Free Ebook of the Month - Make Money With PLR

One of the best ways to make money online is by creating and selling your own product.  Similarly, ebooks are the easiest products to sell because they can be delivered digitally.

The April 2008 Free Ebook of the Month, Make Money With PLR explains how you can create your own ebook without having to actually write it.  

The book describes Private Label Rights products and how you can modify 
them, change their title and even claim ownership of them.

So if you're struggling to get started making money online, download your free copy of Make Money With PLR now.

Latest venture - a mobile phone content site

I was in two minds whether to post about this one or not. It just seemed too much like a blatant plug, or an excuse to get a backlink.

However, when I first started this blog I said that I would write down everything that I tried to make money on the Internet.

So, my latest venture is SonoLuminus - a ringtone, wallpaper and Java games site for mobile phones.

It's just another possible income stream. It really is a set it and forget it type of website because it uses a mobile content specialist to deliver the goods. I'm just like an affiliate really.

The script that I'm using automatically updates the content from the provider's database, so it doesn't really need much work doing to it. All I need to do is promote it and get it a good position in Google. Probably not a very easy thing to do due to the huge number of mobile content providers out there.
Still, it's worth a try. It costs nothing to set up the account with the service provider, and the script cost me nothing, too.

So if I only make $10 per year, I've covered my costs.

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XSitePro Makes Website Building a Breeze

Years ago I discovered a little program called Claris Homepage. It was great for putting together websites without having to learn HTML. But times change and the Internet has evolved. Software for creating really effective websites is now a lot more complex.

To cater for that complexity, there is DreamWeaver. Fantastic software. Very powerful, but also very expensive. If you create a lot of websites - maybe for a living - you probably can't do without it.

For us mere mortals though, DreamWeaver is way out of our price range (for now), so what other alternatives?

I recently discovered XSitePro. It lets you build websites quickly and easily, just as Claris Homepage did for me years ago.

The thing that impressed me most about XSitePro was that the sites it generated all seemed to follow the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rules. This means that your site, once up and running should actually stand a chance of appearing in the Google results pages if you promote it properly.

It handles links between pages, and even generates a sitemap page for you. And if you change the site, everything is updated. So it's not just a web designer - it's web site manager.

There are numerous templates to choose from, including those from a growing third-party business. You can change the look and feel of your entire site in seconds, just by choosing a different template.

At less than $200, XSitePro is affordable to most online marketers.

I'm currently rebuilding one of my sites using XSitePro. When it's done I'll write a full review of XSitePro, and illustrate it with my new site.

Beware ClickBank's Dormant Account Policy

If you're getting into affiliate marketing, one of the most popular places to start is ClickBank. It's easy to use, and well-tried.

But if you're a beginner and not yet very good at marketing, you could lose the money that you have earned so far.

One of my colleagues had earned about $23 in his ClickBank account, but as he wasn't really promoting his links very well, he just didn't get any more sales for quite some time. When finally he went to check his balance, he saw that it had fallen to $16, and there were a number of small ($1 and $5) transactions on the account. He couldn't understand what they were, so I investigated for him.

It turned out that those charges were for a «Dormant account». In ClickBank's world, this means an account that has a positive balance, but no transactions for an extended period of time.
I investigated further and found that the following scale of charges are applied:
$1 if the account is dormant for 90 days
$5 if the account is dormant for 180 days
$15 if the account is dormant for 365 days

ClickBank pays out at 2-weekly intervals, and it is at those times that the charges are levied.

The charges are applied at every payment time.
So if you account has been dormant for 180 days, you will be charged $5. If your account has still been dormant for 180 or more days 2 weeks later, you will be charged $5 again. And again, and again until your account becomes active again, or your balance reaches $0.

My colleague never received any money from ClickBank. His balance didn't reach the payment threshold, so he didn't get sent any money, and his account stayed dormant long enough for his $23 to be completely consumed in charges.

How many other people have suffered this fate?

