Getting E-Book Ideas from Amazon (Second in Three-Part Series)

This is the second in a three-part series of blog posts designed to help you get ideas for e-books to supplement your income as a resume writer. The first post in the series focused on Google.

Next up: Amazon.com

From the world's largest search engine we move to the world's largest bookstore.  At Amazon.com you'll really get your creative juices fired up.

Again, you'll want to search the listings by entering a keyword or keyphrase into the search box on the main page at Amazon.com.

You'll get a returned listing of numerous books, courses and other periodicals. Search these listed items for ideas for your own ebook.

--- Example ---

If you were to search for "Job Interview," you'd find a variety of ideas just waiting in the listing of books 

available, including: an ebook with common interview questions & answers, how to research an employer before a job interview, preparing for an interview using LinkedIn, creating a portfolio to use in a job interview, preparing for a virtual job interview (Skype, by phone, etc.), and avoiding the most common job interview mistakes.

Any of these ideas (and the dozens of others listed) would be great ideas for the topic of your next ebook.

Pay particular attention to the first page of the listing.  Amazon ranks their listings based on popularity of actual sales volume.  In other words, #1 is a better seller than #50.  This is a ready-made indicator of demand!

This is book #1: Acing the Interview: How to Ask and Answer the Questions That Will Get You the Job by Tony Beshara (Paperback - Jan 23, 2008)

This is book #49: Everything Job Interview Book: All you need to make a great first impression and land the perfect job (Everything Series) by Joy Darlington and Nancy Schuman (Paperback - Jul 1, 2008)

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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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Career Directors International Global Career Empowerment Summit 2011

Just saw the e-mail from Laura DeCarlo announcing the lineup and speakers for the CDI annual conference ... ahem ... I mean the "Global Career Empowerment Summit 2011," scheduled for Oct. 20-22, 2011 in Savannah, Georgia!

Once again, CDI has put together an impressive lineup of topics and speakers. You can learn more here.

Just a few of the notable subjects being covered:

• Magic Bullet to Six-Figure Success: Strategies in Packaging & Pricing (panel)
• Your Clients Are Leaving You! How to Win Over and Keep a Transient Audience (with Tim Tyrell-Smith!)
• The Bullet Train to Job Search Success: Best in Class Online Identity Model (with Susan Guarneri and Laura DeCarlo)

Plus, they offer 3-, 5-, and 7-month payment options (as low as $77/month!)

I have to say, I loved Savannah when I was there a few years ago. Be sure to come in a day early and head up to Hilton Head Island. It's gorgeous. You may also find cheaper fares by flying into Jacksonville, FL. That's what we did, and then just drove up to Savannah.

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.