A product that sells over and over again is a product that delivers residual income. On the Internet market the products that make the most win are software, ebooks and images. These products:
- don’t require shipping,
- cost relatively little to produce,
- are easily upgraded, branded and copyrighted and
- can be sold and promoted virtually through all possible online channels.
The ebook market appears over saturated with low quality products and you probably ask yourself what chances do you still have to make your mark?
Assuming that you’ve created an ebook of genuine value, it all depends on your social interaction skills, your ability to brand yourself as an expert in your domain and the way you advertise your product.
What does “genuine value” mean? A product that:
- presents information in a user friendly format,
- lacks redundancy and
- brings something new on the market, (eventually something that other ebook authors failed to cover).
How do you know what is missing? Obviously, you should never start working on any project without previous in-depth research.
Where to research:
- You can start with the search engines and type in the keywords related to the topic you want to cover. Google will return the most relevant results, but you shouldn’t count only on those few pages of SEO optimized content that appear in the first results. Dig deeper.
- Then check out digg and see what makes people tick. Digg is a popular social media bookmarking network, powered mainly by young users that look for sensational. Even when you write about trees you shouldn’t ignore this market. The youth is the future after all, and your purpose is to educate, isn’t it?
- StumbleUpon is another great research channel. It has a search tool that functions the same as any search engine but delivers results that are truly relevant to your query. You’ll be surprised of the quality of the popular pages at StumbleUpon.
- Don’t forget to take a look at some popular video sharing sites like YouTube and Veoh to see what people like when it comes to videos related to your topic.
- Why didn’t put Twitter at the top of the list? Well, because I wrote this post a long time ago, when Twitter was in its infancy. So, since Twitter is so popular, do use it as a research tool.
- Last, but not least, do a Google blog search to find blogs related to your topic. Bookmark these blogs as they could serve as platforms to promote your product, but before you bookmark them, read carefully the entries and the readers’ comments. In many cases these comments are pretty relevant in regards to what people like and dislike and they also give a very good idea about what people want to know.
- And don’t forget to read other topic-related ebooks!
The research will help you choose your topic (a too general topic converts less) and identify your target audience too. Sure, you already had an idea about what your target audience is, but the research will enable you to know what this audience really wants.
next: which are the most profitable niches
Note: if you have the feeling that you read this article before, you are probably right. It used to be published at http://pamil-visions.blogspot.com/ – and since I decided to stop feeding Google with my content it is understandable (I hope) why the article has been relocated.
If you want to enjoy more in depth advice on “how to write ebooks advice” visit Lillie Ammann’s blog, for example: Is an E-Book a Real Book?
Even though ebooks have been written about everything under the sun, if you grow your blog’s audience to a large enough size, they will want ebooks written by you because they already know and like you.
One really great way to learn a profitable topic is to go to the Clickbank marketplace and see what’s selling there.
Michael Martine’s last blog post..How to Write an Ebook that Doesn’t Suck
Mig,
Thanks for the great advice on researching and writing e-books, and thanks for the mention of my article.
Lillie Ammann’s last blog post..Bloggers Unite for Hunger and Hope
Your approach towards the subject is very logical. I liked the way you explained it. Many people dont follow simple logics or approach, and get into more technicalities. This is one seems to be very simple in understanding. Looking at other articles of yours…Thanks for sharing..
Bhanu’s last blog post..Dont Cry in Crisis | Social Media Marketing | Online Crisis PR
Very Interesting article with eBooks that I will go with what security for the future.
This is a wonderful post, I would love to create an eBook soon!
Hisham’s last blog post..Download eBusiness WP Theme from Elegant Themes
These are some really good tips. I also sell ebooks to make a living online and I do get a lot of customers who are skeptical, thanks to the crappy ebooks that are on the web already. I take the time to review and research my ebook topics. I also find certain topics do better than others.
Do you ever try Yahoo question and answer?
Actually I already have an e-book. But having an e-book is just the beginning. There are hundreds step to turn it into profit.
.-= Ruri´s last blog ..Parenting: Which Road Do I Have To Take To Rear A Good Child? =-.