Month: March 2010

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Using a PLR to create an eBook

Many people use a Private label rights eBook (PRL) to create their own eBook. They are readily available and are a great start for research or the beginner who wants to create an eBook as quickly as possible.

photo credit: ademc

PLR’s can be picked up for free or just a few dollars.

If you decide to use a ready made PRL eBook here are a few suggestion to help make it more successful.

1.  Check the quality of the work.

  • Is it complete?
  • Are there typing or grammar errors?
  • Would it benefit from photos and graphics?
  • Check the files that come with for covers, images and sources. Are they easy to understand and work with or do they need redone?

2.  Will the rights to the eBook work for what you are planning to do? This is very important to make sure you check and understand.

3.  Add more to the work. Make it your own. Otherwise the product is already out there and you are just selling or promoting old information. Add new chapters or take some out. Add an interview. Put in your own experiences. These are just a few ideas to brand the PLR as yours.

4.  Create a new eCover. You can use several free programs out there if you feel you have the technical skills needed or hire someone to create you one.

5.  Have the finished product proofed! This is very important. You can not see you own typos! Have the work checked for typos, grammer, graphic and if hyperlinks work.

Once you eBook is ready you will need to set up a great sales letter. And change the sales letter once in a while to give it a new look and feel. Once the sales letter is set up it doesn’t take much time to change a few buttons or colors.

6.  The ebook has to have a landing page where people can order the book. This means you need a website or a rebrander program to help with this step. Some eBooks come with a rebrander.You will need a way to deliver the product. You can use an auto responder to deliver it.

7.  Promote your eBook! It can be the greatest work out there but if no one sees it its will not sell or be read.

By working with a ready made PLR you can get an eBook set up in no time, often in a few hours or a day, depending on what you change and your technical skills.

But the bottom line in creating an eBook is to create a product that someone will want to read. If you keep that in mind whiled working on the supplied information you should be able to make a product that people will enjoy. And once you have made one eBook, the next will be faster and easier!

If some of these steps sound confusing you can get most of the help you need at Blogging Beginners. It’s where I learned how to set up websites, get traffic and learn the steps I needed to make an eBook. And best of all, its free!

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Questions to ask when Creating an EBook

When you start to create an eBook there are a few questions to ask yourself. These questions will help you decide a plan and course of action to take to get the eBook finished.

Books
photo credit: $holydevil

  • What will be the title of your eBook and will it have a subtitle? The title and keywords are a very important step if you want to get your Ebook off on to the right start.
  • Who will be your eBooks’ target audience and is there enough interest in your topic or niche?
  • What benefits does your eBook supply to your target audience?
  • Will you set up a website to promote the eBook?
  • Will you be the only author or will there be other co-authors? Some eBooks have been assembled by asking other authors to contribute related articles to the ebook project. This is a good option if you have limited time or are using the eBook as a promotional tool.
  • How many pages will your ebook be and will you include an appendix and index? An index will make finding chapters easier, which is good if the book is technical or instructional.
  • Will your ebook contain graphics, pictures or charts? This is also the time to consider the eBook cover and its graphics. Will you do the work yourself or hire the work to be done? At this point make sure any graphic, artwork or photos are royalty free or that you have a user license.
  • What file formats will your eBook be available in; text, pdf, exe, html, CD or video?

Crisis on the desktop
photo credit: alancleaver_2000

  • Will your eBook be sold as a product or will your eBook be used as a promotional tool for a website or business?
  • Will you include an eCourse to entice people to look at your eBook? An eCourse will create interest, buzz about the book and also will build up a mailing list.
  • Will you offer  a guarantee and testimonials to read? This is an important step in creating the sales page.
  • Will you let your protential buyers read free sample chapters or excerpts to entice them to purchase the eBook?
  • What type of payment options will you accept for the ebook? Click Bank and PayPal seem to be the easiest to set up for the new eBook publisher.
  • Do you have an auto responder for delivery of the product?
  • Will you be selling the reprint rights to your eBook? And if so, will it be a PLR or MRR? What will you use to create your own PDF? I recommend Open Office for making PDF’s. It’s easy to use and free.
  • And for me one of the most important questions I asked myself is why I wanted to create an ebook. The answer to this will help direct your entire project.

These questions are just a starting point and more will come up as you work on your project. For help there are several places you can turn to and if you have a mentor that is even better.

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Create additional income from eBooks

If your eBook is almost done you may be thinking of ways to create additional income with your project, besides just offering it for sale. Here are a few ways others are adding extra income from eBook sales.

No Substitute
photo credit: accent on eclectic

Sell Products related to your niche

One option is to have a small eBook or Mini eBook that is free that relates to you main eBook. This freebie will generate traffic to your site, create interest and a buzz about your eBook and will give other people the right to give away your free e-book. If you place an ad or links to your site in the free book you have instant free advertising and possible sales. You could include a mini catalog of your products or services that you offer in the e-book or a link to your associate program?

Do this with care though as you don’t want the eBook to look like spam.

Sell Advertisements

Before your ebook is offered to the public you can make arrangements to sell advertising space in your eBook. This could be done with full-page color ads, banners ads or classified ads. You could trade advertising space in your eBook for other forms of advertising. It would not take many times to get interest in someone placing an ad if the eBook was downloaded over 4000 or 5000 times.

Sell eBook Rights for your book

You can make money by selling the resell rights or master resell rights to those who buy the e-book. If your buyer has a similar niche selling your eBook could create them additional income and generate traffic to their site. This would allow other people to sell the reprint rights.

