Is It OK To Rely on Affiliate Marketers to Sell My Ebook?

12 years ago

Yes, but generally speaking you will have to make it worth their while to promote it as a lot of work will have to be done, and if you only offer 10% commission no one will bother. I think I read once that around 70% is the norm but 100% is not unheard of.

The reason being you get a load of people promoting your book, but you get them on the upsell and updates

You should offer it to JV partners and see if they will consider sending it to their email lists, you can get a hell of a lot of exposure like that, but you will have to work out percentage details with them individually I think. I would also add I don't doo this kind of thing, but if I did I wouldn't want to be sending it to my list of 10,000 frenzied buyers of cooking ideas and end up with less of a cut than those of hillbilly "tie the little lady" to the kitchen sink gun-toting types simply because they can negotiate better, I think commission should be fair right across the board, those with the better target will far out-do those without the audience anyway for it not to matter

By the way, I personally think it might be a little overpriced at that dollar amount, unless you happen to be Chef Ramsay lol

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mrniceguy321

12 years ago

So to upsell them, I'd need to come up with another product or service to offer, yes?

Also, what does "JV" stand for? Joint venture?

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Sparhawke

12 years ago

Yes, basically the way it works is you offer JVs 100% commission or so, but you have an offer on the backend, like a membership site where you get to keep all those revenues...lots of people promote your book but you end up with hopefully loads handing you money for stuff

And yes, JV is joint venture

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tpw

12 years ago

Affiliates are not as dedicated to your success as you are.

If you put a lot of effort into creating your product, you should be equally willing to put the effort into marketing and promoting it.

First off, how do affiliate marketers even know your product exists and is worth promoting?

Someone tells them about it.... And you cannot rely on the ClickBank marketplace to get the word out to the affiliates who have the capacity to send thousands of buyers to your offer.

If you are happy selling a couple copies a week, then it is okay for you to just throw your product on ClickBank and pray.

If you want to make money with your product, I'd rethink your strategy.

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Randall Magwood

12 years ago

Make sure you're in a niche where alot of affiliates can promote it. You shouldn't rely solely on your affiliates... they will get you sales, but you have to be the spark. Also, once you get the sales, make sure you do backend marketing too.

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JKflipflop

12 years ago

There aren't really any cons of having a REPUTABLE Affiliate promote your EBook. In fact, if building EBooks and digital products is what your ultimate interest it, ensure that you entrust affiliates with promotions in the long run. There are some really awesome Affiliates out there who do a brilliant job in getting your products in front of several willing buyers

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Exel

12 years ago

It is advisable to place your book on ClickBank or some other marketplace and let
affiliates promote it. You should also have a link to an "affiliate page" in the footer
of your sales page to help recruit affiliates.

But whatever the case, make sure you sell your book actively in whatever ways
there are, no one should be more interested in than you.

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nicholasb

12 years ago

you should never rely on anyone other than yourself. Affiliates are great to have but you ultimately can only rely on yourself in any situation.

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Val Wilson

12 years ago

I would say that by not using affiliates, you would be leaving a lot of money on the table. If you get good affiliates promoting your product, you can really ramp up your business. Excluding a bit of overlap, every sale an affiliate gets for you is an extra sale that you would not otherwise have got. So for a $19.95 product, if you offer 50% commission you are still earning nearly another $10 - and someone else is doing all the work. And you also get a list of buyers, which in itself is incredibly valuable.

Remember you don't have to use Clickbank - you could list your product at JVZoo for free. Offer a good commission (at least 50%, ideally higher), and create some resources for affiliates to use - emails, banners, articles, etc. Outsource it if you haven't time yourself.

Use your signature here to recruit affiliates. Join as many forums, etc as you can - particularly JV forums - and start building relationships with potential affiliates.

IMO, this sort of networking will be the most profitable time you'll spend. Even getting 1 good contact could make a world of difference.

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digialun

12 years ago

A lot of great advice has already been posted. There are numerous affiliate networks where you could list your ebook but it is worth investigating which have a strong pool of affiliates for your niche. A simple search in a marketplace will give you an insight into the strongest categories for each network. It is also important to get into contact with your affiliates to understand how they intend to promote your ebook.

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DaveWildash 12 years ago

If you really cannot put in much time between now and about 4-5 months then encouraging affiliates is a good option in the meantime.

I believe the upper limit for a Clickbank commission is still 75% so if you want to offer more to encourage affiliates to promote for you you'll need to use another network. As has been mentioned above make sure you gather their contact details because then you can provide them with more promotional materials and build a relationship with them once you have time to create the materials.

Having affiliates market for you is just one option. Would your book be a good backend or additional offer for someone else selling an ebook in your niche? If it would you can contact them and suggest they promote your book for a commission. You can also approach bloggers in your niche, especially if there is evidence they are bulding a list (i.e. they have an opt-in form on their site).
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Ettienne

12 years ago

Affiliates CAN make you a LOT of money, but this isn't always the case. It all depends on your copywriting skills (salespage) and how well it converts. If an affiliate sees that he/she's making 1 sale with every 5-10 visitors they send over, they'll go out of their way to market it. However, if they send 100-200 to your page and not making any sales (which is of course being tracked with affiliate programs for potential future affiliates to look at) then they wont touch it.

