Making money with information products -Guys, this is one of
most powerful business strategies on internet!-So have you ever thought about becoming an infopreneur? Info marketing is a multi-million dollar industry which is still open to just about anyone with a good idea. There’s potential to earn a six figure income from selling your own tapes, ebooks, videos, reports, CD’s, ezines and DVDS to name a few.
I actually know a few people who are making millions a year through home-based operations (and a few others who have been able to subsidize their incomes from low risk business ideas). In most cases, all it took was some good market research and get up and go to actually put information product together. Believe it or not, that’s biggest obstacle to overcome when putting together an ebook or DVD product is actually having motivation to get started - it’s not as hard as it sounds!
The most common, and usually most successful information products are e-books, audio cd / tapes and increasingly, DVD’s. We’ll take a look at each of these categories below:
Writing a successful ebook You really have 2 options here. You can develop content of e-book yourself, or you can get someone to do it for you. There’s a few other ways you can go about creating an e-book, for instance, obtaining rights to an out of print book, but these methods and considerably more complex and don’t offer any guarantees.
If you’re a semi-confident writer, my advice would be to try and write book yourself. A good way to start is to write about something that you are interested in – spend 15 minutes a day putting down your ideas, if you find you are struggling, do your best to outline your ideas and then investigate possibility of hiring a writer to research and draft remainder of your ebook.
There are loads of good writers around who will put together polished and concise copy for around 10 cents per word. Take a look at http://www.profitpuppy.com/freelance-sites.htm for more information about finding a freelance writer.
Some writers expect up to $175 US an hour for their services, although thanks to internet, it’s not impossible to find a reasonably talented scribe for around 10 cents per word. It’s important that you are clear in what you want to achieve when advertising a project so that you attract someone who is suited to project. If you don’t have any luck with Elance or Freelance Writers, you could also try posting to Yahoo Groups or approaching people at your local uni.
It’s important to remember that your reader probably won’t be too concerned about your command of English language - just make sure you clearly explain your concepts and ideas (especially if you are writing a “how-to” style ebook). For more information about writing and marketing e-books, visit http://www.profitpuppy.com/writing-and-selling-ebooks.htm where you will find a number of valuable resources. Audio CD’s and Tapes If you don’t fancy yourself as a writer whatsoever, another option you have is to create and audio tape or CD. It’s not as expensive as you might think, and audio products still have great appeal for buyers.
While DVD’s and Videos have become easier to create, tapes and CD’s are still mainstay of information product world. The reason of this is that media savvy buyers aren’t enticed by often amateurish production qualities of video or DVD info products. Another advantage of tapes and CD’s is that you can listen to them anywhere, for example in your car on way to work.
To produce a CD or Tape of reasonable quality, you are going to need to purchase (or hire) necessary equipment. If you can afford to buy some studio time, it’s worthwhile, but if you just starting out, it’s an undue expense that you can avoid. Your local electronics store should be able to arm you with a noise reducing microphone and some high quality audio tapes (although you could record your to your computer first). You can expect to pay around $50 - $80 all up. You don’t need expensive equipment to get started, although you may have to upgrade if as you go along…
Assuming that you’ve researched you topic (and target market properly), you can now start working on your information product, which should give some step-by-step advice on how to overcome a particular problem or achieve a particular goal (there’s more about picking your topic below). Just remember that when you start recording you deliver essence of your experience (or research) in an entertaining and concise way. If you are producing an instructional CD or tape, a simplified and bare bones approach is often best. Come up with steps that will help your customers achieve their desired goal/s.
