Making Money From a Informational Product

September 13, 2012 8 Comments

Everybody wants information.

This is why we search on Google,watch the news, read blogs, ask for help, etc. Providing useful information online is the best and easiest way to make money on the Internet. Everyone is looking for information, so if you can provide it you have the ability to profit. Think about how much time you spend online each day. How much of that time are you looking for answers or information? My bet it is most of your time.

There are a ton of different methods that you can use to give information to people and generate an income for yourself at the same time. Each method has a unique way of organizing the information and the user experience is different as a result. A lot of profitable websites sometimes provide their visitors with a combination of more than one of these methods. Think about which of the following methods would best suit you :

A Blog

A blog is a great way to easily organize your information online because the blogging
platform does all of the work for you. This website, for instance, is a blog. Whenever I want, I can log into my WordPress account, write in the “new post” area, click Publish and the website updates automatically.

It’s quick and easy, and the best part is that you can set up a Blog for free. There are many different blogging platforms, but the most popular seem to be WordPress.com and Blogger.com, so check those out if you would like more information about blogging.

Pros:

Easy to start, edit and manage your content
Builds an online community with your readers
Establishes you as an expert in your field
Blog can be used to promote a product of yours ( Ebooks, Software…etc)
Can be free

Cons:

There will be many similar blogs in the same the area already
It takes time to establish yourself as an expert and add great content to your blog
Requires upkeep and constant attention to update content and respond to comments

How money is made:

Advertising. (Google Adsense, Text-Link Ads, Private Advertising, etc.)
Affiliate Links (Linking to a particular book and getting paid for leading a sale. Amazon.com for example)
Donations. Yes, if you provide useful information and a donation button, some people may be kind enough to donate to your cause.

Helpful Links:

9 Little Known Traits of Successful Bloggers at Copyblogger.com
How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs at Problogger.net
How to Get Started with a Blog (and why all writers should) at WritingforyourWealth.com

EBooks

An Ebook, or electronic book, is also a fantastic way to store information and distribute it to people. Usually Ebooks come in a PDF format and can be easily viewed on most computers. Ebooks are becoming even more popular today, especially with Amazon.com’s Kindle or the Apple iPad out on the market.

Pros:

If you write and sell it yourself, there is no printing press to pay no publishers and no retailers to take a chunk of the profit. 100% of each sale is all yours.
There’s little or no upkeep once it’s finished.
It can earn you money for a time.
It’s easy to set up an affiliate program to have other websites sell your book for you too.

Cons:

An Ebook can take a lot of time to write.
It’s difficult to sell an Ebook from scratch. In other words, if you don’t have an established audience already (i.e. from a blog or membership website), finding people to purchase your book can be a challenge.
Once the Ebook is published and is sold, the information inside cannot be updated if, for example, something you wrote has become outdated. This is why you’ll see different editions or versions of books come out sometimes.

How Money is Made:

Visitors click on a “Buy Now” button on your website, which takes them to a form to fill out with their billing information. After processing, money is put into your account.
Clickbank.com and E-Junkie.com are the top two methods of selling electronic files online. I prefer E-Junkie, because they will also deliver the product for you, and they don’t take any money from your sales. Clickbank, however, has a better affiliate program, which is also important.
If you start an affiliate program, you can find affiliates who will sell your Ebook for you off of their website. You pay your affiliates a small “finder’s fee” for bringing in the sale.
You can also sell on websites such as Amazon or Ebooks.com.

Helpful Links:

How to Create Ebooks That Sell at Copyblogger.com
11 Tried and Tested Strategies To Market Your Ebook at BloggingBits.com
How to Create and Publish Your Own Ebook with a $0 Budget at SkellieWag.org

Membership Sites

A membership site is a website that can only accessed with a password. People usually pay a one time or monthly fee to become a member and gain access to the information inside. Membership sites are a powerful way to generate an income online, and I’m hoping to get involved with this soon.

Pros:

Immediately creates a sense of membership and community within the site.
Continuously updating and providing information can guarantee that people will stick around and keep feeding you money each month.
As an owner and administrator of a membership site, you’re immediately seen as “the expert”. This is powerful because it can help you bring more members in, and also have the ability to easily sell things to the members you already have.
The payment system in a membership website, and is kind of a snowball effect. For instance, month one, you have 10 paying members. The next month, you gain 10 more paying members, for a total of 20 paying members.

