Whether you like it or not, having your own product gives you more flexibility in your online advertising and believe it or not, compiling an ebook is no more than a week’s work part time if done correctly. However, it could end up taking a lot longer. If you don’t have a lot of time you can get ebook products with private rights and customize them with your own links as the only work you would need to input into the product. Do a web search for Private Label ebook to see what you can find.
Ok, lets get down to the nitty gritty. What is a viral marketing ebook and why should you create one?
A viral marketing ebook is a book which sole purpose is to be spread around the internet quickly, by any means possible. It is meant to only make you money on the front end. You want other people selling it and giving it away to as many people as possible.
Why?
Because the inside of that ebook has your subscription signup information all over the place and is also full of affiliate links leading to other related products. Every time someone buys or gives away your book or resells it, (depending on how you want to do it) more people will be selling your links. And it is costing you what? Nothing…Exactly!
The best example I can give you of this process would be by Yanik Silver. He created 2 marketing ebooks that spread over the internet like wildfire. He gave everyone who purchased the book for $19 or $17 (depending on the book) the rights to sell it or give it away to their customers.
Needless to say, thousands of people started selling it and promoting it all over the Internet. To say this day, he is still earning good money from that book, plus he became one of the most well known Internet Marketers to date.
So how do you go about creating your own viral marketing ebook?
Here are the steps;
1. Come up with a product idea based on your affiliate program you have already chosen and are already promoting
Coming up with ideas isn’t hard. For example, if you are going to be promoting a digital camera affiliate program, why not create a free or an inexpensive book report on 10 quick tricks to becoming a successful digital photographer. You can find that information online in a web search and then rewrite it in your own words. Since you are saving your reader time by compiling this information in one place it is valuable to them. Then throughout the report, you can recommend your favourite related affiliate programs while picking up new subscribers plus all the backend commissions you can make from your affiliate links in your ebook. This is a proven formula that really works.
A good way to come up with ideas is to look at what others are really selling or giving away and mimic that. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, so please don’t make things harder than they have to be.
2. Get the tool you need to succeed
You are going to need a few tools here.
A.) A domain name
I register all my domain names with http://www.namecheap.com for under $9 a domain name, which to me is pretty darn cheap. You want a fairly short domain name that describes the content of your book fairly well.
B.) Web Hosting
Low Cost Web hosting
http://www.hostica.com/
$1 per month and up. (Very reliable)
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com
(Also have a good reputation)
You will find $3, $4, $5, $7 plans and up.
If you need more hosting power, you can’t go wrong with http://datawebpro.net
C.) Autoresponder
You will need this so you can contact your prospects that don’t purchase straight away. This is where you will give away your free course or someway to entice them to give you their email address so you can contact them periodically.
Send follow up autoresponders to run your newsletter or announcement list. If you are not familiar with the uses of follow up autoresponders, check out these sites. This is one of the best ways to automate your business.
AdtrackResponderPro (One time cost and very efficient)
Aweber ($20/month)
Note: You can choose to use an autoresponder on your own web host server like AdtrackResponderPro or use a company like Aweber that runs the autoresponder off of their server.
What is the difference?
Basically it is this… if you use a company, run an autoresponder on their server, you will pay their monthly fee… or
If you choose to run the autoresponder on your own server – then you do not have to pay the monthly fee. You only pay a one time cost of owning the autoresponder software. You do not need to have it installed on your server and this may be more than you should get into technically. Don’t worry as you don’t need easily for under $50.00 in most cases. Always ask the autoresponder software company who they recommend and you may find that they may provide that service themselves or should have a good recommendation.
D.) Credit card processor
Just use http://www.clickbank.com. This step is too easy. They will let you accept all major credit cards and start an affiliate program for a one time set up fee of under $50. They do take a percentage of every sale, but this is so much cheaper then getting your own merchant account. Just about everyone selling ebooks online is using Clickbank.
However, it is much easier to set up order buttons at Paypal.com or Stormpay.com which allows you to get immediate sales orders. If you are not using other affiliates to sell a particular report you may want to go with Paypal and or Stormpay for some of your product sales.
E.) Ebook Software
You will more then likely want to create your book in PDF format so everyone can read it. Some ebooks come in exe format, but mac users can’t read that format, so I find it best to use PDF. You can create your book with these free resources:
PrimoPDF – PDF creation tool
http://www.primopdf.com
Print to PDF from any application. Grab a copy of this and learn it. Very handy.
http://www.pdf995.com/download.html
Also…
Adobe – Do it online
http://createpdf.abode.com
Or, at the time of this writing you can get it done online, for free, by Acrobat. They have an offer to convert up to 3 documents from any Microsoft Office application or standard web pages, up to 50 megabytes.
F.) Ebook Graphic Design
I recommend getting a good graphic designer for your e-covers. Here is a couple of good sites to get really nice design work done.
http://www.hypercover.com
http://www.pixelstopprofits.com
3.) Outline your book chapters into articles
Writing a whole book in one setting is hard, and trying to write a book without outlining the chapters is nearly impossible. My first book I ever wrote took me over 6 months but now most of my books take me less then a week to finish and that is with a sales letter and website up.
All you have to do is think up 12 to 15 article topics in sequence and write about them. Each page should be around 700 to 1000 words, full of useful information not information people could get for free.
4.) Write your content
You need to write original content. There are too many books out there now where people are just regurgitating information others can get for free and lowers the value of your book, which means less people will pass it around and even less will read it.
If you are really struck with your writing, I suggest that you do the following. The best way to get a good amount of original information without writing it yourself is to interview expert in the field. For instance, if you were writing a book about improving your golf handicap, I am sure it wouldn’t be too hard to find some local experts who you could grill in person, over the phone or even via the internet and you can then put all that information in the book. It is also a good selling point.
Also remember when you are writing what the point of this book is. The point of the book is to earn you an ongoing commission with affiliate programs, so don’t feel like you can’t throw some affiliate links in, because you can, but make sure it is tactful and in place.
Another good idea would be to put a “Subscribe to my newsletter” section in your ebook as well, so not will you make commissions on sales, but also generate leads without doing any extra work.
Make sure you clearly state in front of the ebook, that the buyer can sell this ebook as his own. State that he has Resell Rights to the product and can sell it or give it away if he chooses.
5.) Create your sales letter
This is where you will be selling your ebook from and is critically crucial to your success.
Creating a sales letter takes a lot of work, especially if you are new to the whole thing. The best way and the way I use, is to mimic successful sales letters.
Remember that you can sell your ebook with reprint rights, which means when they buy the ebook they buy the ebook, they can sell it as well. This is a huge selling point for you. You will also be giving them your ebook cover, website graphics and sales letter to use to sell your product.
6.) Plug in a free 5 day autoresponder series
An easy way to create your 5 day e-course is to take some chapters out of your book and put them in as free teaser. Remember to emphasize urgency. You want to make these prospects who don’t buy straight away feel like they are missing out on an opportunity of a life time and considering the low price of the book, if they don’t buy, more than likely they weren’t really interested or were freebie seekers from the start.
Note: If you need writing done for you, you can outsource to have stuff written for you and it doesn’t have to be too expensive depending on how much you need done. You can go to http://www.elance.com and find writers that will bid on your proposal to write for you. Do not discount this outsourcing method – many marketers hire out while still having in the final product but without to write it or do all the research.
7.) Advertise
Depending on your topic, you will want to target different people. However, no matter what topic you are selling on, there is one market who will want your book. Advertise your book to the Internet Marketing group. All they care about is that they can resell it as their own. This is why niche type of books can do so well.
