Posted by DavidG on February 23, 2009 under Ebook Marketing, Ebook Publishing, Selling Ebooks | 
by David Goldsmith
Just how much revenue do you think a best-selling ebook can generate in a year? Twenty thousand dollars? A hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? How about twenty-one million dollars?
One of Clickbank’s publishers has revealed that their account generated twenty-one million dollars in retail sales during a twelve month period. Apparently they even obtained permission from ClickBank’s senior management staff to print this sales figures on their information page for affiliates.
This figure is gross revenue before refunds and chargebacks, but hey, I don’t mind refunding some of that. Even if they had a high refund rate of 20% that leaves a tidy $16 million to pay the rent.
I have said before that selling your ebooks through Clickbank can be very lucrative and this success story is a testimony to that. Now we must be able to learn from this. So who did it? And what is this product?
Fat Loss For Idiots Generates $21 Million Revenue
The product is Fat Loss For Idiots and it is basically an ebook and diet system. Customers receive “The Diet Handbook” and they gain access to an online diet generator.
I strongly recommend you take some time to study this product, their web site and promotional materials.
Even taking a quick glance a few things stand out immediately.
1. This ebook provides a solution to an everyday problem that millions of people are concerned about. If you want your ebook to be a best-seller you will need to do that too.
Some examples of other products at ClickBank with very high popularity rankings are “Earth 4 Energy – Renewable Energy Solutions”, “Truth About Six Pack Abs” and “The Magic Of Making Up (Get Your Ex Back)”. All of these products also address popular, everyday issues.
2. This product is more than just an ebook. Your own ebook might be more popular if it promoted as more than an ebook. Call it a system. Call it a training course. Maybe you can add audio cassettes or videos. Perhaps you can provide some online tools or a forum for customers in a “members only” area.
3. This product upsells. The basic product of Fat Loss For Idiots sells for $39, but just before making payment the customer has an option to add a dieting system “Beyond Calories” for an additional $16.95.
Some publishers do this after payment, by taking the customer to a special “One-Time-Offer” page where they can buy something else, usually at heavily discounted rate.
4. This ebook includes a guarantee. Many ebooks come with a satisfaction guarantee and it is mandatory for ebooks selling through ClickBank. Fat Loss For Idiots comes with a Weight Loss Guarantee – if you don’t lose weight you can request a full refund.
5. This ebook has a ton of affiliates. The gravity rating of this product at ClickBank is currently over 500, which means that there is a huge number of affiliates who have earned a commission by referring this publisher’s product in the past 8 weeks. You should work hard to recruit affiliates to promote your ebook.
6. The sales page of this ebook converts. And they have a number of different landing pages to suit various affiliates. A good publisher knows that they must continually split test and improve their sales copy in order to bring in the most sales.
Affiliates will appreciate this too. They will soon stop promoting your ebook if your sales page does not convert well.
Those were just a few quick observations and they are just the tip of the iceberg of what has contributed to this product’s success. You should take a closer look now at what they are doing to make their ebook a bestseller.
You can visit the web site for “Fat Loss For Idiots” here.
About The Author
David Goldsmith is the owner of WriterIncome.com and author of the popular e-book “25 Ways to Write for Money“. You can download a copy of his e-book today at http://www.WriterIncome.com
Posted by Gary on January 20, 2009 under Creating Ebooks, Ebook Publishing, Ebook Writing, Selling Ebooks |
Daniel Moro has written a great post on his blog providing 8 reasons to write and sell your own ebooks. Daniel has been building and managing online businesses for quite a number of years and he sees ebooks as an important part of many online businesses. Check it out here: 8 Reasons to Write and Sell Your Own Ebook
Posted by Gary on December 21, 2008 under Creating Ebooks, Ebook Marketing, Ebook Secrets, Selling Ebooks |
How would you like the news of your new ebook to spread like wildfire? Ebook authors typically try all sorts of techniques to spread the word about their ebooks but one of the best ways I have discovered involves viral marketing.
Viral marketing is advertising that propagates itself. It is built on the concept of a message spreading by ‘word of mouth’. Two common examples of viral marketing online are “Recommend a Friend” forms, and viral ebooks.
The idea with viral marketing is to induce visitors or readers to pass along your message to other sites or people, creating a potentially exponential growth in your message’s visibility and response.
So in reality if you use this technique you will most likely have two ebooks. The first is your main ebook, which you are selling. The second is your viral ebook to “spread the word”.