Cons:

Creating a membership site takes a lot of hard work, time, and effort. You want to make sure that you are able to give your members what they are paying for. If you don’t, they’ll feel betrayed and leave.
Again, it can be difficult to bring in members if you don’t have an established audience or reputation already. Some money may be needed to invest in marketing the membership website to be able to get it off the ground before it takes off.
Although money is generated automatically, you can’t just disappear and leave the content alone and static. It’s reassuring to the members if there is new stuff available every once in a while, which is good because it decreases the potential number of people who stop paying for access.

How Money is Made:

Members will be charged a one-time lifetime fee or a monthly fee for access to the information on the site.

Helpful Links:

The Continuity Snowball at Continuityblueprint.com (warning: 30 minute video, but it’s worth it)

In addition to the methods above, you can also sell tools and templates, newsletters, audio or visual products, and learning methods.

As you can see, you have a lot of options to choose from. You can also combine two or more of the methods to create an even bigger resource for

If you are in no rush to make money, I would recommend starting with a blog, building readership and trust, and then sell an ebook or start a membership program to take your informational marketing to the next level.

Filed under Books for Success, Money, Passive Income Tagged with advertising, Blog, blogging, business, cash, ebook, ejunkie, gaming, income, income from online, internet, marketing, membership, Money, NICHE, passive income, Start Making Money Online, technology

5 Reasons Your Big Idea Might Fail and How to Overcome it

August 29, 2012 Leave a comment

You’ve come up with an idea, and it’s the greatest idea you’ve ever came up with. You spend all of your time thinking about it. After spending a good amount of effort, you lose interest, and stop. Does this happen to you?

This is a common experience by many entrepreneurs. A lot of times it’s because of the five following thoughts that circle our brains:

“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t know what to do next.”
“I don’t care anymore.”
“Maybe my idea isn’t so awesome after all.”
“People are doing something similar already, and it’s way better.”

If you ever have one or more of these thoughts in your head at the same time, your big idea could ultimately be just that – an idea. Here are some helpful ways to smash these thoughts out of your head and get yourself back on to being successful:

1. “I’m Not Going Anywhere.”

You’ve put in hours of work, but it doesn’t feel like anything is getting done. Maybe things are going wrong, or you just don’t have anything to show for your efforts. Here is what you can do:

Create mini-goals: Turn your BIG goal into a bunch of smaller goals. This gives you the satisfaction of completion after each stage. As you finish a mini-goal you know that you’re one step closer to that much bigger goal. Think about it…how crappy would Call of Duty be if you had to play the game straight through without checkpoints? We get a sense of satisfaction after completing each mission, knowing we’re one step closer to saving the saving the world.

2. “I Don’t Know What to Do Next.”

You have an idea and you know what your goal is, but you just need to find a way to get there. There are a few things you can do to help you find some direction:

Write Stuff Down (Got Some Paper?): Seeing things on paper organizes the thoughts in our head. Similar to mind mapping, you can visualize your ideas and easily branch off of them to see what your next step should be. You can also use a checklist. Writing steps down in order and crossing them off as you go is like having your own recipe for success.
Research (Be More Informed): We have huge amounts of information available right at our fingertips. If you run into a problem, just Google it! More than likely there is someone else in the world that has had a similar situation that has already been answered.
Ask for Help (Only Dumb Question, Is the One Not Asked): There’s nothing wrong with asking for advice. Just be polite and ask.

3. “I Don’t Care Anymore. Why Bother?”

You’ve lost sight of why you are working so hard. When it comes to motivation, there are a number of ways to get it back:

Back to Square One: Go back to when you first came up with your idea. Why was it so exciting to you? It had to be exciting for a reason, right? You should never forget the original reasons why you started in the first place.
Read A Book: Right now, I’m reading Yanik Silver’s Moonlighting on the Internet. I read it when I’m bored, and I’m usually back on the computer in no time.
Break Time: It’s crazy how a short break can make you more productive in the long run. I usually check my Facebook to see what’s happening in the world.

4. “Maybe My Idea Isn’t So Awesome After All.”

It’s easy to believe that all of the hard work you are doing now will end up being for nothing. This is the thought that seems to pop into my head more so than any of the others. It’s a bummer, but here’s how you can rise above the occasion.

Think Positive: Simple as that. What good will come from thinking that your idea sucks? NONE. After reading Michael Losier’s Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don’t, I really think that both consciously and subconsciously, people’s thoughts dictate the reality of their lives. Have positive thoughts, and positive things will happen to you.
Sell Yourself to Yourself: If you sell yourself short, your idea will have no chance to succeed. Also tell yourself that you’re good at something and don’t let yourself or anyone else tell you different.

