Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Mining Your Own Virtual Goldmine

When you have information that other people want, you have a virtual goldmine at your fingertips. Information products line the shelves at bookstores nationwide in the non-fiction section, but they're also online 24/7/365, catering to the needs of millions of jobseekers who are hungry for advice and insight at all hours of the day -- and night!

As a seller of non-fiction information products in the careers industry, you can build an empire of profits targeting a single niche of jobseekers (for example, moms returning to the workplace, or IT professionals). Or, branch out and offer solutions to a multitude of people who need guidance (anyone who is looking to ask their boss for a raise).

While the traditional print publishing industry only gives authors a small portion of the proceeds after subtracting agent and publishing house fees, if you sell information products online, you’ll get to charge more and keep almost 100% of the profits for yourself.

Typically, a non-fiction book at Barnes and Noble would cost the consumer an average of $9.95 to $29.95. But when you’re selling information products ready for instant download online, you get to price it higher, because the selling point usually begins at $37 and rises up to $97 or even more.

Plus, your overhead costs are low. There's no printing costs, shipping, storage, or shelf placement fees. There's only the cost for the shopping cart (I use Payloadz for instant sale and delivery), transaction costs (Payloadz ties into my PayPal account), and maybe a website domain and hosting for the sales page for the product (although that's not necessary).

Why are jobseekers downloading information products? This is the age of high-tech development. Your readers may be sitting in an airport, accessing your ebook from their laptop.

They want information now, not the next business day. If they need to practice their interviewing skills before a job interview the next day, they can't drive to the bookstore at midnight to get a self-help book — but they can log onto their computer and download your Interview Success Guide, putting your advice into action in mere minutes. 

Another reason information products are hot commodities online is because they often come with money-back guarantees, giving the consumer added trust.

If you create information products for sale yourself, then you want to make sure you produce top-quality deliverables and urge your readers near the end to start taking action with what they’ve learned to keep refund requests low and demand for your products high.

Done right, it's like having your own personal goldmine that you can tap anytime you want!

No comments:

Post a Comment