Let's say that you want to make money on the Internet but you don't know where to start. You could become an affiliate, but that would require that you have knowledge about how to attract traffic to your websites and some online marketing skills that you may not have. Then what do you do?
A good option would be to collect information about a specific topic that you like or that you know a lot about and write a short e-book. This do not have to be long. It could be a few pages of information like let's say 20 - 30. You can further improve the quality of the e-book with a few graphics, photographs of images which help describe better what you are trying to explain with words.
How do you create the book and the graphics. The easiest and most inexpensive way is to use your own computer if you own one or go to a public library and borrow one for a while. You can write everything and then type it using a text editor like Microsoft Works or Microsoft Words.
Both of these programs allow you to insert images and photographs on the document that you are creating. You can upload the images to your computer if you have access to a scanner.
You can also get the images from free clip art websites on the Internet so you don't have to create them yourself. You can also create some images using Paint. That's a default Microsoft program that comes installed within most of today's PC computers.
Once you have the e-book in text form you will need to convert it to another format. This new format is the one you will use to sell and distribute your e-book to your clients. Because you plan to sell this product to many individuals, the file needs to be compatible with most computers and operating systems.
One of the best formats that you can use to sell your e-books is PDF. This is the standard for Adove Reader. It is widely used and compatible with most computers world wide. Now, how do you convert from text to PDF? You can do this from Microsoft Works easily.
Once you finish your document save it. Then go to File in the left upper corner of your computer and click where it says Publish to PDF. Your file will be converted to PDF format automatically. Adove Reader comes installed in most PC computers too. So don't worry about it. This will probably work for you.
The good thing about this technique is that it is free. You don't have to purchase expensive software or anything like that. You can have your e-book ready for distribution really fast.
Now you need a website. You can go to www.godaddy.com and register a domain name with them. The domain name is what your visitors use to find you. This costs about $2.99 if you also open a hosting account.
Hosting is the space on the server. All serious websites need to pay for hosting. The hosting plans there start at $3.99 per month. That's really cheap. For just about $6 and a few hours of work you have your first product ready to go.
Once you set up your website with them, you can create your home page. They offer a site builder software program for $15. This will be useful to build other websites that you may want in the future.
So, you get this software and create your own homepage. What's next? Before we keep going, keep something in mind. The sales letter is what is going to sell your product. No matter how great your e-book may be, your clients do not know that until they actually purchase it. So, your sales letter needs to be convincing enough to sell the product and your product must be good enough to keep the customers from requesting refunds.
But what do you do once you have the web site set up and the product ready to be launched? What is your next step? You need to let the world know about your product. You need to reach a vast audience of potential clients. This is the tough part. The secret is to use as much leverage as possible.
I will tell you about my two favorite techniques. They are affiliate networks and viral marketing. When you join an affiliate network you have the chance to reach many potential affiliates who will work for you and promote your product. The drawback of this technique is that there are thousands of merchants like you competing for the same thing on the most effective affiliates networks.
It is all a numbers game, but if you manage to let a few super affiliates discover your product you are going to be OK. Keep in mind that the more affiliates you have the better, but this won't necessarily define your profits. A few affiliates that know what they are doing could be more profitable than many who have no clue about this business.
What affiliates do is that they pay or invest time and effort promoting your product in exchange for a sales commission. You choose what commission to offer the affiliates. You only pay them once they generate a sale for you.
For example let's say that you are selling your e-book for $25. Then you offer 20% commission to the affiliates. You pay them $5 whenever they sell one of your products and you get to keep the other $20. This is optional and it is up to you to choose how much you pay them per sale.
One of the affiliate networks that you can join is www.clickbank.com. They have a network of more than 100,000 affiliates that know how to promote your products. There are many other companies out there that provide similar services but ClickBank is one of my favorites.
Viral marketing is the other technique you can use. This consists on advertising in such a way that your marketing efforts multiply many times over. For example you can write articles and let other webmasters use them on their websites and newletters. This is a very effective marketing technique because you can post a short advertisement at the bottom of each article.
What happens is that when you submit your articles to many article banks, webmasters that need content for their websites borrow your articles and offer them as free content to their visitors. Your articles spread all over the Internet like a virus. Whenever someone read one of your articles and read the resource box at the bottom they may visit your website if they are interested on the information that you offer.
This is a very effective marketing technique. You can submit your articles to many article banks like www.goarticles.com, and www.articlecity.com. These had being the two most profitable techniques that I have found so far.
There are many more marketing strategies that you can use to increase your sales and promote your products, but this article contains the basic information that you need to start. I hope I have being helpful. You could give it a try and see if it works for you. Some people are making a lot of money every day selling their own products on the Internet.
EasyWebRiches.com ? 2007
Not too many years ago the only way to get your book published was to send a manuscript to a large publishing house and hope they liked it enough to publish and distribute it. Even then, there was no guarantee of success because the publishing houses did little or nothing to promote a book unless it was written by a well known author or likely to garner some impressive sales. Whether it might have been in the best interest of the publishing house to promote a book did not seem to matter, advertising dollars were only pumped into those works most likely to return multifold returns for the publishing house.
Another drawback to having a large publishing house publish your book that is still true today is the distribution of revenues from sales of YOUR work. If you are "lucky" enough to have a major publisher "accept" your work and publish it, you are on your way to receiving pennies on the dollar for each copy they sell. Did you ever wonder why you are given such a small percentage of the sales revenues - maybe as little as 2 percent? Well, it boils down to corporate profits and shareholder dividends. Almost all of the large publishing houses are publicly held stocks, and like any other stock, shareholders expect double-digit growth on their investments. That, combined with huge CEO and executive salaries, corporate inefficiencies, and a need to show profits, means that they can only pay you - the author, the one that did all the real work - a few cents for each copy of YOUR book that they sell.
There is an alternative, Print on Demand, POD. Several POD printing firms have sprung up in the last decade, making it easier for an author to get their work published. With the Internet online bookselling marketplaces growing as they have, it is even possible to market your own book alongside those published by the biggest publishing houses out there. Other than a marketplace commission of about 15% on the sale of your book and the price of printing, you do not have to give anyone a penny to publish your book. On top of that, you do not give up any of your rights to your own work.
It no longer makes much sense to beg a big publishing house to publish your book. Of the hundreds of thousands of books they publish each year, few make the authors rich anyway. Why not take the entire matter on yourself. You will need to do most of the marketing yourself anyway, and setting up a website to promote your book, writing some articles to draw attention to it, and mailing it to customers that buy it will secure the profits for you instead of some corporation.
Both Nathaniel Tabares & Michael Mould are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Nathaniel Tabares has sinced written about articles on various topics from PPC Advertising, Cars and Marriage. By Nathaniel Tabares - Visit his website atwww.easywebriches.com for more details.. Nathaniel Tabares's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.
Michael Mould has sinced written about articles on various topics from Book Reviews, Online Dating and Software. Michael E. Mould is the author of "Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips," [Paperback ISBN 1427600708, CD-ROM ISBN 1599714876] and the developer of "Bookkeeping for Booksellers" [CD ISBN 1427600694], you can. Michael Mould's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.