New at this but think I need affiliates

Matt,

Welcome to the forum.

I learned a long time ago that "instincts" are never totally reliable. You may think you know what your marketplace wants, but you should never bank on instincts alone.

Research in your market and see what your prospects are craving, desiring, wanting, asking for, etc. You never know . . . a tax guide in an industry that has no such product may be a great idea.

Always start your marketing from the position of having a clear understanding of the niche demand. Then you can purposefully position your business to meet that demand with specific products (the supply side of economics).

I would also suggest that you understand who your perfect customers might be. Maybe tax attorneys and CPAs are a better fit for your product than consumers or business owners. Who knows? The point is . . . spend some time researching the marketplace so you understand what the demand is and where it's coming from. If you struggle to find it, save yourself a lot of work and look to a different kind of product or a different niche altogether.

The best to you,

Steve

To start with I would echo Steve B - how can you be sure no-one is interested in your book? IME loads of people are looking for ways to save paying tax.

But back to your question. What you're outlining is a offering vendors of an associated product a chance to upsell.

Occasionally this might work, as long as you can find a vendor who doesn't already have a sales funnel in place.

I don't know about products in your niche, but I would assume that any good marketer who is doing well with selling a product probably already has a sales funnel with several upsells. So you're unlikely to tap into a best-seller market this way. Do your homework and find out.

Maybe a better way would be to put up your product on your own salespage, make the sales letter or VSL very persuasive, then add an affiliate 'JV page' and put your product on ClickBank or JVZoo so affiliates can sign up.

Then you create a teaser give-away product, something that tells them what to do but not how to do it, and create a squeeze page for that.

Now you've got a product to sell and a give-away product that builds a list of interested prospects.

You can now approach vendors of best selling products and ask them whether they want a bonus to put on their download pages. That 'bonus' is an image of your give-away product with a link to your squeeze page and you tell them they can sign up to your affiliate page so that they are credited for any sales.

Again, I've no idea whether vendors in your niche would go for this, but it's worth a try.

jesus Matt, dont say that....

you gotta a service in high demand! Get and save more money from the gov!

Why not create a tax hacks of 2016/2017 ebook and report (free lead magnet)

i'd test the waters on my own and see what sells well in the tax niche..

make it as easy as possible for your future affiliates with a proven product and a dedicated affiliates page (email swipes,banners, contact/help)

best of luck,
Ike Paz

It sounds like you're already selling yourself short before even starting. I personally would start by trying to make money off your own product then eventually if it doesn't work out then consider using it as an upsell.

There's a well-known author, Diane Kennedy, who used to be a CPA, realized that she could make more money by writing books about helping other people save tax, and did very well at it.

Like a lot of things, it's much more about the marketing than the product itself . . . just creating a great product that would really help people, might make nothing, but there are plenty of very average products making millions because of good marketing.

Think how you could re-frame your knowledge . . . instead of a book about "income tax", which, as you say, might not be the hottest product, think in terms of "how to save your business tons of money", "how to have more money to invest", "how to keep more of the money you make", or something a lot better along those lines

As you say, it may be possible to work with others, offering your product as an upgrade. One way to do that would be to build relationships with product-creators . . . I am doing that right now, paying money each month on a private forum that's OK, but not that great, but I join in the discussions and when I am ready to work with the guy that owns the forum, he'll remember my name from the discussions I've participated in, which will make it easier to work with him, at the appropriate time (I've got some learning to do before that stage, but making good progress).

Hope that gives you some ideas

Chris