This is an excerpt from a post that was recently left on the forum of OfflineBiz.com:
“I have a GREAT idea for an ebook. It’s a ‘niche’ subject, but it crosses over into a wider audience very easily and has a ‘market’ of millions around the world. It deals with health and wellness, but the subject matter is about a syndrome I had that effects many people, and has very little ‘experts’ explaining the real and true way to deal with said syndrome. ”
Rather than starting off by picking a topic, the bigger concern you should have at this point is “where is my audience”. When I say that I don’t mean you need to identify your perfect customer’s traits, but I’m talking about identifying exactly where online do they hang out?
Until you have that answer, and until you have a strategy for getting them on your mailing list AND until you’ve actually started growing that mailing list you shouldn’t even think about creating the product (unless it’s simply a personal passion and you just want to do it regardless of what profit may come from it).
Your target audience could be on an email list that someone else already has (find the top sites on google in your niche and see who is growing a mailing list), on a web forum, in a print magazine etc., but you need to find as many places as possible where they hang out.
Next you need to strike up a relationship with the owner of that list if possible. The most powerful way to launch a product is a win/win arrangement with the list owner. Talk with them about how you can best serve them and their list of followers with what you have in mind.
Next, create a win/win proposition with a good free info product that those on the list must give you an email address to get. It may be your full book, or just a short version of it that ‘upsells’ to your list. This is the top of your sales funnel. I have clients that wanted to charge $100 for a VERY good in depth book, but I convinced them to GIVE IT AWAY and they’ve made far more money. They tried to sell it and couldn’t, but the call to action in the book earns them $2,000+ for every customer that reads it.
As you are growing your email list ask your initial free-report readers what else they would like to see in the next product. It may be a book, a membership site, live training calls, a free newsletter (that sells related products occassionally), a forum etc. Leave it up to them and see what excites them the most. Surveys are awesome at this point to help determine the direction you should be going.
The benefit of this approach is that you NEVER wind up wasting time, energy or money guessing at what product you should be making.
TIPS FOR WRITING AN EBOOK:
- Don’t like writing? Record it and have it transcribed
- Use the free ‘writer’ software from open office to convert your book to PDF. That’s the best format for ebooks because anyone can easily open it on any computer.
- Sell your book at clickbank.com. Let them handle paying affiliates their commissions to help you sell it.
- ALWAYS BE GROWING YOUR MAILING LIST…even on the sales page for your book.
RESOURCES:
In the below recording I talk about aweber
Also, this is a good road map for getting your ebook written quickly.
Listen to the recording below for even more info and leave me a comment below.
link to the mp3