The viral ebook will probably be much smaller than your main ebook. It may be a related special report, or perhaps a sample ebook containing the first few chapters. Whatever content you put in your viral ebook MUST be very useful, related information, so that people will want to read it AND so they will be very eager to pass it on to their friends and associates.
Normally with a viral ebook you use special software to make the ebook “rebrandable”. In a rebrandable ebook, certain parts of your ebook are set up for customization. By doing this you enable your partners to insert their own business name, web site links, or even their own affiliate ID into your ebook. This gives them an additional incentive to pass on copies of it, since they can earn money by passing it on and YOU can ultimately promote your ebook get more visitors to your sales page.
So when planning your marketing for your next ebook, don’t forget viral ebook marketing. If you do it right, it’s incredibly effective. You can get everything you need, including the best software, at
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/i/viralpdf.htm
Posted by Gary on November 26, 2008 under Ebook Secrets, Ebook Writing, Selling Ebooks |
Some ebook authors make just a few extra dollars per month. Others make hundreds of thousands of dollars with a single ebook launch. The best thing about ebook publishing is that with ebooks the author gets to put more from each sale into their own pocket.
Many traditional book authors only earn a dollar or two for each paperback book they sell. But with ebooks you will normally pocket 80 to 90% of the sales revenue from each purchase.
Let me give you an example. David Goldsmith’s “25 Ways to Write for Money” sells at WriterIncome.com for $29.95. Whenever someone buys the ebook he pockets around $26.60 after taking out the ClickBank payment processing fee. That’s about 89% and sure beats the $1-2 per copy he would get through a regular book publisher.
Even on the occasions that an affiliate is paid 75% for referring the sale, David still gets a tidy $8.54.
Michael Webb, an author of multiple ebooks for sale at ClickBank, posted this comment on a ClickBank blog:
“I very “successfully” published my first book with a top NY publishing house. It has continued to sell quite well and is in its 8th printing. However, because I only make about $2 per title sold the royalty checks (every six months) don’t get me all that excited. I make more with some of my ClickBank titles in one month than I make with this “best-seller” all year.”
Posted by Gary on November 12, 2008 under Ebook Publishing, Resell Ebooks, Selling Ebooks |
You may have heard that an ebook business is a good business to be involved in, but if you are just starting out with your ebook business you should know that there are several options available.
Ebook businesses are excellent for many reasons including the low production and storage costs, low shipping costs, and the ability to sell your ebooks through an online store that stays open “24/7”. This is a business which will, if you set it up correctly, operate like clockwork, taking orders even when you are taking a break.
But not all ebook businesses are the same because there is more than one way to make money from ebooks. Here are some of the more popular ebook business strategies. Some people use only of these strategies. Other businesses combine the options.
1. Write Your Own Ebooks and Sell Them
It is very profitable to write your own ebooks and sell them. Your main costs will be your time while you are researching and writing your ebook. But once it is available for sale you have almost no outgoing costs except for hosting and payment processing fees. Hosting is just a few dollars a month and payment processing is just a small fraction of the cost of each sale.
2. Sell 3rd-Party Ebooks and Pay Author Royalties
If you already have a web site, blog or ebook store online then you can offer to sell other authors’ ebooks through your site. It is normal to pay a royalty to the author (for example 50% for each copy sold. It is a good idea to simplify this process by paying royalties every month or quarter.
3. Sell Ebooks with Resale Rights
If you search online you can locate and purchase ebooks that come with Resell Rights. The Resell Rights give you permission, once you have purchased the ebook yourself, to sell it to other people and keep all of the revenue.
Obviously you cannot do this with just anyone’s ebook, so be very sure to obtain the rights through a reputable source such as directly from the author or through one of the big Resell Rights ebook stores.
From an investment point of view it will be much easier to buy three or four ebooks “ready to go” than to write several of your own. However the downside is that you will be competing with many other online businesses selling the exact same ebook.
Note that with Resell Rights you cannot normally edit the ebooks in any way or represent them as your own work.
4. Take Advantage of Ebooks with Private Label Rights
If you look for ebooks with PLR or Private Label Rights you will have even more flexible rights. With Private Label Rights you can represent the ebook as your own and usually you can also edit it, split or repackage the material as you like. As with Resell Rights you should take care to only obtain PLR ebooks from a reputable source.
