry about writing articles at all!

With this kind of blog, it is highly possible to make money from: selling posters from an affiliate program you've joined, promoting your own stuff on ebay, selling tutorial DVDs from Amazon, and of course AdSense. If your blog is starting to look really good and more people start giving you compliments, you might even consider asking for donations.

2. Fitness and Bodybuilding

I'm quite surprised to find out that not so many people blog about this. If you happen to know quite much, even theoretically, about fitness and bodybuilding, then why not give it a try? Daily tips you recompose from some magazines would do it. Or, if you're feeling a bit adventurous, why don't you blog about your journey to lose fat and gain muscle?

It is indeed one of the most lucrative niches that are not yet widely monetized in blogs. Here you can sell: muscle enhancing products that hard-gainers often find too tempting to resist, ebooks about the kind of new training that's guaranteed to work, training videos and DVDs, and even subscriptions to magazines.

3. Book Discussions

Write reviews about your favorite books using your own point of view. Then, join Amazon's affiliate program and put up the ads in a catchy display. Most people who like to read might also like to learn about new languages, so why not have an ad that goes something like "Learn Spanish In 30 Days".

4. Dating Tips

If you believe yourself to be a dating expert, then this could be a real money making opportunity for you. With this kind of blogs, it should be easy to earn money from: online dating sites (such as Friend Finder or even Adult Friend Finder that pays you mindbogglingly high), affiliating ebooks and DVDs about dating, and affiliating sites that require memberships.

5. Scholarship Info

Do a little research on the web, quote a little here and there from this and that program, and that's pretty much it! Some companies pay their affiliate partners everytime a visitor fills in a form.

6. Anything that's for women only

It could be a Chicken Soup kind of blog, it could be about make up tips, it could be about things you can do at home when you're bored, it could be about the truths of men, and it could be about how to raise a child on your own.

The money making opportunity here comes from affiliating e-stores that cater for women's needs. They could be dresses, jewelry, perfume, and home decoration ornaments.


Those are just six possible niches. There are probably hundreds of others left unexplored. Find your own passion, blog about it, and conquer your own niche.

Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide

Work Your Way Up, Then Sideways

There have been some debates as to whether Page Rank is more important than traffic, or is it the other way around. I say, they are both equally important, although you don't really have to work on them at the same time. If you hate multitasking as much as I do, that is.

Getting a high PR does not necessarily mean that you get tons of traffic. It does help you to get more traffic, though, if you optimize it carefully.

Now, let's start with increasing your PR first.

• When you're just starting a blog, you might only be able to exchange links with other new PR 0 blogs. It won't do you much good in terms of PR because those are definitely not quality inbound links. But that's okay, just don't overdo it. If those new blogs are good and develop fast, they will automatically increase your PR quite significantly. Have at least five exchanges. Eight is maximum.
• You'll want to submit your blog to directories. Some people still believe that submitting their blogs to as many directories as they can will increase their PR rapidly. I only submitted mine to some directories and my blog made it to PR 4 in three months. I say, submitting your blog to directories won't really help you by much. Even if they're PR 7 directories, they'll have thousands of outbound links, which means that they are just as trashy as a link from a PR 0 blog.
• Make friends with people who have great blogs. Visit them regularly and introduce yourself. Don't ask for a link back yet, though. Just make yourself noticed. If you're lucky, they might write something about the new blogs in the niche and who knows that yours might also get mentioned. That's one really good quality inbound link for you.
• Try joining Digital Point Forum and hang around the Link Exchange section. There are people sometimes just looking for links and they don't care what PR your blog/website is, as long as it has the same theme. That's jackpot.
• Finally, the best way to get backlinks is by writing great articles and post them to as many ezines as you can find! And don't just stop there, you can also optimize forums to promote your best article by having its title as your signature. My best linkbaiting article so far is the 101 ideas to write in your money making blog, which boosts my PR in next to no time.

However, having lots of backlinks by way of articles might not bring you in more traffic. Your links will just be footnotes of your article posted in their blogs. And next week that post will no longer be in the front page. The inbound links you get are permanent, but very few will see or click on them.

You'll rank high in terms of PR, but not in traffic. Now, the next thing to do is to take advantage of your high PR. First, take a look back at your outbound links (from the exchanges you did with other related blogs) and check them one by one. Are those blogs still active? Also, check your Google Analytics stat to see which blogs are not giving you any traffic at all. Get rid of them. Don't be afraid to do a little clean up. Tell those other blogs that you've taken off their links and that they can take off yours, too.

So, now that you've got only a few outbound links, you'll have plenty of room for quality link exchange.

Browse around for some blogs that have the same high PR as yours, or blogs with a slightly lower PR but is looking really popular and getting lots of traffic. Contact the owners and state your offer.

And it's done.

You'll start to see a rise in traffic in no time at all.


Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide

Yes You CAN Help Newbies And Earn Money With Yahoo Answer

Some people say that Yahoo Answer is so full of newbies that you can't expect to make a dime with their help. How can they ever help you make a sale when they don't know a single thing about online marketing?

I did prove it myself a while ago when there was this college girl looking for a way to earn some extra money to pay for her tuition. I asked her if she liked selling stuff and she said yes. Then I explained to her how IMC works and she was hooked. But that was before she knew how hard it is to promote the products. She gave up and never returned my email ever since.

So, apparently, these kids from Yahoo Answer are NOT looking for the hard-earned money for a long term, but instead the easy way to earn just some extra bucks RIGHT NOW.

Which made me come up with my do-you-have-fifty-friends technique.

Here's how.

Search Yahoo Answer for the keyword "money", and search only for the ones that do not yet have the best answer chosen.

They might be asking something along the line of "What is the easiest way to make money online?" and might have been getting join-treasure-troopers answers.

Now what I do next is reply to the question by asking them if they have 50 friends. If so, then they can make at least $50 in the next couple of days. I'll ask them to contact my email for further detail, as they will perhaps require some personal coaching to do it.

And then I wait.

The best thing about it is that any other readers might also be interested, not just the one who asks the question.

Finally, the last thing to do is to tell them briefly how they can make $1 for every male friend they can refer to sign up to Adult Friend Finder, and $2 for every female. I give them the link, tell them to sign up as an affiliate, and the job is done.

However, the technique does have one drawback as some people might not be open enough to idea of referring their friends to join an Adult site. You can only hope that at least one in three will bring you home some extra cash. Do it wisely and sparingly, and try it in some other forums too.

Happy experimenting!
Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide

Blog, If You Don't Mind Sharing

How many times have we heard that the more we give the more we'll receive? Is it also true in our blogoshpere?

Before you ever decides to start their own making-money-online blogs, I think the very first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not you're ready and willing to share some hard-earned secrets. You might not yet have the hard-earned secrets just yet, but over time you WILL discover ones of your own. And when that time comes, will you be willing to share them?

I'm not talking about any information you can find over the internet with a little effort. I'm talking about the sure practical ways you discovered that really really works!

Let's say you stumbled across an untapped money making source and you're the first person to find the way in. You see this wide open treasure island that will bring you in more and more money over the years. If you share this magic secret in your blog, then hundreds of others will come pouring into it and there'll be little left for you.

Are you still willing to share it?

I say, you should be. Sharing your own secrets is what makes blogging fun. It's what makes the difference between personal blogs and professional websites. And don't ever be afraid of sharing your secrets here, because only then can you force your brains to be more creative and to come up with thousands of other untapped secrets that you're going to share with all of us.

Share. And you'll discover a whole lot more.
Source: Blog for money: A Beginners Guide