What's In It for You
That Isn't In Your Site Your
website is basically one type of marketing tool. An e-book is a different
kind of marketing tool... with different potentials:
- It can be advertised where your website
can't... in e-book directories - and, if it's free, in many freebie
directories. (By the way, plenty of e-books are listed as
"software" with a "1.0" after the title!). And this is a way to attract traffic to your
site (or perhaps just customers for your business) who you wouldn't
otherwise reach.
- If it's free, it's viral - others might pass it
on. Plenty of webmarketers are disposed to recommend or give
away quality e-books - perhaps as bonuses for purchases or e-zine
sign-ups, perhaps bundled with other e-books (their own, for
instance).
- Even if it's for sale (we'll talk about that in
a minute), it might be viral... if you give away or sell resell
rights to it.
- You can make it rebrandable
(more on that in a bit too) - so that downloaders of it will be more
interested in (will get more benefit from) passing it on to others.
- Even if your website doesn't generate
enough traffic to attract advertisers, you might be able to sell (or
trade) ad space in your e-book.
And you don't even have to write anything... it's
already written!
A Look at the For-Free vs. For-Sale Issue...
Most website content is for free... so most
e-books "lifted" from websites will probably be free.
After all, if they can get it for free in one place, why not the other?
Hmm... Actually, I see no reason why some
interested webmarketer might not try selling an e-book that
reproduces his free website. Marketers of all sorts try different
prices all the time - often including "free". And if you
can gain access to entirely different market segments for your site and
your e-book, one might reasonably be happy to pay for what the other
expects for free.
I can think of one circumstance where it might
make excellent sense to sell rather than give away what's free on your
site... Translations. A complete translation of your site
content into another language certainly sets you up to approach another
market entirely. If it's one that doesn't have access to much useful
material on your subject (most of it's in English?), those folks might
be delighted to pay so that they don't have to wade through a
language they're not proficient with.
And maybe everything on your site isn't
free. If you sell access to a "private site" archive of
some sort, selling a compilation of selections from that might make
sense. Especially if your private site members could be persuaded
to resell it for you! - via an affiliate program or resell
rights.
Of course, you can make an e-book free and
for sale... if you password-lock the for-sale portion/s. (And if
you aren't a very well-known author, this is an excellent way to get
your book out there - via free, viral downloads - and make some
money selling the passworded part. That's kind of like having a
free website that includes a membership "private site" as
well...)
Also, some authors choose to sell e-books to the
people who download directly from them... And let those people
resell or give them away.
Oh, and of course if you do sell an e-book
in some fashion... You really ought to consider setting up an affiliate program for
it! If you don't want to go all out... ClickBank
offers an easy means of doing this (for a single-tier program) and
for inexpensively taking credit/debit card orders.
What Can You/Should You Reproduce?
In any case, your whole website might not
be needed for an e-book. (In fact, you'd probably do well to
purposely leave something out... so the people who have never visited
your site have a reason to go there also.)
Perhaps you'd be able to just focus on one type of
content. (You can always allude to the rest in the book -
providing links, of course!)
Even just one long article might be something
people would love to read as an e-book. ...No one says a great book
can't be short! (Another possibility is to submit just some
of that article to online article directories and e-zines...
Letting readers know that the rest of it is available in e-book
form.)
Or you might indeed want to gather together all
of, or a subset of, your own articles into book form. (You'd need
permission to put someone else's work into an e-book of your own.
That's a possibility too, though - since it would mean good exposure for
the other author.)
Nor should we neglect graphical content...
ArtToday.com could probably make a bundle selling "e-books" of
web graphics by topic. (An e-book doesn't have to be
downloadable - it could be on a CD.)
Choose content that's both of popular/timely
interest and that hangs together well. That which hangs together
well is almost a book already!
And you should definitely consider
reproducing content that pre-sells (recommends and adds value to) one or
more affiliate programs. ...Take full advantage of the viral aspect of
e-books, and get your affiliate links in there! An e-book can be a
wonderful way to promote affiliate programs (in the background,
most likely).
One More Great Reason to Do This...
Turning your website into an e-book is a wonderful
opportunity to review your site! ...All kinds of useful revisions and
fruitful ideas can come out of that.
Gordon
Pioneering - Copyright 10-2001
REPRINTING
THIS ARTICLE: You are very
welcome to reprint this article in its entirety, including hyperlinks,
if you'll also put this resource box at the end: =======================================
Sherry Gordon is the learn-it-and-pass-it-on creator of "The
Affiliate Marketing Primer", at http://www.AffiliatePrimer.com/
- and the website http://www.ThinkJointVenture.com/...
If you're interested in learning what has percolated up to the top in
her webmarketing tactics, sign up for her free 6-day e-seminar called
"Top Web Business/Success Builders" here - mailto:topwebcourse@geteresponse.com
======================================= If
you'd like to receive it via autoresponder, send a blank message
to: mailto:website-ebooks@getresponse.com
Many thanks for your interest!
[Article plus resource box = 1568 words]
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