While many bloggers are monetizing blogs with direct methods like advertising and affiliate programs another method that more and more bloggers are making good money by selling their own e-books. Today Jade Craven of The Prolific Writer reviews a new resource that is written to help bloggers wanting to do exactly that – How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook.
Dave Navarros prelaunch of his latest ebook was so successful that he had to delay the official launch. Why? He was too busy earning thousands by coaching others on how to launch the **** out of their ebook.
This review examines the five modules of this workshop and gives you the foundations of how you too can conduct a killer product launch.
Module 1: Analyzing the market for your ebook
Most internet marketers know the basics of researching a niche and ascertaining competition. Fortunately, the authors were aware of this and kept it short.
Put simply – the one purpose of this chapter is to give you the tools to ascertain whether there is a market willing to pay for your product. This point seems obvious, but is one that is often ignored. People get swept up in the excitement of product creation and don’t bother questioning if there is even a demand for it.
Its unlikely established bloggers will discover new methods, but it did allow me to view the research in a different context.
Module 2: Finding and Wooing buyers.
This module contains two steps that would be second nature to many Problogger readers:
- Make Your Blog Attract Your Target Audience
- Drive New, Targeted Readers To Your Existing Blog
The emphasis is on creating relationships with your prospects “far in advance of your product going on sale.”
The tips included:
- Using twitter and social media
- Prolifically commenting on other blogs within the niche
- Guest posting on other blogs
- Using forums.
I was disappointed in that they didn’t provide any guidance in how these methods compliment each other. While it is beyond the scope of the ebook to provide comprehensive networking advice, I have found that repeated exposure to an audience – via all the methods listed above – is what converts the best.
If you find the information too basic, Dave and Naomi also included a section on how to leverage your existing blog.
Module 3: Setting Up Your Mailing List
This module alone was worth the $97. It showed me how to set up an email list that feels ethical. It is explained how to segment your list and create a positive audience that likes being sold to. Dave also gives the foundations of setting up the list so as to continue to woo the reader.
It was during this chapter that I really started getting excited about the possibilities available during aproduct launch.
Module 4: Writing Your Ebook
I’ve tried writing an ebook before. I gave up immediately because I had no plan, and no focus. This module made me realize the many ways I went wrong and gave a solid blueprint for successful product creation. I learned how to:
- Create an killer ebook outline
- Develop a work schedule you can stick to
- Get others to help you out with the editing.
Naomi and Dave provided their own perspective when it came to creating a product. Some of it is conflicting, but it helped to show you that you have to develop your own style during the planning and writing stage.
Module 5: Launching Your Ebook
It’s in this module that everything in the previous chapters comes together. Dave provides a complete framework for the entire launch process. He discusses:
- How to make your first batch of money during the presale
- How to build up the buzz around your product and increase your mailing list
- How to organize the content for your mailing list
- Ongoing ways of earning money after your launch.
The information is rock solid and much of it is also relevant to someone who is trying to launch a successful blog.
For instance, in the section on getting big names to review your book, he suggested that you “find out who their online friends are and focus some attention on building them up.”
I have personal experience of this working. Recently, Darren hopped on twitter, asking his followers what they were blogging about. I replied instantly, raving about this awesome product I was about to review. It’s that review your reading now. I turned from an impressed consumer to product evangelist just by the full attention Dave gave me in a couple of tweets.
Would I recommend it?
I was that impressed by this product that I immediately brought another of Dave’s products – and have the intention of buying more from both him and Naomi.
I would recommend this book to anyone who plans to release an information product. New bloggers can learn how to optimize their blogs to woo potential customers. Established bloggers can discover a launch method that resonates with market savvy audiences
If your unsure, you can check out his information for free at his new blog, The Launch Coach. The information is top notch and is a clear example of how to effectively launch a new product.
In conclusion.
