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Kindle PLR rant

by MandoThrasher
35 replies
This is just ONE example of I'm sure hundreds. Search the amazon kindle store for "twitter tips". You'll see 5 results on the first page that are blatant PLR rebarfs. Same cover, same title, same description, 5 different authors. Almost literally stacked one of top of the other!

Prices:
$4.99
$ .99
$4.00
$2.88
$4.83

My first response as a potential buyer would be "WTF is this?" Gee, I guess I'll take the $.99 version and not expect very much.

The guy selling at .99 just wasted the 4 other guys' time. But at least 4 of them are idiots anyway for posting the same identical offering and not bothering to check competition, price, create their own cover, their own title, add some perception of value.

I'd re-brand the thing and sell it for $9.99.

Do you not have a marketing bone in your body? Do you really think its as easy as going to the PLR store and then copy/paste? These are the folks that say "Poor me. I have 300 Kindle titles and only made 89 cents last month. It doesn't work."

You're killing it for everyone! Kindle books will become a joke at this rate. Actually, maybe you're not killing it because the people that are smart about this will be the ones with the books that stand out on page one among the 5 cookie cuttered offerings and land the sale. (Hmm, should I have kept my mouth shut about this?)

Maybe you're getting bad advice from the training material you bought (which was probably more rebarfed PLR anyway). Why would anyone bother with copy/pasting the 8th occurrence of this PLR book on amazon?

By the way...these 3D perspective ecover images are a dead giveaway for crap PLR. The Kindle consumer community will soon figure that out, if they haven't already. No original, respectable author would use a 3D spiral bound perspective cover shot. They all look canned.

Sorry for the long rant. Maybe I need to write a WSO called "Hey dummy, set yourself apart on Amazon or you're wasting everyone's time."

P.S. And yeah, yeah I know the guy at .99 thinks he's using it as a list builder. I'd rather have a list of buyers at $9.99 instead of buyers at .99 cents.

And that's MY two cents! Happy Friday!
#kindle #plr #rant
  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

    P.S. And yeah, yeah I know the guy at .99 thinks he's using it as a list builder. I'd rather have a list of buyers at $9.99 instead of buyers at .99 cents.
    I bet the guy selling his books for 99 cents is doing much better than you think. You might rather like to have his list of 99 cent buyers.
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    • Profile picture of the author mikeroosa
      It's called being lazy. I'm guessing these guys bought a course that told them about the power of uploading PLR as a Kindle book and did just that.

      These are the same people that post here saying they've been working online for 2 years and haven't made a dime.
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    • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
      Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

      I bet the guy selling his books for 99 cents is doing much better than you think. You might rather like to have his list of 99 cent buyers.
      I half expected a reply like this :rolleyes: It's very easy to tell how well he's doing. He's not. His seller rank sucks and he has 0 reviews, whereas his non-plr competitor's book has 56 reviews and a much higher sales rank. My guess is that he's made no sales at all.

      He can't be all that clever to begin with if he's just copy/pasting PLR. I'd be very surprised if he modified the book to include any free offers or links. If he takes the same care with his list as he does his amazon strategy, I wouldn't want it, or want to be on it. So, please enlighten me on why I'd want his list - if there even IS a list.
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      • Profile picture of the author imon32red
        Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

        I half expected a reply like this :rolleyes: He can't be all that clever to begin with if he's just copy/pasting PLR. I'd be very surprised if he modified the book to include any free offers or links. So, please enlighten me on why I'd want his list - if there even IS a list.
        I am not saying that I agree with the PLR method (in fact most of it I cannot stand) but here is the logic. Thirty five percent of a boatload of sales is a lot more than seventy percent of nothing.
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        • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
          Originally Posted by imon32red View Post

