Are "branded ebooks" still viable?
Here's a thought.
With all the new techniques around such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube / Website flash videos etc, has the humble branded ebook had its day?
According to the "hype", if you create an ebook on a popular topic, you will soon have hundreds of people clambering to promote the ebook to their friends. But try searching for a brandable ebook on the internet, and I bet you draw a big fat zero! Even if you go to YouTube, and search for "viral ebooks", you will only find a handful of videos - and each of those have only had a few hundred visitors! Does that prove that interest in the subject is virtually non-existant?
Now I'm going to admit, in my 'newbie' days, I NOW know I did things totally backward; I created a product before I saw whether or not there was a market. I developed an online PDF branding script ... and then - as stated above - found little interest in the product.
Then I heard about "GiveAway" events, so I tried giving it away. In fact, I tried giving away FIVE of my scripts including a novel version of a "Tell-A-Friend" script, scripts that ran on Wordpress and more. I hoped that people would be flocking to join my mailing list. Guess how many copies I've given away to date???
I still didn't learn, and spent MONTHS working on a script that allowed people to sell ebooks securely, ie it would be downloaded via the browser rather than sent as an email attachment which is what most people seem to do. But again, there doesn't seem to be an active market for ebooks these days either. (Is that why most marketers these days are offering their ebooks with "Private Label Rights" so they can sell them to the newbies?)
Ahh, seems people are promoting things via CD's these days. MUST be a market for people wanting to create their own CD's and use Kunaki to create the discs on demand. Must there??? If there is, they're not beating a path to my door! Again, even though I made a free version of the script, it's had no takers.
OK, time to be brutally honest and tell you how much marketing I've done. Practically none. I tried a few forum posts, and I tried a few articles, but that didn't get anywhere. I tried Facebook, but didn't know many of my freinds who had accounts on the site. I tried Twitter, but fail to see how people can follow 10,000 people and read every "tweet" that gets sent. And if they're not reading the Tweets sent to them, chances are the people following them are not reading their missives anyway. I tried script directories, but most of those are "stand alone" utilities that run on a PC, not server-based scripts. And we'll forget about the money-guzzling process that's called Adwords.
What really "hurts" is when these 'upstarts' come along, and say things like "I've been online for four years, and it was only recently I started to make money ..." FOUR YEARS??? I've been developing my script for about the last FIFTEEN years, so you would think I'd have got somewhere by now. Instead I plough on fine tuning the product ... which I then find out nobody wants!
Apart from the scripts, I've dabbled with eBay, and affiliate marketing, tried sports betting / gambling and a range of "Biz Opps". I'm sure that somewhere =someday= it will all fall into place, and the Goodtimes will roll.
Now, here comes the crafty bit of marketing research.
Do you agree that ebooks and / or branded ebooks are "dead in the water"? Do you still promote ebooks via email attachments? Do you sell goods on CD's or DVD's. Please post your comments below. Here's the crunch. If any of these script prove to generate an interest amoungst fellow Warriors, I'll set up a WSO or two.
It's over to you guys now.
With all the new techniques around such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube / Website flash videos etc, has the humble branded ebook had its day?
According to the "hype", if you create an ebook on a popular topic, you will soon have hundreds of people clambering to promote the ebook to their friends. But try searching for a brandable ebook on the internet, and I bet you draw a big fat zero! Even if you go to YouTube, and search for "viral ebooks", you will only find a handful of videos - and each of those have only had a few hundred visitors! Does that prove that interest in the subject is virtually non-existant?
Now I'm going to admit, in my 'newbie' days, I NOW know I did things totally backward; I created a product before I saw whether or not there was a market. I developed an online PDF branding script ... and then - as stated above - found little interest in the product.
Then I heard about "GiveAway" events, so I tried giving it away. In fact, I tried giving away FIVE of my scripts including a novel version of a "Tell-A-Friend" script, scripts that ran on Wordpress and more. I hoped that people would be flocking to join my mailing list. Guess how many copies I've given away to date???
I still didn't learn, and spent MONTHS working on a script that allowed people to sell ebooks securely, ie it would be downloaded via the browser rather than sent as an email attachment which is what most people seem to do. But again, there doesn't seem to be an active market for ebooks these days either. (Is that why most marketers these days are offering their ebooks with "Private Label Rights" so they can sell them to the newbies?)
Ahh, seems people are promoting things via CD's these days. MUST be a market for people wanting to create their own CD's and use Kunaki to create the discs on demand. Must there??? If there is, they're not beating a path to my door! Again, even though I made a free version of the script, it's had no takers.
OK, time to be brutally honest and tell you how much marketing I've done. Practically none. I tried a few forum posts, and I tried a few articles, but that didn't get anywhere. I tried Facebook, but didn't know many of my freinds who had accounts on the site. I tried Twitter, but fail to see how people can follow 10,000 people and read every "tweet" that gets sent. And if they're not reading the Tweets sent to them, chances are the people following them are not reading their missives anyway. I tried script directories, but most of those are "stand alone" utilities that run on a PC, not server-based scripts. And we'll forget about the money-guzzling process that's called Adwords.
What really "hurts" is when these 'upstarts' come along, and say things like "I've been online for four years, and it was only recently I started to make money ..." FOUR YEARS??? I've been developing my script for about the last FIFTEEN years, so you would think I'd have got somewhere by now. Instead I plough on fine tuning the product ... which I then find out nobody wants!
Apart from the scripts, I've dabbled with eBay, and affiliate marketing, tried sports betting / gambling and a range of "Biz Opps". I'm sure that somewhere =someday= it will all fall into place, and the Goodtimes will roll.
Now, here comes the crafty bit of marketing research.
Do you agree that ebooks and / or branded ebooks are "dead in the water"? Do you still promote ebooks via email attachments? Do you sell goods on CD's or DVD's. Please post your comments below. Here's the crunch. If any of these script prove to generate an interest amoungst fellow Warriors, I'll set up a WSO or two.
It's over to you guys now.