5. “People are Doing Something Similar Already, and it’s Way Better.”

If you find your idea isn’t the most unique in the world and there are other’s like it in operation today, there’s no need to worry. It’s actually a great thing! That means your idea is a good idea, that other’s are already make money with.

Make it Better: If you’re worried about why people will come and visit your website, use your services or buy your products, understand that people will come to you because you have something more to offer than your competition. Maybe it’s the unique content or your take on something in your blog. If you’re exactly the same as the others, you’ll fail. If you offer something more or different, you’ll stand out and make some real money.

Filed under Books for Success, Passive Income, Personal Tagged with getting organized, Great ideas, make yourself better, passive income, stoping faiing, vacation

Getting Your Ideas Organized With Mind Mapping

August 20, 2012 2 Comments

If you’re like me, you have created your blog and looking to create great content. With that being said, I have so many ideas I want to write about and not sure where to start. I needed a way to focus my efforts on an idea and write the best content that I can. Having organized ideas usually leads to successful execution. I needed to find a way to become organized with my ideas. Then I stumbled upon Mind Maps

What is a Mind Map?

Well according to Wikipedia it is “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision-making, and writing.”

There are several different programs/apps that will help you out. One of my favorites is iMindMap. I will provide several others at the end of this post.

How Mind Maps Works For You

The best thing about mind maps is that you get all your ideas in place. Having all your ideas in one location, help you not only see them on paper, but allow you to organize an approach to delivering get content to your blog. Basically your documenting your brain and the way your brain works with allows for better organization in the long run. If your interested in writing an E-Book here is a great article from Darren on Problogger about using Mind Mapping for creating a E-Book.

Here is an example of a Mind Map. As you can see it is broken out by passions. Each line for the center goes to a different main idea. From that main idea its going into other “descriptive areas”. These subsections can make great blog posts. Of course you will have to do some investigations on the topics to see which one would make killer blog posts. With mapping your mind your ideas just flow out and can give you unlimited organized ideas.

Average People May Apply

You don’t have to be an expert to make money from your blogs. All you really have to do is provide information that they want. If you offer something people want even though you’re not an expert , they will buy it. So start Mind Mapping today, who knows you may come across a killer idea, blog about it and start making the Passive Income of your dreams.

As I Mentioned Above: Links to Amazing Mind Mapping software.

iMindMap – iMindMap for your iPhone, iPad, Android device or web browser – total freedom to capture ideas wherever you go.

MindNode Pro – Mac Desktop App

Mind Mapping for Dummies (Actually a book but contains great content)

Be sure to check back in the next few days, as my July 2012 Passive Income report will be posted.Feel free to comment on the post, as I read every single one and will try to get back to you.

Mike

Filed under Books for Success, Passive Income Tagged with advertising, Blog, blogging, business, Great ideas, Make money blogging, Mind Mapping, Money, NICHE, passion, passive income, Start Making Money Online

Books to Read Online: Jump Start Your Passive Income Dreams

August 17, 2012 1 Comment

So you have found some free time in your busy schedule to pursue your dreams in passive income. That’s great, but now what? Do you drive right in hoping for the best? Do you read up and learn before you do anything and miss the opportunity to make money? I personally feel the answer is simple, DO BOTH. That’s right do both, but how you ask?

It’s really pretty simple.

By now I am figuring that you have created your blog on a great site with great support. If not I recommend BlueHost.com. For as little as 4.95 a month you will have a get web hosting service for your blog and one click WordPress setup. Here is the link if you do not have a blog setup yet Click Here

Now you have your website all set up and your ready to start blogging. But where do I start and where can I find ideas to reach my goals. There are a million and one different things you can do at this point. Me Personally, I started blogging right way. One of the best ways for search engines to find your blog is to have to have content. Besides writing content, I am also reading books I have found on Amazon. The reason I am reading book form there is because Amazon is a trusted marketplace that people give their honest reviews of products on. Besides great review on content they allow you to get the book in several different formats. From hardcover, paperback, eBook, to Kindle , there is at least one way you will find to begin reading and learning.

What Books have I Found Interesting?

As I am trying to gather as much information about passive income as I can right now, I have stumbled across many great books. Here are a few of them that I feel can you also in your journey for financial freedom.

The 4-Hour Workweek

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want