          I am not saying that I agree with the PLR method (in fact most of it I cannot stand) but here is the logic. Thirty five percent of a boatload of sales is a lot more than seventy percent of nothing.
          I agree with THAT logic. However, I don't think we can argue that logic with this example. Everyone participating in this amazon PLR example is obviously jacked up on some hyped up course they bought. Their approach in copy/pasting from a cheap PLR store would indicate to me that there's nothing in the content to lead anyone to get on a list.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
    I have heard that Amazon will be cleaning all of this stuff up soon...PLR and Public Domain. If it keeps getting worse, it will really hurt their sales so hopefully what I heard is correct.
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    • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
      Originally Posted by Paul Gram View Post

      I have heard that Amazon will be cleaning all of this stuff up soon...PLR and Public Domain. If it keeps getting worse, it will really hurt their sales so hopefully what I heard is correct.
      I hope so. I think you could still get away with using PLR for the content as long as you repackage it, write your own intro, description, title, cover image etc.

      Not a bad effort for residual income. I've only got one Kindle book up. It's been up since 2006. I wrote a paperback. Went through a publisher. It's up as both paperback and Kindle. Now that I get 70% on Kindle copies, I make more on that than the paperback.

      I'm in process of adding more Kindle books now. I don't buy into these guys that are selling you systems on how to add 100 titles per week. You can't possibly do it the right way in that amount of time. These are the copy/pasters.

      I think one per day is a push.
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
        Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post


        I'm in process of adding more Kindle books now. I don't buy into these guys that are selling you systems on how to add 100 titles per week. You can't possibly do it the right way in that amount of time. These are the copy/pasters.

        I think one per day is a push.
        I TOTALLY agree with you. Anyone who is doing 100 titles a week is just putting up a bunch of crap. They will be the same one's doing 1,000 autoblogs next week and then on to something else.
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        • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
          Originally Posted by Paul Gram View Post

          I TOTALLY agree with you. Anyone who is doing 100 titles a week is just putting up a bunch of crap. They will be the same one's doing 1,000 autoblogs next week and then on to something else.
          I'm making a consistent $50 per month from my one Kindle title. I put almost two years into writing that book. I'm certainly not going to get rich at that rate LOL!

          My approach now is to find quality PLR that's not already on amazon 5 times, create a title that sells, add my own insights, reword/rewrite where needed and offer something of real value.

          I'll let you know how it goes in my upcoming WSO: Hey Dummy, set yourself apart on Amazon and stop copy/pasting from the PLR store...

          j/k
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  • Profile picture of the author Peggy Baron
    Hi Mandothrasher,
    I totally agree with you, and I'm a PLR provider. People need to redo the PLR before they even think of putting it on Kindle, for the very reasons you mentioned.

    PLR can be a good first step to your own book, but it should be considered the framework upon which to build an awesome Kindle book, not the end result.

    Peggy
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    • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
      Originally Posted by Peggy Baron View Post

      Hi Mandothrasher,
      I totally agree with you, and I'm a PLR provider. People need to redo the PLR before they even think of putting it on Kindle, for the very reasons you mentioned.

      PLR can be a good first step to your own book, but it should be considered the framework upon which to build an awesome Kindle book, not the end result.

      Peggy
      Thank You!

      Now, if these "Get Rich Quick with PLR and Kindle" people would just properly educate their folks. I watched a live webinar last week by a guy pitching his get rich quick on amazon system. He was boasting about how fast he could find PLR and have it up on amazon as a kindle book. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 per week!


      By the way Peggy,
      My wife and I bought your PLR business course last week through Nicole's site! My wife is a graduate of one of the top journalism schools and loves to write. We're looking forward to getting into it. Still reading over your materials. Good stuff!

      (sorry for the thread creep)
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      • Profile picture of the author Peggy Baron
        Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

        Thank You!

        Now, if these "Get Rich Quick with PLR and Kindle" people would just properly educate their folks. I watched a live webinar last week by a guy pitching his get rich quick on amazon system. He was boasting about how fast he could find PLR and have it up on amazon as a kindle book. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 per week!
        I can't imagine it will be too long before Amazon weeds out the duplicates. IMHO, it's a pity because there is a lot you can do to PLR to add value and create a really great product.

        Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

        By the way Peggy,
        My wife and I bought your PLR business course last week through Nicole's site! My wife is a graduate of one of the top journalism schools and loves to write. We're looking forward to getting into it. Still reading over your materials. Good stuff!

        (sorry for the thread creep)
        It's your thread, you can thread creep if you want to. Thanks for the kind words and good luck with it!

        Peggy
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  • Profile picture of the author Qamar
    I think there's nothing wrong in copy and pasting a good plr into kindle books as long as you write a good title and provide a decent looking cover. I agree with you that we MUST set ourselves apart from other lazy buggers. I did exactly that 10 days ago and I have got 6 sales up to this point. Not bad for a first timer like me.

    In fact I have just finished browsing the Amazon kindle store 10 minutes ago and did noticed exactly what you have mentioned about those 99 cents books.These are the ones that are going to spoil the market imo.


    Qamar
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    • Profile picture of the author edlewis
      This has been a pet peeve of mine for months now.

      I spend a ton of time on Amazon and the Kindle Store just looking around and researching....and it's become clear of late that "IMers"(many of them Warriors) are turning the Kindle Store into a dumping ground of PLR content.

      I call it "Kindle Spamming".

      They all upload PLR content without changing it one bit and expect to get rich. It's like just posting a few ebooks on Kindle is akin to buying some "magic beans" and planting them.

      After thinking about it though....I'm not sure WHO to be more upset with....those who BUY the "magic beans" or those who SELL them.

      It's clear that most of these people copying and pasting crappy PLR content on to Kindle are only doing so because they've been told to do it by someone who sold them a product on how to make EASY money on Kindle.

      In my experience so far, it's become clear to me that many of these "experts" are simply out to make a quick buck....just like their customers.

      In recent months, Kindle has become my main business model. I spend alot of time in the Kindle Store on Amazon and in the KDP Platform...so I know that of which I speak.

      I can tell you with certainty that many of these "experts" are faux experts....AKA fakers.

      That is what is even sadder about much of this. Not only are these Kindle Spammers ruining the Kindle Platform - for publishers and readers - but they are doing so based on crappy information provided to them by the faux "experts" who clearly don't know what they are talking about....just spewing theory and misinformation in order to sell an info-product.

      The problem is that there is little we can do. The same thing was done to Craigslist some years ago...and the only way CL was able to stay afloat was to clamp down HARD on spammers...aka "marketers".

      Amazon will have to do the same with the Kindle platform. Otherwise it will wind up like eBay did with info-products. You will have 100 different people all selling the SAME exact product and all competing solely on PRICE....
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      • Profile picture of the author wtatlas
        I think Amazon should bear some of the blame for allowing this to happen. They seem to just accept anything and everything without checking for quality or value. A bit like Clickbank.
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        • Profile picture of the author rickfrazier1
          Originally Posted by wtatlas View Post

          I think Amazon should bear some of the blame for allowing this to happen. They seem to just accept anything and everything without checking for quality or value. A bit like Clickbank.
          Hey, if you want to get much closer to home, the same thing seems to be happening here on the WSO forum with increasing regularity. Most, recently I've seen the same PLR product for sale as a wso and a freebie in warroom from two different warriors... It's hard to be sure if either one is the original owner of the product, and the current WSO is selling PLR Rights...

          [sigh]
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Coleman
        Originally Posted by edlewis View Post


        The same thing was done to Craigslist some years ago...and the only way CL was able to stay afloat was to clamp down HARD on spammers...aka "marketers".

        Amazon will have to do the same with the Kindle platform. Otherwise it will wind up like eBay did with info-products. You will have 100 different people all selling the SAME exact product and all competing solely on PRICE....
        I agree. That is exactly what Amazon doesn't want. They want to maintain their reputation for being clean, honest, and easy to use.

        Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    I totally agree with you!

    The other thing is that most PLR ebooks are only about 30 pages! How long do you epect a book to be when you buy it? Probably a lot more than 30 pages! So you can imagine how mad the Kindle owner is going to be when he downloads the book and see's how short it is.

    There is a way to use PLR to make kindle books but it takes work. What I do is decide what topic I want my book to be on and then I gather all the PLR I can find. I make an outline of the chapters and fit the PLR in where applicable - As I am doing this I tweak it so that it is in the same "voice" and has some flow. Takes a couple of days but you end up with a unique book that has some length and value.

    The way the kindle store works is that the books purchased the most rank the highest so you really do want to differentiate your book from the others in order to get the sales. It's worth the extra effort.

    Lee
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike McAleer
    Thanks for this.

    This is another great example of how people will use PLR for the wrong purposes. It is a lot better to start off with your own product because then you can brand yourself. If you are giving away PLR as a freebie, then that is totally fine. Trying to sell it however at prices distorted from your competition is just straight up dumb!
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  • Profile picture of the author Josh Anderson
    Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

    PLR rebarfs
    LOL! This one wins the newly coined phrase of the day.

    rebarf: "To catch projectile vomit in ones mouth and throw it back up with twice the force." - Urban Dictonary
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    • Profile picture of the author MandoThrasher
      Originally Posted by Josh Anderson View Post

      LOL! This one wins the newly coined phrase of the day.

      This is the first time I have seen the word "rebarf." I hope it makes it into the Oxford dictionary

      Okay world, please give me credit for that one!

      I wrote that because I was too lazy to look up how to spell regurgitate.
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      • Profile picture of the author Josh Anderson
        Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

        Okay world, please give me credit for that one!

        I wrote that because I was too lazy to look up how to spell regurgitate.
        I think descriptively rebarf is much more accurate... because to "rebarf" you must have first caught the first barf spewed from someone else in your mouth...
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  • Profile picture of the author pizzatherapy
    Excellent post about Kindle spamming..and creating Kindle products.

    I have a Kindle account but have not put up a book for sale yet.

    I have several of my own unique books that I thought I might sell on Kindle...

    I also thought PLR books sounded like a great idea...

    I'm glad I read this post before I put up any PLR...

    I have tons of PLR but for the most part it is not written very well.

    There are exceptions, but I do think you have to rewrite and tweak some of the language to truly make it unique.

    I will only use the following advice for my Kindle PLR projects:

    From cashcow:

    I ...decide what topic I want my book to be on and then I gather all the PLR I can find. I make an outline of the chapters and fit the PLR in where applicable - As I am doing this I tweak it so that it is in the same "voice" and has some flow. Takes a couple of days but you end up with a unique book that has some length and value.
    cashcow: great advice.

    BTW: What is "thread creep"?
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  • Profile picture of the author shurets1
    The problem is that the "source" that sold the PLR
    is always promoting the copy-paste-make-gazillions scheme

    I would also blame those who fall for it, thought... as it's not logical to make money THAT easy.
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  • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
    Banned
    Originally Posted by MandoThrasher View Post

    Sorry for the long rant. Maybe I need to write a WSO called "Hey dummy, set yourself apart on Amazon or you're wasting everyone's time."
    So, you're thinking about writing fiction then?
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    • Profile picture of the author edlewis
      I still think using PLR content is a viable business model...I have several ebooks I've published that have come from PLR content I've purchased.

      However, if you want to achieve results, you are going to have to do more than just copy-and-paste-and-upload to Kindle. This means, at the very least, changing the title and cover of the product.

      Also....don't expect your PLR content-based ebooks to become best-sellers. One of the problems with PLR content is that it is almost always written in a rather generic style. More often than not, it lacks "personality".

      Every time I make a sale of an ebook I published using PLR, I consider it a bonus.