Perhaps you now understand why I think Click2Sell is a much better alternative.

Ebay Changes The Rules About Digital Products

From 31st March, eBay will no longer allow you to sell digital products in auctions.

This means that the only way you will be able to sell digital products using ebay will be as Classified Advertisements.

So what is the impact of this change?

Firstly, Classified Ads are not included in the Feedback system because the sale is actually made outside the eBay environment.
This prevents people from artificially inflating their Feedback score by buying 100 ebooks that cost just a few cents, which is the main reason why eBay have done this.

On the other hand, people who make their living by selling ebooks will no longer accrue points on their Feedback score.

So what are the alternatives?

The obvious solution is to deliver those digital products on a physical CD or DVD.
However, that signals the end to the automated business as the vendor has to duplicate, package and post discs.

The buyer will have to wait for delivery of the product instead of getting an immediate download.
However, is there anything wrong with the vendor sending the buyer a download link to allow them access to it while they are awaiting the physical medium?

One benefit that I can see is that eBay will be cleared of all those trashy 2-cent ebooks that clutter up the listings.

If you're a buyer trying to artifically inflate your Feedback score, there are plenty of tangible goods on offer in eBay for just a few cents. They may not be as quick and as cheap as the ebooks, but you can still build up a decent Feedback score for relatively little outlay.

If you sell ebooks on eBay; the marketplace is changing. Adapt and survive.

Good news from Click2Sell

I've been in discussion with Click2Sell and they're quite excited about having a script created to produce AdSense-style ads for Click2Sell products.

So, they are working on creating and publishing their marketplace data so that my script can use it.

So hot on the heels of CBIntuition will be C2SIntuition.
Or maybe even a combined script that uses both databases.

Sign up for Click2Sell.

Click2Sell script coming soon (I hope!)

Having created a script (CBIntuition) that generates AdSense-style ad blocks using the ClickBank marketplace, there is no real reason why it couldn't be done for Click2Sell as well.

The only stumbling block is with the Click2Sell data. ClickBank provide a useful XML file that contains all the details of the products in the ClickBank marketplace.
This allows the CBIntuition script to get access to all the required details of the product and generate the necessary affiliate links.

At present, Click2Sell don't seem to provide a similar file. But as soon as one becomes available, I'll be ready to create a script to use it.

PHP Wizard has some excellent scripts

If you're ever on the lookout for PHP scripts that are written by a professional programmer, for online marketers, that don't cost the earth, you could do a lot worse than to visit www.robertplank.com.

Robert is an absolute wizard at writing PHP scripts that do the job simply without any complicated installation procedures or setup.

He also knows a thing or two about online marketing. He's very modest about it, but he could put a lot of "professional" internet marketers to shame.

Robert's scripts are very often sold on a "nickel sale" principle; They start off at an extremely low price (very often just $0.05) and the price goes up by 5 cents after each sale. So it pays to be on his mailing lists so that you hear about his new releases as soon as possible.

His website also has some free scripts to offer, so it's worth checking out anyway.
www.robertplank.com

Great new alternative to ClickBank

To the affiliate marketer, ClickBank is a real boon. Just sign up to get a free account and you can start selling any one of the 6000 or so (and rising) products currently being sold through the ClickBank marketplace.

One of my major gripes with ClickBank though, is that they pay out the money using cheques (checks). This costs ClickBank money, and it costs me money. It's also a very slow process.

A great new alternative for vendors and affiliate marketers alike is Click2Sell.

They do everything that ClickBank does, and then some.
The greatest part for me is that they will pay revenue directly into my PayPal account.
A very useful difference is that they are not limited to digital products as ClickBank are. Anyone selling anything, whether it's a digital product, a service or a physical product can do it via Click2Sell.

At Click2Sell, affiliate marketing network it costs you nothing:

• to join;


• to add an unlimited number of products to sell or promote;


• to place a product on the Marketplace;


• to get help, consultations and support;


• to use advanced tracking tools;

There's also a great feature about Click2Sell that means you can make money without selling anything!

