I wrote an E-Book, Now What?

[Craigd]

Hello Fellow Warriors,

I recently finished my first E-Book "Debt Settlement Secret" and 3 other bonus items to give away along side the purchase. Now What?

In the past I have built small websites, and done affiliate marketing, but this is different as its the first time I am offering my own product. Plus doing it all in the past took HUGE amounts of time.

And I really want to do a product launch rather than just throw it up on Clickbank and do article submission hoping I get a bite.

So, up until now I have been doing everything myself because I have a very small budget.

I know I need affiliates, and a killer sales page, etc..A JV partner? Not sure, what specifically do they do? Do they come in as investors, and a team of programmers, etc?

I feel really overwhelmed with it all. I would rather just focus on the writing but it seems like unless you have gobs of money you have to do everything yourself.

Can anyone help me out with this? I don't want to give up just because its challenging, especially when I feel so close.


Best,
Craig

[winebuddy]

first: set up your site on CB and get it approved by CB.

Second: Refine your sales page and make the offer EYE poping

THird: put a brief summary of your ebook together with the highpoints but not all the "secrets" and make this into a freebie ebook.

Fourth: set up an optin page for your "small ebook" The only thing on the page should be WHY its almost impossible for me NOT to have this little freebie and WHY you are the one to get it from.

Fifth: Send highly targeted traffic to your optin page via either articles or PPC or some other mechanism

Sixth: write up about 35 emails that give people that optin to get your FREEBIE more information about debt settlement. About every 3rd or 4th email, tell them about your CB product and why they should get it NOW instead of waiting.

that'll get you rolling.

If you want to do a product launch - that's an entirely different story

[Craigd]

Thanks Winebuddy...that definitely gives me some ideas. Do you know any places to get sales page templates.

[winebuddy]

100's of places... just do a search on "free website templates" or "free salespage templates"

You may also want to consider using wordpress as your sales page and then you would search on "wordpress sales page templates"

(by the way - on the lower right of this post there is a "Thanks" button) :-)

[MarkAndrews IMCopywriting]

For your free sales page templates,
this warrior link may help you out...

http://www.warriorforum.com/search.php?searchid=2268779

Don't forget that Thanks button
for the poster above me now.

Good luck with your new launch,
if you need sales copy advice,
you know where to come...


Mark Andrews...

[Craigd]

Sorry about that ..maybe its because I am a new member but on the lower right, I only have Quote, Multiquote, and Quick Reply Buttons

[winebuddy]

new members dont have THANK YOU buttons? I didn;t know that....

[Freeman77]

Hey Craig,

It's great that you have the content done. The bulk of the work is ahead of you, but at least now you have the possibility of reaching certain milestones (such as your first sale). You may be tempted to outsource everything, but if you don't much experience in article/email marketing, you probably want to keep hold of the reigns for now.

Winebuddy's advice is solid. Let me just give you an alternative that is NOT better that Wine's advice. It just reflects my first ebook selling experience, before I'd even heard of the WF.

I sold my first ebooks on a free Blogspot blog. I made an ebook cover in MS Word and got an e-Junkie account to deliver the PDF. Most people found their way there via articles on Ezine and other article sites. I had no capture page, no email marketing, and no freebie. I started making money surprisingly fast.

More importantly, I learned that my ebook would actually sell.

So, if you came to me tonight and said, "I want to see sales of my ebooks this week!" this is what I'd do:

1) Turn that ebook into a PDF if you haven't already, and make a quick ebook cover

2) Get a $5/month account on e-Junkie (free trial available) to deliver the book (this is optional -- you can also just make a thank you page with the file)

3) Decide the price and throw up a sales page (on a free blog if you have to)

4) Write a few articles (skip Ezine if you don't want to wait for them to approve), and comment on articles and blogs with the link to your awesome ebook. A helpful, non-spammy comment on a highly-ranked blog can bring a lot of traffic.

