How do I conduct free research for an ebook ?

Not a lot of information for the question but go see what people are asking about in the forums, survey lists, use keyword search tools, just figure out what is it that's keeping people up at night, and how you can solve that for them.

If that doesn't work, I think the world can use more information about celebrities since there is definitely not enough out there right now :-)

uhhhh - how about doing a search on Google?

Hello there,

I applaud you in starting out with market research. Too many people get this crucial step all wrong. They create a product/service first before finding out if people will buy what they're selling. If you're looking to make easy money online or offline you need to find out what people are buying right now and give them more of the same. Don't put the cart before the horse. So, where do you go for research? Ebay.com and Amazon.com are great places to get ideas. It's in ebay's best interest to show you what's selling so that you can find easy money making products and sell large amounts for them.

So here is what you do. Go to ebay.com. In the top right hand corner you will see 4 tabs - (1)Buy (2)Sell (3)My Ebay & (4)Help. Place your mouse over the (Sell) tab. Under the sell tab you will see a (What's Hot) tab or simply go to this link - (pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html). On the left bottom side of the (What's hot) page you will see a subtitle (Popular Searches). They give you the 10 most current and BEST selling items on ebay.com. Bingo!!! If they're selling so well on ebay.com where there's millions of dollars changing hands then you know there is a market. This is called the ebay pulse. (pulse.ebay.com) You will also see that there is a drop down category bar on the ebay pulse page. Go there and click on baby for example. You will see the most popular searches for the baby category or any other category. Pick something that you're interested in because that will make it uncomplicated in the beginning to stick to it. If you're looking for truck loads of easy money to make online then Ebay.com and Amazon.com (Amazon Hot New Releases amazon.com/gp/new-releases) are two of the best research tools that you have.

Once you've uncovered a niche the next step is finding out 'why' your target audience is looking to buy. In psychology we learn that our most basic actions are as a result of two human instincts. We either 'Move Away From Pain' or we "Move Towards Pleasure'. Understanding that deep universal need is you ticket to success. Of those two basic instincts we will take actions faster on something that will take away our pain. So, remember that when using money making strategies. Your most profitable niches will be those that solve pain (the more pain the more money). Such as hair loss, over weight problems, insomnia and many more niches.

Ok, now that you have a few ideas of niches now you can get into the next phase which is getting into the minds of your target audience. Your goal is to find there largest issues/problems. (I know that sounds bad but this is the realism of life) The best places to go are forums. Try Yahoo answers answers.yahoo.com and Google groups groups.google.com for starters. Blend in to the forums and groups. Read everything you can as well as go to eHow ehow.com and to learn about the needs your target market has.

Your next goal could be to find out if there are enough people searching for your product on a daily basis to be profitable. To do this we use keyword research tools. These tools will tell us how many people are searching for our niche/product on a daily/monthly basis. For these results we can see if there are enough people searching for our affiliate products to be profitable. One of the tools that I use is called WordTracker.com freekeywords.wordtracker.com. This is an excellent tool and very easy to use for beginners. A more advanced tool would be the SEO keyword tracker tool. Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool. The rock bottom minimum is really based on your competition. However, do not let high competition scare you away. The one thing that you know for share is that there would not be high competition if your product was not selling.


good luck


cheers


jay

Jay, This is the most helpful informative post I have read in ages. Well done and you should make it into an e-book and sell it as a WSO.

God bless

Norma

Why Not Give Away The Keys To The Castle?

This should really help...

1. 43things.com 43 Things
2. About.com Be a Guide Topics About - Be a Guide
3. About.com A to Z list About.com A-Z
4. Alexa Top 500 http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500
5. Amazon Hot New Releases Amazon.com Hot New Releases: The bestselling new & future releases on Amazon.com. Updated hourly.
6. Amazon Magazines http://www.amazon.com/magazine-newspaper-subscriptions/
7. AOL Hot Searches AOL Hot Searches
8. Ask.com Top Searches About Ask.com: IQ
9. Barnes & Noble Daily top Sellers Bestsellers, Books, Music, Movies - Barnes*&*Noble
top10everything.asp
10. BoingBoing Boing Boing
11. Delicious.com Popular Delicious
12. Digg.com Popular Archive Digg / Popular News Archive for May, 2009
13. Digg Spy digg labs / bigspy
14. Dummies.com http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Dumm...All/index.html
15. eBay Hot Categories monthly pdf report Seller Resources
hotitems.pdf
16. eBay Marketplace Research Overview
17. eBay Pulse eBay Pulse: trends, hot picks, cool stuff and popular searches on eBay.com
18. eBay Seller Central Seller Resources
19. eBay What's Hot Seller Resources
20. eHow eHow | How To Do Just About Everything!
21. Face Book Welcome to Facebook | Facebook
22. FreeIQ.com http://freeiq.com/wrkfrmhm
23. Google Catalogs Google
24. Google Groups Google Groups
25. Google Groups Active Google Groups
26. Google Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
27. Google News - Most Popular Most Popular - Google News
28. Google Trends Google Trends: May 4, 2009
29. Google Zeitgeist Google Press Center: Zeitgeist
30. GoogSpy SpyFu
31. How to Do Things.com How To Do Things.com
32. Keyword Discovery Keyword Discovery - Advanced keyword research tool and search term suggestion tool
33. Live Search Live Search
34. Lycos 50 Lycos
35. Magazines.com Magazines.com Magazine Subscriptions
36. Meetup Topics Find Meetup Groups near you - Meetup.com
37. My Goals Goals & Goal-Setting: Setting Goals at myGoals.com
38. MySimon Categories All Shopping Categories
39. MySimon Top Searches Top Searches - Shop at mySimon
40. Neilsen Net Ratings Nielsen Online - A global leader in Internet media and market research
41. Netscape Popular AOL.com - Netscape
42. Omgili Omgili Forum Search - Find out what people are saying
43. Reddit.com Popular reddit.com: what's new online!
44. SEObook Keyword Tool Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
45. SEOmoz SEOmoz | Popular Searches
46. Technorati Popular Technorati Popular
47. Thisnext.com/activity ThisNext - Recommend, Share and Discover Great Products!
48. Trendwatching trendwatching.com: Consumer trends and insights from around the world
49. VeiwDo ViewDo: Know-how on-the-go now!
50. viralvideochart.com Viral Video Chart - Top 20 Viral Videos
51. WikiHow wikiHow - The How-to Manual That You Can Edit
52. WordTracker.com Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker
53. Yahoo Answers http://answers.yahoo

