Resources on the Topic:The Well Fed Self Publisher by Peter Bowerman
Mastering Niche Marketing by Eric Van Der Hope
From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur by Stephanie Chandler
Internet Business Mastery Podcast
Mastering Niche Marketing by Eric Van Der Hope
From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur by Stephanie Chandler
Internet Business Mastery Podcast
Did you know that around 80% of all internet searches are for information (you were thinking porn, right?) and only 20% are for products or merchandise? Thankfully this opens up a whole world to burgeoning writers looking for a new career. For those of you who are quick to give up on this article because you fear you lack the knowledge to educate others, just realize one thing:
YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT SOME TOPIC THAN 99% OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD
I don't know what that topic is, but I know it exists. Take my colleague Shahin for example. As an Iranian American, he had a great passion for a small, little known Iranian car company named Paykan. Throughout the years, he had accumulated a ton of pictures of Paykans. To share this passion with the world, www.paykanhunter.com was born. He was astounded at the results. As one of very few sites in the world dedicated to this niche, nearly every search led people to his site. In a world with over 6 billion people on the web, you would be amazed how many were looking for Paykans!
So what is your niche? Well this is a topic for another posting, but the quick and dirty is this. Pick a topic that you know and love, take fantasy baseball for example. This is your start, but to find true success you need to narrow your sights even further. There are millions of sites, articles, and blogs related to fantasy baseball. How will you stand out from the crowd? With a tightly defined niche. My specialty in fantasy baseball is finding great young starting pitchers in the late rounds of a draft using 3 specific metrics. The Cole Hamels, Tim Lincecums, and David Prices of the world are rare, but I have a great system for finding them and getting them at a great discount. This is the tightly focused niche that makes a great blog or E-book. We have already discussed blogs in a previous post, so now let's move on to the E-book side of things.
An E-book is simply a digital compilation on a particular topic. Simply type E-book into google
search and you will get 323 million results. Put more simply, you WILL have a lot of competition in the E-book world. This is why your specific niche is so important. After the niche is selected, the E-book compilation can be completed in any word processor. Here are the key components:
- Cover Page: Make some unique and interesting graphics using a free graphics program such as The Gimp. This is important because you'll use this cover page when marketing your book.
- Table of Contents: Time is money, and most people don't want to waste time searching, so make it easy to find specific topics.
- Introduction: You will also use this when marketing your book, so make sure the grammar is flawless, the writing is witty, and purpose is clear. Many people offer the introduction free when selling their book, so it needs to be an absolute home run.
- Content: This is the meat and bones of the operation. You need to spend some time researching your niche. Include some humor, a lot of information, and a lot of helpful links.
Now that isn't so hard is it? Depending on the topic, your e-book length will vary. Some will need hundreds of pages, but most need far fewer, around 30-100.
When writing this e-book, you need to focus on one more KEY goal: Establishing long term customers. Your first e-book should lay the seeds for a long and successful relationship. Provide great information, plug your website, and plug your other (or future) product offerings. While one e-book sale is great, the referrals and future product sales that you can earn really make the difference between writing for a hobby and writing for a career.
Once the book is complete, you will want to convert it into a pdf file to make it easier to sell and distribute. You can purchase Adobe Acrobat, or you can use a free program such as PrimoPDF.
That wasn't too bad right? Now the fun really begins. Marketing your E-book can be done in a ton of different ways. Internet marketing will be a future topic, but let's hit on a few of the quickest and easiest ways to market your book:
- Your Own Site: Start with a free site like Webs.com, which can do everything from website design to order processing to email list management.
- E-book Sales Sites: Simply run a google search for Ebooks and you will find some of the most popular sites such as ebooks.com.
- Contact Other Sites In Your Niche: If you can contact other bloggers in your niche and offer them some kickbacks, they may help you promote your E-book.
- Affiliate Sales: Sites like Clickbank.com help match marketers with people selling products. You provide the product, they sell it, and you both share in the profits.
Let me just reiterate one key point again. To make this a career, you MUST establish loyal customers. Before your sales begin, get a website up and operating. Lead your readers to your site, and advertise future product offerings. Do whatever it takes to get them on your mailing list. This is the key to long term success in this industry.
So that's it! Writing and selling an e-book is a great way to kick off your entrepreneurial career. You can write and develop your web page in your free time, and slowly build a host of loyal readers! What are you waiting for? Start writing NOW and your sales will be off and going in no time!
Good Luck!
Keys to Success
Choose Your Niche Wisely: It must be interesting, tightly focused, and in-demand.