Many master resell rights have ads so this would also be one more avenue of income. This would mean every time someone reads your eBook or sells one, you’d get exposure.

These steps need to be decided upon and set up before you make your final PDF of your eBook.

EBooks with properly placed ads and hyperlinks read well and have a nice look. The main think is not to get carried away. People don’t mind a few ads but 7 pages before you get to the eBook information are way too much. And yes, I have seen this much advertising and I really didn’t care for it. It made me wonder how reliable the information would really be.

And for a soft sell or advertisements, create a free eCourse for your eBook. An eCourse is quite easy to create. Mine took less than a day to put together and have proofed. Make sure the course covers areas in your ebook and creates the need to have more information on your topic or niche.

These ideas should help you to get more traffic to your eBook and more sales.

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Tips for writing effective sales copy

Research say that 80 percent of all people will read a headline but only 20 percent will finish the article or ebook sales page. So your words will be the most important part of your entire marketing strategy.

This means very word, sentence and headline should have one specific purpose — to lead your potential customer to your order page. So you will need to plan and get several opinions for your final copy.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating the copy and sales page

  1. Pack your copy with all of the benefits your eBook has to offer.
  2. Tell your potential customer exactly what your eBook will do for them.
  3. Identify a specific problem and promote your ebook as the solution. So over all – write to persuade.
  4. Your sales letter needs a powerful headline that will grab people’s attention.This headline might be in the form of a question that identifies a problem, or it may be an intriguing statement.
  5. Your headline is the most important part of your entire sales copy. If it doesn’t immediately grab your visitor’s attention, they most likely won’t read any further. So try out several headlines. Test them on friends and get their opinion. You will find that developing a great headline will take more time than writing your entire sales letter. It’s that important.
  6. Display your headline in a large, bold font. This will demand your potential customer’s attention and intrigue them to read on.

To keep the readers attention, use subheadings (headlines) throughout your sales letter. You may find that your best subtitle and the headlines what you did not use earlier. Your subheadings should provide highlights of each section of the eBook and capture the attention of those who are scanning your text. Again you will want to display your subheading in a large, bold font.

Here are a few more tips to help you create your sales copy

  • Write as if you were talking with just one person. This gives the sales page a personal feel.
  • Write your copy with passion and excitement. Let them know exactly what your eBook will do for them and why they have to have this.
  • Write your words so that they flow from your beginning headline through to your order page. Read your copy out load to see if you are creating this feeling.
  • Look at other copy and sales pages for you particular eBook topic. You do not want to copy their sales pages but it will give you ideas for what captures your attention or what doesn’t work for you.

Once you feel you have copy or a sales page that works get opinions.  Its always difficult to evaluate your own writing so ask others. When the copy is ready it’s time to set up your sales page and see what results you have.

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Ebook creation and sales plan

The final steps in eBook creation cannot be overlooked or your eBook will collect dust. By implementing a plan and following it you can create the successful eBook from start to finish.

A basic eBook launch plan

This is the basic plan of steps needed to get the project started. There are many small steps that are included in each step.

1. A great ebook (take you time to create a great eBook and have it proofed for errors and grammar.)

First, there are many PDF eBooks that you can purchase or that are free that you can revamp, add more information and make your own. You can also write your own ebook from scratch. But whatever decision you make the eBook has to have quality content and the professional look that will capture a person attention.

Purchasing an eBook to work over is fast and will save you steps but you have to add enough new information to make it your own. Creating your own eBook from scratch will take more time but overall sales should be higher since its will be fresh content.

There is no doubt content and the look of the book through artwork and photography are essential but you have to have a basic plan to create and launch an ebook that sells.

2. A web site specifically designed to sell (Use your title which should be keyword rich as you website title. You also need a riveting sales page that will capture a person’s attention and hold it)

3. Ad copy written with passion, excitement and a benefit There is a lot of competition so catch the viewer’s attention.
An easy ordering process (click bank and PayPal are easy to set up and operate)

4. A powerful marketing strategy (this is where a mentor and/or a great plan is essential)

Each step will play a very important role in your overall success. Plan each step very carefully and develop your strategy to its fullest potential. Ask your friends for advice. A plan is essential and if even one step fails, your sales will suffer.

After your ebook is written, images are added and proofed its time to turn you attention to the sales page.

Designing Your Sales Page

When you’re ready to design your sales page, keep in mind the most important part of your page is your sales copy. A sales page may look great but it’s the words that count. Word capture interest and make the sale.

Your sales page should have one specific purpose — getting your potential customer to take action. The sales page should be simple in design and focus on one specific product.

You want your sales page to load as quickly as possible and draw your visitor’s attention to your text. You will need to use a program that will turn test into html. I have been using front page but Komposer is free and works well. I also have used the free program NVU.

Another consideration is making your sales page SEO (search engine optimization) friendly. That means search engines will find your sales page easily and be able to rank it quickly, which will help your traffic to the site.

Your page design, title, text, link text and image alt tags all play a very important role in determining how your page will rank. Proper use of Meta tags and keywords also are important.

Visit Search Engine Watch. This will help you with Meta tags and keywords for your sales page.

My suggestion for a sales page is to look at sales pages that have been created in your niche or topic and see how they work and if they were successful.

  • Are they easy to read?
  • Do they keep your attention?
  • Has the eBook had good sales?
  • Are there changes you would make to have a better flow or be more easily understood?

There are several sites that offer templates for sales pages listed on the Internet. Look them over and ask your friends for advice.  If you would like a head start on designing your sales page, you can find some free templates here: Free site templates