5) If your ebook truly is awesome, do what I did and embed the table of contents and first chapter into the sales page. If they want to continue reading, they know what to do.

If your copy is good and your book offers great value, you will get buyers. After you set that up, you can work on Clickbank, email campaign, etc., and eventually redirect existing traffic to your new, improved operation. Personally, I only started sinking money into it when I saw that it was indeed profitable.

One quick example to drive it home: My brother came up with an idea for a very short ebook (6 pages) concerning an Apple product. He wrote it up, I turned it into a PDF and put it up for sale (via e-Junkie) on a free blog for $4.95. I wrote one article, commented on a couple blogs, and later I built some backlinks to get organic traffic: The whole operation took just a few hours. It started selling within a week, and it will continue to sell until that Apple product becomes obsolete.

I'm not necessarily recommending that you follow this path. In fact, I'm developing a new ebook right now (unlike my first few, this one is almost completely outsourced), and I'm doing it more in-line with Winebuddy's advice! His advice is great for a long-term outlook. The way I described is good if you'd like to see some immediate results to inspire you (and finance you) as you develop it into something big.

edit: Sorry for the novel here

[jitterbug978]

I'd say throw up a landing page and begin a PPC campaign. If you've never used PPC ads before... start to do it now. Its hard to beat PPC as far as cost effective targeted traffic is concerned.

[jacktackett]

Hi Craig,

First congrats on taking action and good luck with your project.

Lots of good advice here and I just wanted to second that you check out e-junkie to help automate the delivery of your product. I've used it several times and its pretty straight forward and easy to use.

I'd also suggest you not rule out a physical copy of your book either - check out sites like createspace and lulu for more information.

Finally - I'd recommend doing a few press releases about your book. Use the search feature here on the forum and you'll find several good threads on using PR and sites to send out both free press releases and low cost. My current favorite site is webwire - these sites are very good at generating back links to your site (which of course you'll need up and running first)

While any autoresponder company will work as well (again use the search feature to find out what your fellow warriors think about the various companies - its a topic that gets beat to death at least once a week here - so you'll find lots of good informatin). I recommend iContact for a service and AutoresponsePlus for a self hosted option. iContact has a 15 day free trial but what I really like about them is their community - your newsletters etc can be posted there and Google indexes them pretty quickly - which will help you in your seo activities.

Going back to physical products - don't ignore your local community - you're now a published author and thus an expert. Reach out to local reporters etc and let them know you're willing to answer any questions on your topic - which unfortunately in this economy is very much needed and in the news. Go out to various networking events and shake some hands - let people know you're there to help folks out.

Again congrats and good luck! And if there's anything I can do to help out just let me know.

best,
--Jack

[makbor]

I will love to get the course on Affiliate marketing.

Thanks

Mark Irabor

[JulieKerr]

Hi Craig,

Good luck for your product,

Yeh I agree with jitterbug978, start a PPC campaign targeting a particular geographical location, scale it up once you see results.

[vicone]

You've already had some good advice here. Also consider combining winebuddy's approach with some cheap PPC.

For instance, if you set up an opt-in, you could design it so that it would rank well with Adwords and obtain some cheap traffic to your opt-in page. That will also give you some quick results and enable you to test different pages for conversion.

You could promote your free giveaway, which would appeal to visitors as they respond better to a free sample than to a sales pitch.

Getting them onto your list also enables you to create trust with the new subscriber which, in turn, makes them more responsive to your pre-sell emails and your sales page.

As well, some PPC traffic could be sent direct to the sales page so that you could test it's conversion rate, as well as giving you a basis for comparing sales that come through your email messages.

This would get things moving while you are waiting for SEO and article traffic to build momentum.

I also suggest giving serious thought to your keyword research. You will need this for your articles, as well as for any PPC promotions. Selecting the right keywords is essential, otherwise it can be a waste of time and money. There are any number of threads on the forum which will give more advice on this aspect of promotion.