There are nearly 500 products to choose from (at time of writing), and the number is growing every day.

Revenue Sharing

One of the upcoming stars in the online marketing world is Revenue Sharing, and I am getting involved with it right from the beginning.

How does it work?
Well, you've seen all those Ads by Google and various other advertising blocks on websites. They all earn money for the site owner.
But what if the site is an article site? Much of the content is contributed by other people. They get links back to their own site on every article they submit, so it's a fair exchange. This becomes even more important as the article site gains ground and earns itself a high Google PageRank.

The problem is that there are so many article sites out there, which one do you choose? Some colleagues and I have come up with a solution to that dilemma.
We share the revenue earned from ads placed on our site with the authors.

Every time their article is viewed, the ads displayed alongside it belong to the author; not to the site owner. So if that author writes popular articles, they'll get more views and therefore, more ad exposure.

We will be charging a small fee for each post that the author makes, but that money will be used to promote the website, and bring the articles more traffic.

Furthermore, authors will be offered the ability to automatically generate and send a newsletter based on their own articles to their subscribers. So it doesn't just bring in advertising revenue; it builds a list as well.

We'll be launching very soon.
I'll keep you posted...

A new year - a new start

A few days ago I mentioned that my blog is now 1 year old. My original plan was to log everything that I do in an attempt to make money online.
That never happened somehow - I kind of drifted away in various different directions.
Then I got involved with a group of like-minded people and I was a bit reluctant to write about what I was doing.

This year is going to be different. Starting from today, I shall be logging everything that I am doing, and report back on progress.

So, here's what I'm currently working on:
I'm a computer programmer, so I'm concentrating on writing software to sell.
A while back, I acquired the PLR and source code to a program for creating software.
It was a sort of Make Your Own Software (MYOS) clone.
At the time I didn't rate it very highly and didn't recognise its value.

This week, one of my colleagues and friends mentioned that he also had the same PLR and source for the same product. He also said that he had actually made some money from software that he had created with it, and that he would like to get it customised with his own label and start selling it.

This piqued my interest somewhat, so now I am improving and developing that software and we shall be marketing it together. It will be called SimpleSoftwareMaker.

Earnings:
I've rest the counter, so as from today, my total earnings are:
$0.00 (£0.00)

Guru or screw-you?

There are a number of high-flying online marketers who just don't seem to fail.
They create a new ebook, script, video, course etc., set a high price on it, and people flock in droves to buy them - usually without ever seeing the product first.

They get caught up in the hype of the "guru". If that guy wrote it, it must be absolute dynamite - must buy it.

Personally I've never been caught in the hype of the high-priced products, and I've never bought them. I couldn't actually afford them in the first place, but more importantly, are they really worth $997 to me?
If I walked into a book store and found a book and/or set of DVDs priced at $997, there's no way that I would buy it. Yet, many people go online, read the sales pages and part with their cash without even being able to browse what's in it.

I can't help thinking that the $997 might be better spent paying a professional to create a new product to sell, or on advertising an existing product.

Given the age-old statistic that more than 95% of would-be online marketers never make any money, how many of the people who buy those $997 products ever recover that money?

I suspect that the "gurus" are exploiting their perceived status and are just trying it on. "Let's see how much we can screw out of the punters this time!"

What amuses me most about many of these high-priced items is that a few months down the line, somebody else writes a $27 ebook or even posts on a blog, with a comprehensive summary of what the hype is all about.

Copycat scripts appear for $7, and you find that you can set yourself up with effectively the same things as the $997 package, for about $50. Ok, it's 6 months later, but it still works.
And sometimes it turns out to be something that marketers have been doing for years, and the "guru" has just discovered it and given it a fancy name.

Cynic? Maybe. Envious of these rich marketers who are making money hand-over-fist? Of course. I'd love to be in a similar position, financially. But I don't think I'd treat my position as a licence to print money.

