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I will tell you my story. A few months ago, I got all excited about these ebooks and all. So, I picked up a topic I could write an ebook on 'How to Start An Onl

I will tell you my story. A few months ago, I got all excited about these ebooks and all. So, I picked up a topic I could write an ebook on 'How to Start An Online Business' http://paraschopra.com/business/ http://paraschopra.com/business/ First I tried launching it as a premium ebook, priced at $65 with some 6-7 pages long copy (see the source code of the page, the long copy is still there) I didn't sell even a single copy. (Though I must admit, the traffic was really low, not even 5-6 visitors per day as I didn't do Adwords) Then I dropped the price to $5, and did a short copy of the sales letter. Still nothing happened. Now I am offering the ebook as free download and I get 2-3 downloads per day thanks to Google First Page Result for the term 'How to Start an Online Business'. Nothing sells like free stuff! Maybe it was the ebook or maybe it was the sales letter or maybe it was both, but the fact is that I didn't sell even a single copy. With stories of an ebook making a million, there are a million (untold) stories of ebooks making zero.

psyklic 18y ago
Nice book. Even if it is mostly annotated hyperlinks, the resources seem to be of good quality and organized well.
gommm 18y ago
Why not try again with a long sale copy but this time use adwords and have an affiliate programs... Having an affiliate program is good because it gives you a chance at seeing how someone who is used to do this kind of marketing works (at least that's what I imagine, I haven't launched my website yet but was planning to have an affiliate program where people get a percentage of sales right from the beginning). It seems to me that the most important to get sales is not the book but the ad copy and the use of sem to get the traffic there... That said thanks for the book I'll see how it is :-)
ryanwaggoner 18y ago
I'm no expert, so take this with a grain of salt: 1. Find a niche. "Start an online business" is not a niche. 2. Try affiliate programs and SEM to drive targeted traffic. These work best in a smaller niche (see #1) 3. You've got a lot of links on your page that take people away from the page, which drives down conversion, which drives up your cost per conversion, which hurts your ability to do #2 4. You're selling the steak, not the sizzle. Why do I want to start an online business? What's my core goal? What problem does your book solve? 5. A "huge list of resources" sounds like a lot of work. Google provides me with millions of links on this subject for free. What's valuable to me is that someone has culled those millions of links down to just what I really need to know, not 11,000 links that I then have to pick through. There are other issues, but fixing those would be a big step in the right direction.

psyklic 18y ago

Nice book. Even if it is mostly annotated hyperlinks, the resources seem to be of good quality and organized well.

gommm 18y ago

Why not try again with a long sale copy but this time use adwords and have an affiliate programs... Having an affiliate program is good because it gives you a chance at seeing how someone who is used to do this kind of marketing works (at least that's what I imagine, I haven't launched my website yet but was planning to have an affiliate program where people get a percentage of sales right from the beginning). It seems to me that the most important to get sales is not the book but the ad copy and the use of sem to get the traffic there... That said thanks for the book I'll see how it is :-)

ryanwaggoner 18y ago

I'm no expert, so take this with a grain of salt: 1. Find a niche. "Start an online business" is not a niche. 2. Try affiliate programs and SEM to drive targeted traffic. These work best in a smaller niche (see #1) 3. You've got a lot of links on your page that take people away from the page, which drives down conversion, which drives up your cost per conversion, which hurts your ability to do #2 4. You're selling the steak, not the sizzle. Why do I want to start an online business? What's my core goal? What problem does your book solve? 5. A "huge list of resources" sounds like a lot of work. Google provides me with millions of links on this subject for free. What's valuable to me is that someone has culled those millions of links down to just what I really need to know, not 11,000 links that I then have to pick through. There are other issues, but fixing those would be a big step in the right direction.