I tweeted Dave immediately after purchasing this product, thanking him for changing my perception of an entire industry. He replied by saying that he “wants to make ebooks fun again.”
He did. You can do the same by reading the ebook.
Read more reviews and posts from Jade at her blog The Prolific Writer.
Very good tips. I haven’t launched an eBook, nor do I ever plan to launch one that I’d ever sell. But these are great tips even for a free eBook.
One thing that I like about this is the title and the cover design in the sample image. However, I will admit, I wasn’t particularly ‘wooed’ by the eBook landing page. It’s not the worse in landing pages, but it doesn’t look like it took more than 1-2 hours to throw together… But I’ll definitely check out his blog to see what other kinds of information he’s giving. And when his Alexa rank gets out of the millions, I’ll see first hand how much he knows about ‘launching’. ;-)
Thanks for an HONEST review. I am putting the final touches on my first ebook and I could really use some good ideas for launching it. Your review makes this product seem like it may be just a bit basic and for the premium price of $97 you’d think it would be quite extensive.
Thanks again
Yes, great info to have since I’m thinking about creating my first ebook.
I tried to make the review basic as I was unsure just how much of the ebook content I was allowed to talk about. Its a failing on my part – and definitely not a reflection of the product.
The ebook itself is really comprehensive. I bought it in the prelaunch phase for $47 and would have been willing to pay the full $97.
If the cost is a bit much – check out his free blog. I bought based on the content on that blog. I was that impressed I told many of my friends about it, and bought some his other products.
– Jade
I am going to check out his book. It looks very interesting.
Thanks for the recommendations.
Im about to launch an ebook myself, so this post came at the right time for me!, its not an easy task by any means, but luckily enough I found some free tools to use that make it easier and less of a cost to you.
Ill take a look into the ebook and the website, try and get myself some tips:))
Just bought it on your recommendation and having spent an hour in it I’m inspired and glad that I found this resource. I’m not completely through it of course but even the first couple of modules have given me some solid ways forward in the writing of my own first ebook. Thanks.
Great review Jade. I’ve been catching up with Dave’s new blog but was only moderately aware of the e-book. Now I want to go check it out and probably buy it!
Anyone got a spare 97 bucks? :)
Great info, I’ve been thinking about launching an ebook along with my new DVD series, I check out the book, thanks.
I am getting ready to launch and ebook in about a month, and this could be pretty helpful.
Hi there,
For someone who is in the process of writing an e-book, I find this information very useful and helpful. When is the right time you would say to publish your e-book. Once you have good traffic or page ranking or subscribers or any other factor. Looking forward to your reply.
Cheers,
Eddie Gear
The $97 price seems a bit high IMHO after reading the review and the description of the chapters. At $47, I might buy it, but I think for $97, I’ll pass.
Great, thanks for the info. I might be considering this in the future when I may continue plans to launch my own e-book. These plans are on hold as I develop my own blog, currently.
-Jake
Using social media and personalized blogs and forums geared towards reaching and capturing the interest of your audience is key. This resource really seems to capture that principle.
I personally am not willing to buy an overhyped book for an over-the-top price. Funny how they’re all $97 and all sold via identical looking web pages, isn’t it?
Put it on Amazon for fair market value $30 at most) and then we’ll talk.
I’m creating my first eBook. Actually, I have only one chapter left, and it’s taking the longest – I haven’t even worked on it in about 3 months or later. Hopefully, I can get on it soon.
Thanks and God bless.
Infmom,
This book has just come out of prelaunch and has very little hype surrounding it. I tried to keep it out of my review. The only hype I’ve really read is many top bloggers talking about the quality of the free content on http://www.thelaunchcoach.com.
Dave also offers an e-book called ‘Whats Holding You Back.’ That is priced at $12.95 for a 160 page + workbook. All his products have been priced at different levels and this is what made me trust him. Its a JV between him and Naomi from http://www.ittybiz.com who also offers quality stuff.