Ivan

[bertuseng]

Well done for finishing your ebook. I suggest you spend a lot of time on a great sales page and then get loads of traffic to it. First try all the free traffic generation methods out there, and if you see it is profitable start getting some PPC campaigns.

[Craigd]

Wow! Thanks so much to everyone for your advice and validation. Sorry I do not have a thank you button, so please accept my text THANK YOU!!

All the suggestions were great and I think I will combine them all

PPC for me is not really a viable option yet, because of funds. But the route I am going to go with is putting up the opt-in page offering a free report, then direct them to the sales page.

For promo: I will use article submission, blog commenting/posting, Youtube, and I liked the Ejunkie Idea as well.

And finally I will need an army of affiliates.

Any advice on gaining affiliates and creating affiliate promo materials?

Its not a BIG TICKET item, 50% of $19.95

[brchap]

I've written and sold a number of e-books before (as well as a few software applications, although I got out of programming a number of years ago). I love it.

I have found that it's important to have a unique URL for each of your products, unless they are very closely related in topic... and, even then, it might help if your long tail keyword is part of the URL.

The advice from both Winebuddy and Freeman's posts is solid, and can be used very successfully to sell not only e-books, but lots of things. For inexpensive e-books, I tend to lean toward the easier approach that Freeman mentioned: Article Marketing, Web 2.0 Backlinking, Link Wheels, etc.

Email lists are powerful and autoresponders are amazing, but article marketing and other linking strategies keep working for you day-in and day-out. It never sleeps, it never gets sick and never takes vacation. I tend to associate a barrage of autoresponder e-mails essential for BIG ticket items and hard-to-sell products. Inexpensive e-books, reports and mini-e-courses, on the other hand, don't necessarily need multiple touches to sell.

Commenting on blogs and in forums is also a very powerful approach. As long as the information you provide in the blogs is helpful and on-topic you should get some very targeted traffic. The nice thing is that your posts will be spidered, indexed and will continue to "sell" your book for a long time.

I've never heard of e-junkie before today. I usually just use Payloadz. They make it all amazingly simple. They only take a small percentage for processing the credit card payment, and they dump the rest in your Paypal account. They don't charge a monthly fee. They only charge you a small percentage if you sell a book... otherwise, you don't pay a dime.

Affiliate marketing is something that I have yet to explore... but, the idea is very interesting.

[k998]

Originally Posted by Craigd

PPC for me is not really a viable option yet, because of funds. But the route I am going to go with is putting up the opt-in page offering a free report, then direct them to the sales page.

Have a quick look around for Adwords coupons as an example. My webhost has $50 vouchers available for all new Adwords customers. It's a good way to put your toe in the PPC waters without too much investment.

PS When I used the $50 voucher, it came up as $75 in Adwords, but I did need to put in $10 of real money for activation.

[Jose]

Craigd,

You might want and try a giveaway of a summarized or a teaser version of your e-book. That way your promotion efforts will be joined by other energetic, list-wielding authors.

[Matt Peters]

Craig,
Further to Jose's post, a free short report that promotes your product can be a great promotional tool for your potential affiliates. The key is to set it up as a rebrandable document (allows affiliates to enter their affiliate id into the URL) so they can make a commission if one of their customers clicks on the link and makes a purchase.

[AdamLCasey]

CraigD, if you're on a tight budget check out my free wordpress theme for creating sales letters and squeezepages.

www.infoproductstheme.com

[edd666666]

For inexpensive wordpress themes check out templatemonster.com.

Good luck, Ed.

[LivingCovers]

Originally Posted by Freeman77

Hey Craig,

1) Turn that ebook into a PDF if you haven't already, and make a quick ebook cover

Good suggestion there, Freeman.
Hey Craig, you can have a look at my sig below and PM whenever you're
ready. You might even get them FREE if I'm not too busy...just trying to see if I can help out.

