In Lesson
20 of my Insider Secrets Course I tell you that
one of the hottest products to sell on the Internet is information
based products or software. Not everyone is capable of
developing software... but we are ALL capable of developing
our own, in-demand information product!
When
I first started selling Car Secrets Revealed, it was
one of the very first eBooks on the Internet. It became one
of the best selling products of its kind, and is still selling
strong! In fact, Car Secrets Revealed is the way I
became involved in online marketing!
In order
to sell Car Secrets Revealed online, I had to hire
a programmer to turn my material into an eBook that people
could download, read a sample chapter from, and then buy!
Let me tell you, hiring that programmer was NOT cheap!
Fortunately, today there are inexpensive software programs
available that will compile your eBook with relatively little
hassle. This is good news for anyone thinking about developing
their own information product...
Because
the demand for eBooks is taking off!
Why?
Well, think about this for a moment...
What
brings people online? The need for information, of course!
We come online in search of quality information that is going
to meet a need in some way, shape or form. This is what makes
eBooks the perfect product!
eBooks
allow you to instantly gratify your customer's desire
for quality information!
And even
better still... the profit potential is outrageous!
Because eBooks are ridiculously cheap to produce and can be
delivered to the consumer electronically, your profit margin
is HUGE!
I have
a friend who used to write, publish and sell her own "hard
copy" books. She says she will never do it again! Here's
the process she used to go through in her publishing business:
- Research
and writing
-
Typesetting and layout
- Proofreading
- Hiring
an illustrator to design covers and interior illustrations
- Getting
bids for printing and production
- Choosing
a competent printer
- Paying
for the printing and transportation of 5000 copies (in advance)
- Warehousing
the books
- Maintaining
a post office box
- Maintaining
toll-free lines and numbers
- Hiring
staff to take orders 12 hours a day, 5 days a week
- Hiring
staff to process orders
- Hiring
staff to package and ship orders
- Developing
special processes to ship out of country orders
- Dealing
with orders that "did not arrive"
- Setting
up inventory tracking procedures
- Hiring
staff to implement inventory tracking and maintenance
- Insuring
the warehouse space and contents
- Workers'
compensation payments for workers lifting heavy book boxes
- Bookstore
returns
- Damaged
goods
- Paying
over 60% of the price of the book to bookstore distributors
- Jumping
through the "billing hoops" established by large
book retailers
And
this does not include any marketing costs involved in actually
selling the books! So the costs continue to rise...
- Designing
advertising pieces
- Printing
direct mail pieces
- Direct
mail advertising (payment in advance)
- Designing
book catalogs
- Hiring
staff to follow postal regulations to send out direct mail
promotions and catalogs
- Hiring
staff to do in-house publicity ... or hiring outside publicity
services
And the
list goes on! In the hard copy book business, 1/2 of a
percentage point can make the difference between earning a
profit and losing your shirt.
In spite
of the fact that my friend has several Canadian "best
sellers" under her belt, she has stopped publishing.
The money she made wasn't worth the time, effort, and money
she expended on getting the book published and sold.
So, in
contrast, let's look at what is involved in publishing an
eBook:
- Researching
and writing your information product
- Publishing
it in an HTML or PDF format
- Setting
up an automatic on-line ordering and delivery system
- Marketing
and publicizing your product online
- Banking
the checks!
And
that's it!
There
are:
- NO
typesetting, art separation or processing costs.
- NO
financing costs to print book inventory.
- NO
warehousing costs.
- NO
inventory tracking.
- NO
maintenance of post office boxes or costly 800 number service
lines.
- NO
staffing costs ... including salaries, benefits, workers'
compensation, unemployment insurance, etc.
- NO
staffing headaches ... including smoke breaks, sick days
and training.
- NO
bookstore product returns.
- NO
bookstore "billing" hoops.
- NO
large inventory tracking and accounting systems.
- NO
damaged goods returns.
- NO
inventory insurance costs.
- NO
out of country shipping hassles.
- NO
printing of brochures, direct mailing pieces or catalogues.
The
bottom line is you can sell an eBook out of your home office
(bedroom, garage, corner of the kitchen, wherever!) with just
you and your computer. Of course, you'll need to setup the
automatic processing and e-commerce solutions I talk about
extensively in my Insider Secrets Course, but this
is a piece of cake!
For example,
you can setup a combination of Eudora Pro and Mailloop to
handle and process 80% of your incoming email! You can setup
your web site to automatically process incoming orders, record
your customer information and transfer it into your customer
database, process the payments on-line in real time, and deliver
your product.
Once
you've spent a little time perfecting this "no hands"
system, you are open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. Your customers can order, make their payments and
receive their eBook while you're sleeping! It doesn't
get much easier... or much more profitable... than this!
Think
about it...
- The
cost of publishing has been reduced to almost nothing!
Compared to traditional hard copy publishing, where you
have to pay all typesetting, artwork, processing and printing
costs up front, the price of acquiring the software to produce
an eBook is negligible.
- There
are NO delivery costs. When you publish hard copy books,
you have to setup a shipping department to deal with inventory,
packaging and shipping materials. With an eBook, there is
none of this hassle. Electronic delivery is FREE!
- There
are no warehousing, staffing or insurance costs. In
traditional publishing, taking care of the "product"
is a time consuming and costly process.
- eBooks
are timeless. If you have a topic that is timeless,
you can continue selling your eBook forever... there is
no such thing as OUT OF PRINT! If you have information that
is timely, you can update it in an instant. My friend used
to publish information directories... she explained that
they were virtually out of date on the first day of shipping
because of the long lag time involved in book production.
- eBooks
are versatile products! They can be used in your front
end promotions as lead generating products, they can drive
traffic to your web site, they can BE your main product
... they can become your backend product... how much more
flexible can you get?!
The bottom
line is this: eBooks are the perfect product to sell over
the Internet! They have huge profit potential because
once you've compiled the eBook into electronic format and
setup your e-commerce system, there are absolutely NO production
or distribution costs! The payments you receive from customers
will be PURE PROFIT! So you can either walk away and let the
business run itself... or you can focus all of your energy
on marketing and promoting your in-demand information product
and watch your income soar!
For more
information on an incredible piece of software that just ads
to the ease of creating and producing ebooks while maintaining
absolute control and security over your intellectual property
click here
now!
Keep
your eyes open... eBooks are about to take the Internet by
storm!