Personally, I’m always hesitant to buy anything worth more than 30-40 USD as the aussie dollar makes it quite expensive. I found that it was worth it considering the quality of the content. I believe that any launch could easily make back the price of the ebook.
I do want to disagree on one point – I found Daves sales page to be very different from typical sales pages. I found it refreshing.
Marc,
Thanks for the comment! I bought the Unlimited Freelancer based on your blog :)
If you can’t afford it, he has a lot of free content at his other blog http://www.rockyourday.com . Dave is also really friendly on twitter. You could just observe him, and his launch, and learn loads that way. Or sign up for his advance discount list and just watch around for any specials. Thats generally what I do, and it saves me between 20-60% off :)
– Jade
$97?! $97! Come on.
Query for Problogger readers: As a well-known blogger in my niche, I get approached all the time by guys with ebooks asking me to join their affiliate programs. Problem is, unless I spend the $50-250 for their products, I have absolutely no idea what it is t
Oops I accidentally submitted before finishing–as I was saying, unless I spend the $50-250 for their products, I have absolutely no idea what it is that these guys are selling, since their advertising copy promises the world but any followup questions aren’t answered with any degree of honesty.
As a blogger, do I have the right to ask for at least a portion of these ebooks for my perusal if their authors are in effect asking me to pitch them to my readers sight unseen?
$97 is quite a bit. No audio? Video? Free s/w? $97 is more a price for a month of e-learning at Teaching Sells at CB. Is this book worth a month of that? I guess the content must be spectacular for Darren to be endorsing it so highly…
On the other hand – e-books are getting hot… it’s taken this long, but the talk is that e-books will start to come into their own as more readers pick up a reader – and get used to them. Once a critical mass of people get into the idea of using readers instead of buying environmentally e-unfriendly paper books the e-book market will take off.
We sold a couple of my friends Thai Food cooking e-books for $47 before finally lowering the price to something more reasonable… “JoysThaiFood” if you’re interested (it’s free now!)
E-books are a great way for everyone to get some sort of e-commerce running on their website without using Adsense or someone else’s ads. Build an e-book and write your own ads. Focus your entire site on selling just one thing… it’s so much more effective (and targeted) than running 30 Adsense products over which you have little control and only control after they run on your site.
Not to mention…. Affiliate sales!
Chris Foley –
Seek out a sample. This happened to me quite recently – I explained to someone that I don’t review products without experiencing them, and that it would be some months before i could afford the cost of the whole course. I was offered to see a few sample lessons.
It depends on the size of your RSS readership, from what I’ve read. At your size, you should be able to seek out a free product. Explain that you want to give a balanced review to better serve the needs of your readers. Alternately, seek out a discount.
I just sign up to advance discount lists in the prelaunch stage and 1) get the product cheap and 2) be one of the first people to get a review out.
I then use the review to begin a relationship with the person offering the product – so they’ll let me know about future launches or price rises. Twitters been useful for this!
I plan to do an article on writing reviews quite soon – let me know of anything specific you want, and I’ll include it :) Feel free to contact me via my own blog or via twitter – http://www.twitter.com/cravenjade.
Thanks, Jade! The problem with ebooks in my niche is that I already make good money selling traditional books via Sheet Music Plus, so I am extremely hesitant to give up the sidebar and content space to an untried product that I may not agree with. I’ll ask the person who made the pitch and see where that leads.
I published an ebook a few months ago and reading this post did a couple of things for me.
Firstly, it showed me how very little I knew/know about launching a book. I’m proud of the book. I know it helps a lot of people and I sell a couple per week. But, had I done a better job from the outset, it could have been much bigger.
Secondly, the post gave me a great deal of hope for the ebooks I have planned. The only step I’ve (fortunately) been following faithfully analyzing my market. There’s a lot of potential and I feel better prepared as I go “where no one has gone before.”
Thanks for a great post, revitalization, increased motivation and more perspiration (due to the level of revitalization and increase in motivation).