One Year On

This blog is now one year old.

It started out as a log of my attempts to make money on the Internet, although it did change focus from time to time.

Well one year on, where am I in terms of making money? My grand plan was to have earned the equivalent of half the amount I earn from my day job. So how did I do?
Not even close!
I sold an ebook for $30 (£15).
I made $20.25 (£10.12) on Google AdSense.
I earned $20 (£10) on "buy me a beer" donations on a forum.
Total for the year: $70.25 (£35.12)
That doesn't even cover the costs of buying domains and hosting them.

The problem was that I really had no idea where I was going with it. Sure, I'd bought and read all those ebooks about making money online, but they all seem to have one or two things in common.
The first is that they don't tell you the whole story. You get part of the way down the line, and then realise that there's something missing.
The second is that they all assume that you either have a large mailing list, that you can easily create a large mailing list, or that people are just going to come to your site like magic.

Since then, I have met up with some like-minded people and we're working on an excellent project that should get us all earning some money together.
It doesn't come without some hard work, but we know that it's going to be worth it in the end.

In that time I have also written a number of programs and scripts which I plan to sell. I am currently working on a script for which I have several customers waiting in the wings, which is all good news. It confirms that I must be on the right lines with my ideas.

So, although I haven't made much money over the past year, I just know that this coming year is going to be huge. It may have taken me a long time to get there, but it will be sure worth it.

If you're struggling to make money online, all I can say is keep at it. It can be done, and this year, I'm going to prove it. Big time.

Ethical Marketing - Telling the truth

A group of online marketers to which I belong are into Ethical Marketing.

Ethical Marketing is basically about being honest and truthful about what you are doing. We despise the buzz and hype that you often get from the so-called "gurus" of Internet Marketing.

We've all been there chasing the dream - we buy the latest ebook or video package in the hope that it is the magic bullet that finally gets us earning money on the Internet. Of course, that magic bullet doesn't exist. The gurus give you a lot of information, but there's always something missing, or you need something that they don't provide, so you can't put their plan into action.

Most of us in the group can see through the hype. We know the tricks that marketers play with words to get people to buy. We also know the clever scripting techniques that can tell the potential buyer how many of that "limited edition" product remain.

And this is where the subject of my post comes from. If you're going to set up a limited edition offer - tell the truth. If the first 100 copies of your product are available at half the regular price, then don't sell 500 copies, or all the copies, at the lower price.

I came across one example of that today. The copy read that "We're only going to allow 50 people to gain access to this information. Once those 50 copies are sold, this page will disappear forever".
Just above the "Buy now" button, the copy read "Copies remaining", and under that, a large, flashing 4.
Just to see how true this was, I bought a copy of that ebook. (There's an 8-week money-back guarantee, so if it's rubbish, I'll get my money back)

I just returned to that sales page, and guess what? You got it! It still said that there were 4 copies remaining.

I suspect that will remain true tomorrow, next week, and even next month when he's sold his thousandth copy.

Be honest with your customers. You'll get found out eventually, and you completely lose their trust and respect for you.

Free Ebook of the Month - Discover Cagora

Ric Raftis' brand new guide to Cagora is our new Free Ebook of the Month.

If you want to get yourself a free copy, just click the image shown at the top of the page, or click here.

The book guides you step-by-step through getting started with Cagora, why it can pay to join Cagora, and generally how to make the most of your free membership there.

So what is Cagora?
Cagora is a new Social and Community Networking platform. Cagora has several distinct differences to the other sites you may be familiar with.

First of all, Cagora is divided up into Worlds of Interest such as Rockclimbing, Ultralights and Patchwork Quilting and then Local Worlds such as Houston, Texas or Sydney, Australia. People can join as many or as few of these worlds as they wish but the result is they are forming Communities.

Secondly, unlike the vast majority of Social Networking sites, Cagora shares it's income with ALL of its members.

That's got to be worth signing up to, hasn't it?
Sign up for Cagora.
Get the free guide.