Work on Your Writing: If your writing skills aren't up to par then read, practice, and ask others for help. Bad writing will turn readers away quicker than a Ben Affleck Movie.
Build Long Term Relationships: Don't give it all away in the first book. Give your readers a reason to visit your site and buy future products.
Be Witty! You don't enjoy reading textbooks and neither do others, so give them something to remember.
YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT SOME TOPIC THAN 99% OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD
I don't know what that topic is, but I know it exists. Take my colleague Shahin for example. As an Iranian American, he had a great passion for a small, little known Iranian car company named Paykan. Throughout the years, he had accumulated a ton of pictures of Paykans. To share this passion with the world, www.paykanhunter.com was born. He was astounded at the results. As one of very few sites in the world dedicated to this niche, nearly every search led people to his site. In a world with over 6 billion people on the web, you would be amazed how many were looking for Paykans!
So what is your niche? Well this is a topic for another posting, but the quick and dirty is this. Pick a topic that you know and love, take fantasy baseball for example. This is your start, but to find true success you need to narrow your sights even further. There are millions of sites, articles, and blogs related to fantasy baseball. How will you stand out from the crowd? With a tightly defined niche. My specialty in fantasy baseball is finding great young starting pitchers in the late rounds of a draft using 3 specific metrics. The Cole Hamels, Tim Lincecums, and David Prices of the world are rare, but I have a great system for finding them and getting them at a great discount. This is the tightly focused niche that makes a great blog or E-book. We have already discussed blogs in a previous post, so now let's move on to the E-book side of things.
An E-book is simply a digital compilation on a particular topic. Simply type E-book into google
search and you will get 323 million results. Put more simply, you WILL have a lot of competition in the E-book world. This is why your specific niche is so important. After the niche is selected, the E-book compilation can be completed in any word processor. Here are the key components:- Cover Page: Make some unique and interesting graphics using a free graphics program such as The Gimp. This is important because you'll use this cover page when marketing your book.
- Table of Contents: Time is money, and most people don't want to waste time searching, so make it easy to find specific topics.
- Introduction: You will also use this when marketing your book, so make sure the grammar is flawless, the writing is witty, and purpose is clear. Many people offer the introduction free when selling their book, so it needs to be an absolute home run.
- Content: This is the meat and bones of the operation. You need to spend some time researching your niche. Include some humor, a lot of information, and a lot of helpful links.
Now that isn't so hard is it? Depending on the topic, your e-book length will vary. Some will need hundreds of pages, but most need far fewer, around 30-100.
When writing this e-book, you need to focus on one more KEY goal: Establishing long term customers. Your first e-book should lay the seeds for a long and successful relationship. Provide great information, plug your website, and plug your other (or future) product offerings. While one e-book sale is great, the referrals and future product sales that you can earn really make the difference between writing for a hobby and writing for a career.
Once the book is complete, you will want to convert it into a pdf file to make it easier to sell and distribute. You can purchase Adobe Acrobat, or you can use a free program such as PrimoPDF.
That wasn't too bad right? Now the fun really begins. Marketing your E-book can be done in a ton of different ways. Internet marketing will be a future topic, but let's hit on a few of the quickest and easiest ways to market your book:
- Your Own Site: Start with a free site like Webs.com, which can do everything from website design to order processing to email list management.
- E-book Sales Sites: Simply run a google search for Ebooks and you will find some of the most popular sites such as ebooks.com.
- Contact Other Sites In Your Niche: If you can contact other bloggers in your niche and offer them some kickbacks, they may help you promote your E-book.
- Affiliate Sales: Sites like Clickbank.com help match marketers with people selling products. You provide the product, they sell it, and you both share in the profits.
Let me just reiterate one key point again. To make this a career, you MUST establish loyal customers. Before your sales begin, get a website up and operating. Lead your readers to your site, and advertise future product offerings. Do whatever it takes to get them on your mailing list. This is the key to long term success in this industry.
So that's it! Writing and selling an e-book is a great way to kick off your entrepreneurial career. You can write and develop your web page in your free time, and slowly build a host of loyal readers! What are you waiting for? Start writing NOW and your sales will be off and going in no time!
Good Luck!
Keys to Success
Choose Your Niche Wisely: It must be interesting, tightly focused, and in-demand.
Work on Your Writing: If your writing skills aren't up to par then read, practice, and ask others for help. Bad writing will turn readers away quicker than a Ben Affleck Movie.
Build Long Term Relationships: Don't give it all away in the first book. Give your readers a reason to visit your site and buy future products.
Be Witty! You don't enjoy reading textbooks and neither do others, so give them something to remember.
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