Alan
Vern – the content was spectacular for the guest poster, myself, to review. I was asked to review this book after telling Darren about how good it was.
Its as you said, ebooks are getting hot. The subject of creating awesome ebooks is hot too – just look at http://www.desperatebuyersonly.com . That ebook has become a massive best seller.
It really depends at what stage of the selling process you are at. I’m not interesting in teaching sells currently, I would prefer to launch individual products. The price was less and I was able to learn a lot about the specific task.
Alan Hammond
– this book taught me about how little I knew about ebook launches. It completely changed my mind about mailing lists and promotion. Hope you have good success with your ebook. If you need more information/motivation just check out http://www.rockyourday.com or http://www.thelaunchcoach.com . Dave is pretty good at motivation! Naomi also has killer content at ittybiz.com ! :)
– Jade
Sounds like an awesome product. I’ve been working on my own ebook and something like this is exactly what I need.
Very good post as always, and timely for me. I’ll soon be launching my first free E-Book but do understand the importance of creating something more substantial for my audience. Will write down these tips and buy the book.
Thanks.
Kevin
@Jade – Good point – it’s much easier to launch a single product like an e-book than to create a whole interactive learning program! Good luck with everything you’re working on Jade!
This is great, I guess I have to start making my own ebook now.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book for $97!
Yeah, for $97, I expect more of a complete “package” than just an ebook. Almost every other $100 product includes audio, video, or other stuff. Now, whether that stuff is truly valuable is up for argument, but perceptually, $100 for a plain-jane ebook is very high.
Even things like Desperate Buyers Only are less than that ($77) and they have a very well proven track-record.
For the book described in this review, I’d expect a $37 price. Obviously, I haven’t seen it and maybe it’s the best thing ever in the history of human thought, but I’m not going to gamble my $100 on it until it also has a very well proven track record.
Yeah I am also planning to launch my own e book as well. Just giving a final touch and also looking for someone who can look after launch and every related issue, otherwise I will delegate this to my full time employee.
Thanks for the review. I buy very few products like this as I, like so many of us, got burnt a few times initially but it’s always good to at least stay within the loop
Do you think publishing still has the purchased value for now.well I dont think this time “is the time,I have seen some famous blog and most of them include ebook as for free and not for paid and unless you are AMIT mehta or marketing sherpa.or adwords Qualified professional,I dont think it will easy to make sales from just “an ebook this time
Thank you for the information. I feel I need to stay informed about ebooks and epublishing – the times are always changing.
I love how all these “intro to online marketing” ebooks etc. tell you all you have to do is “drive traffic to your site”.
Thats like saying all you have to do to get rich is to “make a bunch of money”!
For me, mailing lists weren’t the challenge. Its the partnering to build traffic. What respectable blog lets you guest blog if you don’t also have a respectable blog? Its about overcoming the catch-22…
Like many posting in the comments I am contemplating an ebook. After I get past me, the first obstacle, then I might be in the market for such a book.
The supporting blog is excellent.
Jumping in a bit late to add that I own this book and it’s well worth the money. If you actually have an e-book that you want to launch and sell, this is comprehensive enough that you’ll get a good return on your investment. It covers so many of the spots where we get hung up.
I buy a good number of information products, and I always try to measure the cost against how much additional revenue I can gain from the information. A $27 ebook is no bargain if it doesn’t really do anything for my business, and I’ve certainly wasted quite a lot of money on such products.
Dave and Naomi are both friends of mine, but I also wouldn’t jump in here with my support if I wasn’t extremely impressed by this book. I respect Darren and Problogger too much for that.
*If* you actually want to create a new information product and use it to help monetize your blog, it’s well worth the money. Of course, if you’re not there yet, this probably isn’t for you. In that event, I’d recommend hanging out on Naomi & Dave’s blogs, where they give a lot of excellent free advice on taking your online business to the next level.
