Getting E-Book Ideas (First in Three-Part Series)

This is the first in a three-part guest-author series on coming up with ideas for e-books. Resume writers who only trade their time for dollars (the "time-for-dollars trap!") are missing out on the opportunity to made additional income. The blog post series is by Jimmy D. Brown.

I've always been impressed with those who seem to always be ahead of the pack when it comes to new ideas.

When I first started publishing information products online, I thought that certain people had a crystal ball they gazed into.  Or some top-secret contact who was providing them with inside information.

Over time, I realized that it wasn't magic that allowed these people to come up with red-hot ideas on demand.  It was simply that they knew where to look.

I soon discovered many places where ideas seemed to always be found.  I call these places "idea hangouts."  In this blog series (this is the first of three posts), I'd like to share three of my favorites "idea hangouts" where you can find ideas for your next ebook anytime you want.  Almost like a genie granting you three wishes...

Today's blog post focuses on Google.com.

Google is the ultimate "idea hangout."  There are so many ways to mine the gold in Google's amazing search database that it would take another article to graze the surface of this enormous iceberg.

What I want to mention are just two quick ways to find ideas by searching Google.

- Identify Listings.

Search for a broad topic related to your area of interest or expertise  (i.e., "resume writing" or "job search" or "job interview"). Look at all of the web sites listed in the index of returned results.  You'll likely find some ideas for information products right there in the first couple of pages.

Here's some e-books I came up with when I Googled "job search":

• "Find a Job Faster Using Job Boards"
• "Ten Tips for Getting a Federal Job"
• "Using Social Media to Find Your Next Job"
• "How to Successfully Change Careers"
• "Find Your Next Job Using Craigslist"

- Identify Advertisers.

You'll probably notice small ads on Google -- either at the top of the page or to the right of the page (or both!).  These advertisers represent your competition.  They also represent your thermometer for taking the temperature of your market and gauging interest in specific topics. Chances are, what they're selling, you should be selling.

In both of these examples, you can click through to the web pages of the sites listed and study their respective sales pages.  Look specifically at the "bullet points."  Each of these represents a potential idea for your next ebook.

Here were some of the products/services being advertised with "Job Search" on Google:

• "Find Your Perfect Job" using Taleo.
• "Job Search at Job.com" 
• "Real part-time jobs" from pic.tv
• "Job search from JobSquared."

Next up: Getting E-Book Ideas from Amazon.com (Part two in a three-part series.)

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Jimmy D. Brown is the author of, "5 Keys To A Big-Profit,
S.M.A.L.L. Reports Business."  To download your free copy,
visit http://www.SmallReportsFortune.com.
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Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: Promotion

This is the last post in a five-part series on affiliate marketing. The fifth thing you need to make affiliate relationships work is a promotional plan. 

Banner ads and text links are the two most common ways to promote your affiliate relationships. You can use these in a variety of formats. Using an e-mail list to sell the product is also a great way to promote your affiliate links (see the first post in the series, on list-building). Less common are print pieces.

As I talked about with steps 1 and 2 — building your list and developing additional online venues to showcase your affiliate relationships, you’re likely to generate little or no affiliate income if you don’t have a promotional plan in place.

For example, if you have a website, blog, and e-newsletter, you want to develop a schedule for when you will promote which affiliate relationships, and in which medium. You might have a banner ad on your website, which stays pretty constant over time. You might decide to run an ad in your e-newsletter every issue. But you should also plan your content. For example, writing an article on using the product or service for your blog and then excerpting pieces of that article in a couple of issues of the newsletter. If you don’t plan this out ahead of time, when it’s time to put your newsletter together, you might forget to include the ad and/or excerpt.

You can expect some support from your affiliate marketing partners when rolling out your promotional plan. Many of them offer pre-developed “creative” -- which is basically the “artwork” you’ll put on your blog or website. This is often in the form of customized code that you can copy-and-paste into your website code or onto your blog. Some offer affiliate newsletters, which alert you to new offers they are promoting, or provide you with articles that you can customize for your customers.