Enjoy

cheers

jay

Online tools such as survey software can help you a lot.

good Luck

Depends on the type of research you need to do.

If it is information about a subject, find the authority site and research from there.

Hi

Bev took the words right out of my mouth. It depends what research you want to do.

Do you want to research what topic to write your book on or do you have a topic and title and want to research content for it?

Mary

The original question reminded me of someone asking, "How much does a new car cost?" or "How much does it cost to build a house?"

There are so many other factors that you must look at besides that basic question.

Even the type of ebook that you would like to write comes into play.

If you are planning to write one of those short, quick ebooks that barely scratches the surface of your topic, you probably don't need to do much research at all. Especially if it is a topic that you are already familiar with.

There is a lot of great advice in this thread.

Google Alerts are fabulous. I love to use them.

JaySabree has provided a lot of great info, as well.

Another great procedure is to set up a landing page with a question on it, which is what we have seen many gurus like Alex Mandossian do. The train of thought with this procedure is not to spend the time and energy writing it until you know that you have an audience. By setting up a landing page with a box for readers to type in their most pressing question about _____ (topic), you are in great shape because your readers are telling you exactly what they want to learn from you.

Essentially, they are saying, "This is what I want you to teach me. Now teach me."

WOW JaySabree! A lot of info there. KUDOS! Only about 25% of that list was on my radar already! Thanks for the tips! I also sometimes find chat rooms geared toward the topic at hand to find out other sources of online info that may be very specific to the subject matter. Good luck Dyaonna!

I just wrote an e-book on a personal experience issue (bariatric surgery) and am in the process of marketing it. I went to relevant forums and researched Google to get a feel for "demand" or not.

I have to say that Jay Sabree's post is one of the best recommendations I have seen for research. For those who haven't read his post, you should, it's good stuff.

Gary

I assume you already got the market. If so. Here is a good action plan:

1. Find the hottest forums and see what threads get the most views, and the most comments. Also see if there is some topics that are talked about a lot.

2. Go to yahoo answer and see what questions people are asking.

3. Search google for "Most Popular", "Popular posts" etc + your niche, to see what people like to read about.

4. Go to Amazon.com and read the product reviews on related products/books. This will help you understand what problems your audience have, and what did and did not solve it.

Lots of good info and ideas here. I would just add these suggestions:

If you don't know much about the subject, I would just add go to the library and get the Dummies book on the subject and, depending on the subject, there might also be an Idiot's book. Those will give you the bare bones. Then get as many related books as possible. Read them and make notes. In 1-2 weeks you'll know more about it than 85% of the population.

Also, check the magazines in that niche. But don't just settle for what's current, check back issues (I go back as far as I can. 5-10 years back will give you a ton of stuff). Even better, copy the table of contents of all of them. Each one of those titles is an idea for content.

Check the forums to see what people are talking about and what questions they're asking. That will give you an idea for a slant (or three). Start posting your knowledge on your blog and see what shows up in the comments.

When you go to check eBay, also check and see if there are any info products on the subject being sold on eBay. If you don't have Jim Cockrum's Silent Sales Machine, get it. It has a ton of ideas on using eBay to create info products).

Also, do a search on [keyword]+FAQ, [keyword]+tip. Those will give you article ideas, as well as knowledge.

I know Google Alerts has been mentioned and I agree. When you look at the alerts when they show up, don't just use them for information. Use them for blog post and article ideas, as well as information and places to comment.

Finally, as you're doing research, what are you looking for that you're not finding? Chances are if you're not getting a question answered, a lot of other people aren't either. There's a perfect eBook just waiting to be written.

The other thing, too, is that if you're interested in the subject, are collecting information about it and writing consistently about it, you'll keep getting more and more ideas. All of that can then be turned into multiple eBooks, audios, videos, etc. So don't just think of writing one eBook. Consider it the first in a multi-part info empire.