(And no, I have no financial stake in the book!)
Jade,
Thanks for the kind – and thorough – review.
To all those who seem to be panicking at the price, let me pass along the words of Warren Buffet:
“Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
Think of it from a business standpoint, from ROI (Return on Investment). If you can spend X to learn how to make 5X, or 10X, or whatever, it doesn’t matter what “X” is.
The idea of “X is too much” is an emotional one, not a logical one, and it’s not a good call for people who are serious about their business. The only thing that matters is can you get a high ROI, and how fast can you get it?
A few years back I bought Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula for $997. I had balked at the price for a long time until if finally hit me that “Hey, if I can make more than $997 by learning this stuff, it’s totally worth it.”
I made back my $997 – and more – in 5 days because of what I learned there. With a small list, too (only a few hundred subscribers). And what I learned from this product has paid for itself 15X over, and continues to do so.
Is $97 too high? It is, if you’re not going to use the material. If you’re not committed to working your business, then any amount of money is going to be too expensive. If you’re planning on writing an ebook and just “hoping” it magically sells, then you’re not going to get value out of this.
But if you want to learn how to build a list from scratch, write a compelling offer and promote it to your audience – no matter how small – then it should be plain to see that $97 is a pretty small investment.
“Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
All things being equal, I’m not leaving this comment to justify the price of the book – in fact, it will likely be doubling in the middle of 2009. The ebook is $97. It shows you how to make more than $97. It even has a 200% money back guarantee.
Buy it, don’t buy it, that’s your call. But whether you’re thinking of this ebook or any other training product, in any format, there is only two questions you need to ask yourself:
Can you get a high ROI, and
How fast can you get it?
That’s what running a real business is about. It’s easy to get caught up in the price – believe me, it took me over 12 months to decide to buy Product Launch Formula at $997. But I saw the potential for ROI (and the guarantee), I tried it, and it worked. I’d say $10,000 of my income just last year came from what I learned from that product.
And in January, I bought a $3000 training product. In February, I booked over twice that in contracts based on what I’ve learned.
Spend money on training, people. If it doesn’t live up to its promise, return it. But invest in yourself, rather than typing up comments about how something you’ve never even tried is overpriced.
Like I said, I understand, I’ve been there. But I’ve moved past that. Do the same, and your business will blossom.
My best to all of you, and here’s to a great 2009 for every commenter on this thread. :-)
Dave
Yes, great info to have since I’m thinking about creating my first ebook.
I know there is a huge market for e-books, and while the information here is very informative as I research how to possibly make my book into an e-book, I’m one of those people who loves to have a book in my hands and turn the pages. There’s just something about it. I hope people will always want both.
It seems to me that some people are thrown off by the term “e-book” as if it were a real book being sold used on Amazon for a couple of bucks.
I’ve sold thousands of dollars worth of e-books in the USD$40-50 range. People want unique, inside information. They’re buying quality problem solving advice, not just a book.
Unfortunately, many e-books, and in particular internet marketing e-books, are just a rehash of the same ol’ stuff.
I’ve never had to do it, but I’ve seen ebook writers/sellers tell their audience they can print out the ebooks on their computers. For your ebooks, you might want to do the same, especially if your target audience isn’t very tech savvy.
I have been trying to figure out the best software for creating an ebook. I want to create a printable ebook with graphics, affiliate links, plain text, and lined pages for journaling.
Any tips on what software to use?
What types of books aren’t well-suited for the e-book market?
Amy- I just published my first ebook (which is available free from my site, by the way) using Adobe InDesign CS4. It has a bit of a learning curve to it, but you can accomplish so much more with it than if you were to use, say, Microsoft Word. Even better, with CS4 came the ability to create that nice ‘page turn’ effect you see all over the Internet these days, simply by exporting your document a certain way, which allows you to publish your ebook (or a sample of it) on your site, instead of just as a PDF.
Good luck!