      But those "bonuses" can add up, especially if you have 10 or more published.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Wilkinson
    About as bad are those that put up public domain works when there are already 20 duplicates listed.

    Thomas
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  • Profile picture of the author Qamar
    There is nothing wrong with plr method so long as the informations are useful to the readers with proper grammar and formatting and related to your book title.

    The only thing which is wrong is when the plr is badly written and has title that are misleading and poor formatting.

    I don't understand why some people keep calling plr as crappy? Crappy it may be to us IMer because we see them everywhere but to many other readers from all over the world, these plr contents may be useful to them.


    Qamar
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  • Profile picture of the author ijohnson
    Yes, I have the same feelings about these WSOs coming out teaching people how to just cut and paste PLR and throw it up on Amazon in its raw form. It really makes it difficult for those of us who care about what we create and care about the people who buy it -- I want the reader to buy with confidence knowing they're actually going to get a decent product.

    I'm working on my first Kindle book and I've spent countless hours researching information for it and pulling it together. It's always been important to me to deliver nothing but high-quality products or work. Besides, I want my info-product to withstand the rip-tide when Amazon delivers its own "slap" to all the duplicate content and PLR products that's been uploaded as a Kindle book.

    If things continue as they are, I'm sure Amazon will have to put some additional measures in place to filter out the crap. When I see the same covers, same title, and different prices for the same book, all I can do is shake my head in disgust -- nothing but crap posted by some lazy IMer trying to make a quick buck!!!! I'm hoping those "crap shooters" will be getting the boot real soon, too.

    ~ Iris
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    • Profile picture of the author gfMedia
      Thanks for this great topic, and based on several comments, I've put together the following...

      To achieve the best results, you need to do more than just copy-paste-upload your PLR Articles. Spinning your PLR Articles is a great "first step" to writing valuable content. PLR Articles that are "Spun Correctly" can be considered a "starting point" to help you build your research. Always remember to add as much "real" value as you can when using PLR Articles. The earnings potential of non-customized content is limited and any money earned will likely not continue for very long.

      Let me know what you think.
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      • Profile picture of the author wtatlas
        Originally Posted by gfMedia View Post

        Thanks for this great topic, and based on several comments, I've put together the following...

        To achieve the best results, you need to do more than just copy-paste-upload your PLR Articles. Spinning your PLR Articles is a great "first step" to writing valuable content. PLR Articles that are "Spun Correctly" can be considered a "starting point" to help you build your research. Always remember to add as much "real" value as you can when using PLR Articles. The earnings potential of non-customized content is limited and any money earned will likely not continue for very long.

        Let me know what you think.
        Nicely summarized. Intelligent use of PLR ebooks for your own research can save a lot of time. The chapter headings are often good places to start when thinking of topics to write about.

        As you said you should add as much extra value as you can. I re-write PLR material completely so at the end I have an original product.
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      • Profile picture of the author roypreece
        Originally Posted by gfMedia View Post

        The earnings potential of non-customized content is limited and any money earned will likely not continue for very long.

        Let me know what you think.
        The customised content also has a short life.

        I think that the reason why some people advocate using PLR and putting up Kindle books on many subjects is to test which ones get any response, then put together a 'proper' book on the topic(s) which people are willing to pay for.

        There's a difference between what people say they want, and what they are willing to get out their credit card for... At the moment Kindle is a way to separate the two.

        Until Amazon cleans it up with human reviewers, it will remain a cheap marketing test bed.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    You're right.

    I actually have a twitter related kindle book for sale and I'm sure having that rehashed crap cluttering up the listings is affecting sales of original products.

    I don't sweat it because I'm not that bothered about the money but I'd hate to be customer seeing all that crap come up.
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    nothing to see here.

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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      I have to wonder how long it will be before some kind of reviewer weeds out anything looking too similar. Or they change some of the submission rules.
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