Newbie-ish author with an article marketing question

by pbrite
9 replies
My name is Paul. I've done article writing for public and private clients for over 5 years. Now I want to venture out and market my own e-book. I've already got it published, set up a website, put it out a Kindle version, etc. I am very new to IM, but after reading this forum and looking into some of what my clients have done, I think I can take hold of article marketing and make it work for me.


What I want to do for my book in terms of article marketing is to target it towards hobbyists and enthusiasts in just about anything. Knitters, foodies, muscle car builders...I believe that if you are passionate enough about something, someone will pay to read what you know about it if you have basic English skills.

I tried this technique today that helped me create 60 articles in 2 hours. I just don't know if they would cut the search engine mustard and I'm not sure where to put them.

So I need your help. (sorry this is long). Here's what I did. I wrote a 400-word article on "How to Get Paid to Write About Your Knitting Hobby". I wrote it in 4 sections: A- the intro where I talk about getting paid and show my credentials; B-the "here's how; C- the "localize it, where i talk about how to market it for your specific city; and D- "the close", where i work in my website. It's the formula I did as ghostwriting for a friend and he liked it.
What I did next, though, was write 3 totally unique versions for each section except the localizing one. Then I labeled each one A1,A2,A3; B1, B2, B3; and so forth. After that, I started interchanging them all and came up with 19 variations that involved each section plus the unchanged local one. All of them still flowed and were still readable articles about how to be a knitting freelance writer online.
THEN I copied the doc to another one and did a mass-replacement of "knitting" with " muscle cars". Still worked. Did it again for another topic and it still worked. In the end, about 60 articles.
(man this is long!)
SO now that I have these 60 articles, what is the best way to put them out there to drive the backlink traffic without them looking as duplicates? And I'm not asking for FREE way because I'm not above paying for a service. I just want it to work for what I've created without tripping up search engines. Do I just outsource them to some Filipinos to backlink to free article sites, or do I go with a program like UAW and load them? Or is there another program that would do even better?
Thanks for reading!
#article #author #marketing #newbieish #question
  • Profile picture of the author cryst
    see dont try to invest your money on e-books because most of the people wont buy e-books plz all info is available on internet for free..........
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  • Profile picture of the author Coach Louisa
    There's lot of free information on the internet yet when you organize it and deliver it in a way that is relevant and target, you can have a market for it

    These can be very effective front end, lead generation tool. Do you have a back end product to capitalize on this?
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    • Profile picture of the author pbrite
      Originally Posted by Coach Louisa View Post

      There's lot of free information on the internet yet when you organize it and deliver it in a way that is relevant and target, you can have a market for it

      These can be very effective front end, lead generation tool. Do you have a back end product to capitalize on this?
      I created the e-book already. Sells well on Amazon, but I want to drive traffic to my original website and I have a supporting blog I update at least twice a week with a small fan base supporting me on there and the facebook fan page.

      I've got good, honest reviews for the book but I've learned in the IM world the traffic is key. See, I'm not someone who wants to make gazillions off the book. If I sell 10, 20 copies a month, I'm happy with that. And as you said, when you organize and deliver it well, it doesn't matter how free things are.

      Take a look at Dave Ramsey. The guy was a broke millionaire. The stuff he sells is NOT new by any means. he knows it, and admits it. But he delivers it so well and makes it sound so easy to do as compared to the wild-eyed rich dad/poor dad or Suzy "I give advice to people who used to be rich" Orman.

      That's the approach I take with my book and it's the approach I HOPE that works with my article marketing.

      But back to my original question: what's the best way to use these 60 articles to create the backlinks?
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  • Profile picture of the author Frank Marker
    Almost all the information available for free is next to useless for anyone who wants serious knowledge.

    In almost every niche the free information is almost exclusively just copies of copies of worthless articles.

    Therefore, once people discover the true value of what they can get for free they seek out the premium products - afterall, their problem hasn't been solved yet.

    A few will look for filesharing sites, torrents, etc. to find the product they want for free. Many people will not. Usually the people who can't believe that most people don't look for pirated material are the kind of people who regularly use filesharing sites and assume everyone else does.

    So all the people who are honest and won't look for pirated versions of your ebook will pay for the book. As will all the people who don't even think of looking for free copies. So will the people who can't find your book on any file-sharing sites and don't have the time to wait for it to appear.

    Finally, the people browsing Amazon looking for books/ebooks intend to buy otherwise they'd be browsing a torrent site.

    All-in-all there will a be a good market for any well-researched, well-written ebook.
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    • Profile picture of the author PatriciaJ
      Hi Paul

      You might get some article directories to accept template based articles like that but the better directories won't like them.

      You could maybe set up some free blogs using them, or Squidoos but too many similar might not be allowed. You could also use them to make videos.

      What I suggest would work better for you is to spend more than 2 hours writing some unique articles that will do your ebook justice because those articles will be representing your creation.

      Find the top sites in each niche and offer them guest articles in return for your link being on the sites. Or even offer them a free copy of your ebook to review. The articles could be reused later to submit to directories.

      Normally I would say that you should place articles on your own site first and wait until they are indexed before placing elsewhere but if you are asking to be a guest author it might be more prudent to give them the first option.

      A handful of quality unique articles could do a lot more for your sales than 60 template based articles.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by PatriciaJ View Post

        Normally I would say that you should place articles on your own site first and wait until they are indexed before placing elsewhere
        Normally I would say exactly the same, too.

        But with 60 articles written collectively in 2 hours I wouldn't want any of them to be published on any of my own sites at all (or anywhere else under any of my own pen-names), so I'd probably make an exception.
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        • Profile picture of the author PatriciaJ
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Normally I would say exactly the same, too.

          But with 60 articles written collectively in 2 hours I wouldn't want any of them to be published on any of my own sites at all (or anywhere else under any of my own pen-names), so I'd probably make an exception.
          I was talking about quality articles that I had suggested he write not the quick template based articles.
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  • Profile picture of the author Benjamin Ehinger
    Originally Posted by pbrite View Post


    I tried this technique today that helped me create 60 articles in 2 hours. I just don't know if they would cut the search engine mustard and I'm not sure where to put them.
    See that in quotes right there......that is going to cause you problems later on. It might sound great because you have a QUANTITY of articles, but how is the QUALITY? It probably sucks. I will tell you right now you are better off writing 6 QUALITY pieces that are unique from each other than using any strategy that has you creating mass articles like this.

    Do things right from the beginning and you will save time later and make more money later. Cutting corners is for those that are not serious and do not understand the principles of article marketing properly. Be very careful of creating this many articles in this amount of time.

    My advice is to use your writing skills and write your own pieces. Never submit an article under 500 words, always make your article unique and give the reader something of value, and build a good reputation for yourself. This will go a much longer way than trying to create 60 articles in 2 hours that are low quality.

    Benjamin Ehinger
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  • Profile picture of the author pbrite
    Thanks for the advice, everyone. You all make excellent points. I made sure that my articles don't seem too manufactured, but at the same time I should stick to my skills: coming up with UC articles fairly quickly.
    At this point I've decided to focus on building pages and modifying my existing blogs to do Amazon affiliate marketing. And I can consistently post unique blog posts and free articles on the stuff I know about: mental health, military life, veterans, food, etc. I hope in a year I'm making 100 bucks a week in commissions. Modest goals. Thanks again, guys!
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