It continues to amaze me that everyday I see more and more
webmasters and e-zine publishers still worrying about the high
costs of online advertising and promotion when all this time
they have been sitting on a 24 carat goldmine. A goldmine so
valuable that it promises to end their worries for months if not
years to come.

As the webmaster of Carvers E-Book Marketing Center
http://carver.bizland.com I see day after day visitors who are
sitting on what promises to be one of the most effective and
exponentially growing free advertising mediums that they’ve ever
explored. A free advertising medium that is so effective (unlike
the majority of the rest) that it literally made me drop all my
other online ventures overnight and focus entirely upon e-book
marketing.

Before I continue it would be best to explain a little about
e-book marketing as the majority of online marketers that I meet
seem to know little to nothing on the subject. To put it simply
effective e-book marketing harnesses the power of giving away
“substance for free” in an attempt to build ongoing trust and
future purchases from potential customers. We see this everyday
with major corporations such as Microsoft giving away free
software and companies such as Hypermart that provide free web
space in hope to on sell other products and services.

While many of us just can’t afford to be throwing away such
elaborate software products there is still room for even those
on the tightest budget to harness the same power and bring
similar results as the major online players. How do we do this?
E-book marketing of course!

E-Book marketing works in much the same way as publishing an
e-zine, helping to develop trust within potential customers and
continually building on that trust by maintaining consistent
interaction with your online business. Not only that but it also
acts as an exponentially growing free advertising medium which
literally pulls people to your web site.

Mark Joyner the CEO of the Aesop Marketing Corporation
(http://foreverweb.com) created his first e-book titled “Search
Engine Tactics” a subject that is directly related to the
products and services that his company sells. Since its release
in early 1998 it has now been downloaded over a million times
which equates to 1 million readers! A fair estimate based upon
independent research would be that at least 95% of those readers
visited his web site and depending upon the conversion rate of
his sales pitch at the time can you even begin to imagine how
much extra revenue was obtained from his e-book?

Terry Dean of Bizpromo (http://www.bizpromo.com) has experienced
similar results. Here is a direct quote ripped straight from his
e-zine,”Web Gold” Vol. 2, #40, October 8, 1999:

“We produced our first electronic book for download back in
December of last year. It was titled “101 High Profit Businesses
You Can Start Online with Little Or NO Money.” I announced it as
a Christmas gift all of my subscribers could download. The first
couple of months it was online, it received 500 to 2,000
downloads per week… I currently estimate that around 1/3 of my
current business is still being generated by this one e-book
being given away for free on hundreds of sites. I consider it
the most valuable promotion my business has ever done!.”

There’s no doubt about it e-book marketing works and is
effective. Even the highly intelligent and respected people at
IMC (http://www.marketingchallenge.com) have realized this and
released their own e-book of articles that they’ve previously
published both in their newsletter and on their web site - so
what about this 24 carat goldmine I mentioned you’re probably
sitting on? Well we’ll take two examples that will clearly show
how many of you can begin to tap into this medium almost
overnight.

The first being the content from the web site of a person who
visited Carvers E-Book Marketing Center several days ago. You
can find their web site “The Small Business Knowledge Center” at
http://bizmove.com. This is prime example of an online business
that is truly sitting on a 24 carrot goldmine.

On their home page you will notice 8 major sections all quite
distinct but at the same time all similarly related to small
business information. Here I already count 8 unique e-books that
if complied in the appropriate manner and released for free
distribution could see this web masters web site promotion blues
gone forever! Imagine if just one of those e-books brought
similar results as that of Mark Joyner’s. Imagine if 2 or 3 of
them did!

While this an extremely good example anyone with a set of
articles, a short tutorial, back issues of their e-zine or
collection of useful information can create an e-book. Let’s
take a different example. Take a quick visit to “Golfgateway” at
http://www.golfgateway.com. You will find a link on the left
side titled “Tips from the Pros”. While this web site lacks any
articles as such, even golf related web sites could harness the
power of e-book marketing.

Compiling an e-book of all past pro tips effectively titled “The
Little Golden E-Book of Super Golf Tips from the Pros” and then
giving it away for free they would have then created a book that
I’m 100% certain people will begin to pass on to their friends.
The beauty is that these friends share the same interests and
are therefore the same highly targeted prospects that are the
most desired visitors to the Golfgateway web site!

I’m also 100% certain that they would find or already have
associated web sites that would gladly like to offer their free
e-book for download as an incentive to attract more visitors to
their own web sites.

It’s also probably quite ridiculous the amount of money that
both webmasters from these examples spend on web site promotion
each and every month. When you consider that the small cost to
begin and continually harness the power of e-book marketing it’s
almost crazy they themselves and others aren’t exploring it.

While this article couldn’t possibly provide you with all the
techniques and methods that are required to successfully explore
and experience the results of e-book marketing I hope that I
have brought this relatively new medium to your serious
consideration.

Powerful, Profitable Topics for Your eBook - Current Events

You have thought about writing your own eBook for months
now, but you just can’t seem to decide on an idea that
will get you started?

Don’t be discouraged, you are not the only one to face
the daunting task of choosing a profitable topic for
your information product.

As information product developers, we are always seeking
opportunity triggers. Always looking for clues as to
what problems we can solve or desires we can tap into.

Sometimes we try too hard. We spend weeks researching,
discussing, testing and pulling our hair out over that
next blockbuster topic for our products.

As usual, the obvious escapes us as we make things too
complex. Current events satisfy the requirements for
providing a terrific source of high-profit potential
(HPP) ideas. Unless you live in a cave, on the
international space station or work in a university
or the government (sorry couldn’t resist!) you can’t
help being exposed to hundreds of potential product
ideas each and every day.

Here are some excellent sources of current events that
you can easily spin into your own infoproduct ideas:

1) Daily newspapers and weekly magazines
2) Listen to local radio stations and local cable
networks
3) Tune into special interest groups in specific
areas related to your interests (ie. business,
economics, health, education, sports, etc…)
4) Observer the “Water Cooler” discussions - they
are excellent clues as to what the “hot” topics
are in people’s minds.
5) Monitor online discussion groups for topics that
bring in information normally outside the narrow
scope of board content.

Audri Lanford and Rick Beneteu recognized the
increasing emphasis placed on spirituality since the
trafic events of September 11th. What did they do
about it?

They developed a compilation of authors, speakers,
trainers who discussed the role of spirituality in
business and published “Success - A Spiritual Matter”

These infopreneurs worked hard to bring together a
compilation of interviews that dealt with the issue
of ethics and spirituality in business, so far this
project is a HUGE success.

If you are looking for a new idea, looking at how
to differentiate an existing idea, or simply looking
for how to increase demand for an existing idea - then
try and link your knowledge, skills and interests to
current events. You may just get the concept for your
next blockbuster information product.

About the Author

Jeff Smith is the creator of “The Ultimate Information Entrepreneur’s Success Package”, a multimedia package loaded with tips, techniques and steps to creating your own information product profit center. You can visit Jeff’s site at: http://www.infoproductcreator.com