Make Money From eBooks With Affiliate Links
By Steve Gillman
There are a number of ways to make money from eBooks by giving
them away--several are covered on different pages of this website.
The method presented here is a relatively simple one. It is based
on the use of affiliate links in the book, to generate income
whenever a reader clicks through and buys a product.
For example, if you knew about vitamins and other nutritional
supplements, or were willing to research the subject, or were
willing to pay someone to write an e-book for you, you should
start by finding a good retailer online that had an affiliate
program. Some vitamin sellers will pay you 15% of each sale you
refer. Once you are signed up you put the links they give you--which
have your affiliate code in them--into your book, perhaps after
every section or chapter. You recommend the companies products
and readers click the links to check them out. When they order
something you get paid.
I tried this with an eBook about meditation. The forty-pages
took a few days to write, and focused on the mind power benefits
of meditating regularly. In the book I recommended a couple of
my favorite brainwave entrainment CDs, linking to them with my
affiliate code, of course. I gave it away to my Brainpower
Newsletter subscribers and made a couple hundred dollars
in commissions that first week. Later I built a site to promote
the meditation CDs, and I give the eBook away there now. See
the resources section below to get a free copy.
Some people get irritated with "advertising" in
an e-book, but perhaps they scream at their television for having
commercials too. I think that if done right, advertising adds
more value to the e-book. I want to be told where to get products
that I actually can benefit from. Be sure the affiliate products
which are linked to are relevant and complaints should be few
(and irrelevant--it's free after all).
You can create an e-book for free if you need to, using tools
available online (see the resources), and you can market it for
free if you want to. What other businesses are there where you
can invest no money at all?
How Much Can You Make?
Over the last couple years I've made a few thousand dollars
giving away e-books, but using various methods, and while doing
dozens of other things in our business, so I can't say what is
the true profit potential of this method. But I can tell you
a quick true story...
A while back I bought the e-book, Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate by Chris
Rempel, for less than $20. It was a great value, and I applied
some of his ideas to our business. A few days after first reading
it, I returned to it to find a link building service he recommended,
clicked the link he provided, and signed up for the service.
It was an expensive service, and I suspect that Chris made at
least a $30 as his commission on my purchase (possibly more than
that). A directory submission service he recommended, which I
used and will use it again, made him a $10 commission. I later
started using an article submission service that he linked to
from that same eBook. He probably made a $20 commission.
Do the math and you can see that even if he had given me his
valuable e-book for free, he still would have made $60 in affiliate
commissions from my having downloaded it. That suggests there
is some real potential here. It could be better than what I'm
estimating, since many of the services that pay commissions do
so for as long as the customer remains subscribed to them. If
that's the case here, and if he makes 10%, Rempel has likely
made hundreds of dollars on the thousands I have now spent on
the services he recommended and linked to in his eBook.
Ways to Make More | Related Opportunities
| Tips
There are two basic approaches to this way to make money from
eBooks. The first is to find the best affiliate products out
there and write a e-book or report on a related topic. After
all, whether or not you are interested in a topic, if there is
a product that pays you $100 for each sale, you might find the
interest necessary to do the research and create the book.
Then there is the other approach, which is to stick with things
you know about or love. If your true passion is marketing, refer
back to the first approach. But what if you have potentially
less-marketable interests? Find the niches that are most-closely
related to them and do your best. For example, you could put
six of your best fishing stories in an e-book and then suggest
that readers go buy a "How To Catch Trout" e-book that
nets you $10 per sale (yes there is one at ClickBank--I just
checked). Having an interest in your topic has the huge advantages
of sustaining your motivation and creating a higher-quality eBook.
Qualifications / Requirements
If you can cruise the internet and find affiliate programs,
you can do this. There are free PDF makers, and there are even
free sources of content if you don't want to write: find the
20 best articles on a topic at a free articles directory, contact
the authors to get permission to use them (they are free to use
for sites, but you should ask for an eBook) in exchange for a
link to the author's website in each case, and you have a book.
Now just recommend a good affiliate product at the end of each
of your 20 chapters.
First Steps
Choose a good affiliate program (or several) to use as the
basis for your e-book. Start writing or get someone to write
the book for you. When it is done, load it up to your site or
blog. The distribute the book. Here are some free methods:
1. On your blog (which you can start for free).
2. Send a copy to all your contacts and friends.
3. At http://www.free-e-books.net and other distribution sites
that are free.
4. Locate website owners who would like to give it as a gift
to visitors or subscribers.
5. Use ads in "free classified ads" sites.
6. Give it away on your FaceBook or Twitter pages.
Resources
http://www.cutepdf.com
- A PDF converter you can download for free.
http://www.writingforyourwealth.com
- Information on how to make money giving away e-books.
http://www.associateprograms.com/directory
- A good directory of affiliate programs to choose from.
|