Do it yourself, test your sales page and track conversions. Change the page (esp. the headline) constantly until you're happy with the conversion rate, because then you'll start attracting some serious affiliates

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svsets10

12 years ago

This is a great thread because I am going through the same exact process. I won't lie, I really don't want to pay the clickbank fee at the moment until I know that the product and sales page will convert.

There is one question that I have, affiliates want to see stats about conversions etc... How do you give them stats when you are just starting out? I am considering giving 100% commissions just to get the word out and try and get conversions. Is it possible that once you put something on clickbank you can then change it at a later date when you know you have a winner?

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WebPen

12 years ago

Originally Posted by svsets10

There is one question that I have, affiliates want to see stats about conversions etc... How do you give them stats when you are just starting out? I am considering giving 100% commissions just to get the word out and try and get conversions. Is it possible that once you put something on clickbank you can then change it at a later date when you know you have a winner?

I don't think you can do 100% commissions on Clickbank, can you?

If not- you can use DigiResults or JVZoo instead.

As far as gettin stats- it still may be difficult to get affiliates to promote it if you don't have any kind of stats.

Maybe you could do some PPC to get some traffic to see how it converts?

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celente

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Justin Stowe

I don't think you can do 100% commissions on Clickbank, can you?

If not- you can use DigiResults or JVZoo instead.

As far as gettin stats- it still may be difficult to get affiliates to promote it if you don't have any kind of stats.

Maybe you could do some PPC to get some traffic to see how it converts?

some good points there.

I make my living on clickbank, if you are unaware and in all our testing, the more you give to affiliates the more money you normally make. But newbies think it is the other way round.

I am friends with some top clickbank sellers, and we all know that if you give away 70% commisions on a $49 product, you are going to end up making more that if you went say 40-50% on that same product.

You can even use other delivery sites, and do the whole 100% commisions and get others to build a list of buyers for you.

In regards to PPC, you will not beat it for high quality traffic. And it is targeted too, so that means it does not take too much to get momentum flowing and create some intrest and more affilates that way.

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InternetMillions

12 years ago

That's the only distribution model I've used so far that works well. I have a few books on clickbank that are sold only via affiliates and so far I've had good luck.

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Dark Fish

12 years ago

Originally Posted by mrniceguy123

I created an ebook that I put a lot of effort into making.

My issue, is that I honestly don't have the time (yet, I will in about 4-5 months) to create ezine articles, press releases, consistently comment on forums and blogs, etc., and other things one can do to promote their ebook online for free.

I do, however, plan on having more time in about four or five months from now.

Because of my lack of time, I'm considering placing my ebook on Clickbank, or another affiliate marketing source.

That way, I'd potentially get some kind of increased awareness (and hopefully sales) for the book, while I focus on some other things for the next few months.

I currently promote the book and offer it for sale at my blog, which gets decent traffic from my target market.

I haven't had many sales, although I've only had the product available for a month. I am prepared, and have time set-aside, to continue to improve and test my sales page for the ebook (located at my blog), as well as the ebook itself, over the next months.

My questions:

1. What are the pros and cons of relying primarily on affiliates to promote and increase awareness of an ebook (other than an ad at my blog) in its infancy stages?

2. Do you recommend a specific affiliate that I should use to sell my ebook? It's currently priced at $19.95. It is a non-fiction how-to book.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

My experience with ebooks is that it doesn't matter how good the ebook is but rather how good your marketing skills are. Aim you effort on establishing your name as an author. $19 for me is too high for an ebook, unless it is something exceptionally useful. Congratulations on concentrating on hoe to ebooks - a more profitable choice. Fiction readers still tend to go for paper based options. Success!

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Big Al

12 years ago

I'm with the folk who say "Don't rely on anyone" for anything, especially not making your money.

And like everything in marketing... it's always a test.

Maybe they will, maybe they won't but unless you give it a go, you'll never find out. Plus, what's it going to take? A couple hours of your time?

If you can get your product converting well though and can 'sell' affiliates on the fact that it does convert and you can prove it... then IMHO you're stacking the odds in your favour and there's no reason why they can (eventually) do the lions share of send you traffic.

Your website has to do the sales

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ttdub

12 years ago

It depends on the value as you don't want to end up making 2 cents a book. That's pretty bad.

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charleshudgen

12 years ago

Having other people sell your eBook is one of the best ways to increase your sales. After all, there is no book reaches the bestseller's list without appearing on booksellers' shelves. It's always good to do this well before the launch of your eBook. This allows your affiliates to read the book, identify the value to their customers and then promote your eBook. When identifying potential affiliates you should always pick affiliates that target the same type of customer as you. Just be sure they aren't already selling a competitive eBook. This is the best way to market your product and help yourself in doing this.

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cloudstrife

12 years ago

Some great advice here on the use of affiliates. It definitely has advantages to have good affiliates. The problem would lie if you were over-relying on them, because as has been said, the ultimate success is yours and you will be the one most interested in your own success.

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Is It OK To Rely on Affiliate Marketers to Sell My Ebook?

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