Some affiliate programs offer contests and other special bonuses. For example, last year, Ellen Britt, of Marketing Qi (pronounced “CHI”), who offers information products for social marketing, had a promotion for her affiliates called a “Ice Cream Social Media Sale.” She put together a package of information products from herself as well as a couple of other social media gurus and offered it over a multi-day promotion. You could purchase it for as little as $57 the first day, and it went up each day, until on the last day, you could purchase the same package for $197. She mobilized her affiliates to promote the program, offering them 50 percent commission on the sale … but also offered a couple of additional prizes. The affiliate that sold the most packages received one day of hands-on training with Ellen in Atlanta (it included one night’s lodging at a resort, but the winner had to pay his or her own transportation), and the second prize was an ice cream maker. You can see this promotion at http://icecreamsocialmediasale.com/.

You might also get ideas on how to market your products and services from the affiliate advertiser. Some will provide you with case studies of their most successful affiliates. Others offer tutorials or videos.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: The Agreement

It’s important to have a formal agreement, which is the fourth thing you need to make your affiliate marketing relationships work. 

It’s important to understand what your rights and obligations are. Some affiliate marketing relationship agreements are only a few paragraphs long. Others are pages. One is not necessarily better than the other. What is more important is clarity. Do you understand what you can — and cannot do — to promote the relationship? Do you understand how, and when you will get paid? Is there anything prohibited by the arrangement? 

For example, some affiliate programs (like domain name registrar 1and1.com) will allow you to use your own affiliate link to purchase products and services, and you’ll get paid on the order — basically, giving you a discount. Others strictly prohibit you from using your own affiliate code. AdSense, for example, will kick you out of the program if they find that you click on the ads that appear on your content, because this artificially inflates the income you receive from the advertising program. It’s important to know this!

Payment is also an area that isn’t often examined too closely by resume writers and career coaches. You might be thrilled to learn you’ve earned a couple of 30% commissions — until you see that the payment is still “pending” in your account. It’s one thing if your payment was just held up a bit while you submitted a tax identification number form to the affiliate network — it’s quite another if the affiliate provider has a $250 payment threshold…and you earn about $25 per month. Do you want to wait almost a year for your payment?

So there’s a balance. You might choose to affiliate with an independent program that pays a healthy commission on a regular basis — OR you can choose to go with an affiliate network that offers multiple affiliate opportunities, but at a smaller commission, because it’s easier for you to hit the payout threshold if you’re promoting multiple products.

The fifth, and final post in this series: Your promotional plan.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: What Not to Promote

This is the third article in a five-part series for resume writers interested in affiliate marketing.

A key part of the affiliate marketing process is an understanding of what you want to promote and not. This is the third thing you need to make affiliate relationships work. There are certain things that you should not be promoting. This brings us into the discussion of what you shouldn’t be selling.

For example, have you ever visited a resume writer’s website and he or she had Google Ads on the home page — and the ads are promoting low-cost resume writing services? (I tried finding an example for this blog post, but fortunately, the majority of resume writers realize this is a huge "no-no.") If you do use Google Ads on your site, did you know there is a setting you can adjust on Google AdSense to eliminate your competitor’s ads from being shown on your content?

However, if you’re looking for complete control of what appears on your website and/or blog, don’t affiliate with Google AdSense. Even though you can exclude direct competitors, you still can’t control exactly which ads, from which companies, will appear on your content.

When working as a direct affiliate (that is, not just hosting ads on your blog or website or in your newsletter), you don’t want to promote any product that you don’t have personal knowledge or experience with. After all, as an affiliate, you are basically endorsing these products. You are staking your reputation on the products and services you choose to affiliate with. One definition of the word affiliate is: A company in which another company has a minority interest; more generally, a company which is related to another company in some way. So when you become an affiliate of a company, you are tying your brand to their brand. This is why it is important to carefully consider which products and services you choose to promote.

Next up in the series: The importance of a formal agreement.