[LivingCovers]

[QUOTE=Freeman77;1276320]Hey Craig,

1) Turn that ebook into a PDF if you haven't already, and make a quick ebook cover

Good suggestion there, Freeman.
Hey Craig, you can have a look at my sig below and PM whenever you're
ready. You might even get them FREE if I'm not too busy...just trying to see if I can help out.

[Chris Pambos]

Originally Posted by Craigd

Hello Fellow Warriors,

I recently finished my first E-Book "Debt Settlement Secret" and 3 other bonus items to give away along side the purchase. Now What?

In the past I have built small websites, and done affiliate marketing, but this is different as its the first time I am offering my own product. Plus doing it all in the past took HUGE amounts of time.

And I really want to do a product launch rather than just throw it up on Clickbank and do article submission hoping I get a bite.

So, up until now I have been doing everything myself because I have a very small budget.

I know I need affiliates, and a killer sales page, etc..A JV partner? Not sure, what specifically do they do? Do they come in as investors, and a team of programmers, etc?

I feel really overwhelmed with it all. I would rather just focus on the writing but it seems like unless you have gobs of money you have to do everything yourself.

Can anyone help me out with this? I don't want to give up just because its challenging, especially when I feel so close.


Best,
Craig

This is probably not the exact order I would do it in but things that will need to be completed non the less in order to get the ball rolling.

- Affiliate Promotion Tools
- Website Design
- Sales Letter
- Autoresponder Follow Up Sequences
- Creating The Offer
- Additional Offers (Upsells, Downsells)
- Shopping Cart, Merchant Account & Payment Gateway (IF applicable)

Those are the primary things that would need to be completed in order for you to have your finished product up and ready to begin selling.

[Robb43]

This is great post for us newbies!
Thanks

[Sean Phillips]

Hey all,

Just wanted to say thanks for all the great advice in this thread. I'm currently in a similar position to CraigD, putting the finishing touches on my ebook biz, and the ideas here have been great food for thought for me. So thanks everyone!

[GarryMSayer]

Originally Posted by Chris Pambos

This is probably not the exact order I would do it in but things that will need to be completed non the less in order to get the ball rolling.

- Affiliate Promotion Tools
- Website Design
- Sales Letter
- Autoresponder Follow Up Sequences
- Creating The Offer
- Additional Offers (Upsells, Downsells)
- Shopping Cart, Merchant Account & Payment Gateway (IF applicable)

Those are the primary things that would need to be completed in order for you to have your finished product up and ready to begin selling.

Great list Chris.

Not forgetting pre-launch promotion for affiliates. If you can recruit a hungry and enthusiastic army of affiliates then you will benefit dramatically.

Garry.

[k0zm0zs0ul]

You could also once you have everything sorted and ready to launch, as well as your affiliate program set up on CB, launch here as your first WSO. This can help you refine the product further and also gather testimonials, and maybe even recruit a few affiliates as well.

Not sure how that will work for you w/ the new WSO rules, but it's a thought.

Warm regards,
Cori

(Also, don't forget learning how to use social media effectively as a means of marketing, as well as recruiting affiliates. And also consider a higher split to attract more affiliates, at least initially.. after all, they will be doing the hard work of drumming up those sales for you.

[k0zm0zs0ul]

Also, set up a squeeze page ( not sure if that was mentioned here) specifically giving away something of value, or perhaps a weekly or daily debt relief tips newsletter. You will then have them on your list, and begin building a relationship with them, and also a clear path to offer them your product as well as any future products you'd like to promote. You need to 'touch' your prospect 5-7 times before they are comfy enough to by from you the majority of the time, and this is a perfect way to do so.

Warm regards,
C

[alexlucky2007]

I saw that couple guys offering you to look for free templates. Thats actually a very bad advice... There is nothing can be worse for business if you have a good product and crappy web site.

Pay money for developers who can design you a custom WP theme