KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays (19 page)
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Authors: Joel Comm,Mark Victor Hansen
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Morgan James can propel rising entrepreneurs to a whole new level. It’s like giving your store a complete makeover, moving it up from a high-end shopping mall to a swanky Fifth Avenue boutique. You’re still making money. You’re still pushing buttons and hearing KaChings. But people look at you differently.
Morgan James is very selective and demands an investment from its authors. It’s not right for everyone. There is an alternative, though. Printing technology has now evolved to a point where it’s possible to produce a single copy of a book and still make the effort financially worthwhile. Some of the companies that do the printing are even plugged into the main book distribution systems, enabling you to create a book and put it on Amazon and even in stores without having to fill your garage with boxes of unsold books. Not only will you be able to sidestep the big publishing companies standing in the way of your printed book, you’ll be able to become your own publishing company, producing your own books with practically no up-front costs at all.
I had the opportunity to interview David Hancock regarding the entrepreneurial publishing model. You can download the MP3 audio at
www.MadeEasyPublishing.com
.
www.MadeEasyPublishing.com
.
You create the book and then promote it on your web site and through affiliate networks. But the book isn’t printed until the order is received.
A number of companies offer services like this. Lulu (
www.lulu.com
) is perhaps the easiest and offers a wide range of different kinds of books, from publisher-grade soft-cover to case-wrapped hard-cover versions. The printing costs depend on the kind of book you want and the number of pages, but start at $5.30. Because you can set your own price, you’re guaranteed to make a profit on every sale. Amazon has its own self-publishing arm at CreateSpace (
www.createspace.com
).
www.lulu.com
) is perhaps the easiest and offers a wide range of different kinds of books, from publisher-grade soft-cover to case-wrapped hard-cover versions. The printing costs depend on the kind of book you want and the number of pages, but start at $5.30. Because you can set your own price, you’re guaranteed to make a profit on every sale. Amazon has its own self-publishing arm at CreateSpace (
www.createspace.com
).
If you want to kick it up a bit, Lightning Source (
www.lightningsource.com
) works with some of the world’s biggest publishing companies. You have to apply to join its program, so it’s a bit selective, but this company is also plugged into Ingram’s, so you’ll have an easier time getting exposure, both in bookstores and online.
www.lightningsource.com
) works with some of the world’s biggest publishing companies. You have to apply to join its program, so it’s a bit selective, but this company is also plugged into Ingram’s, so you’ll have an easier time getting exposure, both in bookstores and online.
The advantages of print-on-demand should be clear: There’s no risk, and you’re in control. The disadvantage is that because it’s not as selective as traditional publishing, it’s also not as prestigious. It can, however, make a useful alternative to an e-book for buyers who prefer to hold their books in their hands (
Figure 4.3
).
Figure 4.3
).
Figure 4.3
Photopreneur (
www.blogs.photopreneur.com
), a blog that helps photography enthusiasts earn from their hobby, earns revenue with its print-on-demand photography book.
Photopreneur (
www.blogs.photopreneur.com
), a blog that helps photography enthusiasts earn from their hobby, earns revenue with its print-on-demand photography book.
Finally, when it comes to creating print books, there’s always traditional publishing. Because traditional publishing is so selective, it’s probably best to think of approaching major publishers as the last step on the ladder. You’ll find it much easier to get agreement for your book idea if you can already show that people are buying your e-book or your print-on-demand book, if your blog has lots of readers, and if you already have a following. At that point, the publisher can see that your knowledge has value and that people are willing to pay for it. You represent a much lower risk.
For many of the people looking to earn from their knowledge online, selling their expertise isn’t new. In addition to setting up web sites that explain how to invest wisely, write computer programs, or build better gardens, they also teach courses. Those might be small private workshops, or they could be evening classes at a local adult education center. Certainly, when you can build an audience at a class like that, you can also build an audience online and earn from it.
Once your site is up and running, and once it has regular readers enjoying your knowledge, you should find that many of your readers will want individual, one-on-one learning opportunities. They don’t just want to read the articles you’re putting on your web site, they want to see you presenting that information in person. They want you to have the time to go into detail, and they want to be able to ask questions as you teach. When I asked my followers on Twitter what I should offer as a prize for a competition giveaway, the most requested item wasn’t an iPhone, a new laptop, or even a lifetime’s supply of pizza. It was a one-on-one lesson.
Again, this is something that works well across every subject. Just as you can pay for classes on everything from flower arranging to zoology, so you can create a visual information product based on your expertise and sell it online.
The easiest method is simply to record one of your classes. If you teach regularly, just put a video camera at the back of the room and let it run. You can always edit it later. If that approach is good enough for C-Span, it’s good enough for you. If you don’t teach regularly, just hold one class. Put on a seminar for people in your area and record it. Pack it with practical information, and you’ll be able to burn it onto DVDs and sell it online as an information product. You’ll make money once from the people who attend your seminar, and you’ll continue making money from the DVDs that you sell.
There are plenty of DVD fulfillment companies around that will handle the copying and printing for you. Prices vary according to the design of the cover and the number of copies, but you can expect to pay no more than around $5 for each DVD. When
LearningGuitarNow.com
(
www.learningguitarnow.com
) can sell a six-DVD slide guitar course for $99, you should be able to pick up a big KaChing with every sale for discs of your classes.
LearningGuitarNow.com
(
www.learningguitarnow.com
) can sell a six-DVD slide guitar course for $99, you should be able to pick up a big KaChing with every sale for discs of your classes.
Filming yourself teaching and putting the footage on DVD does mean selling a physical information product. That’s very useful when you’re giving talks or putting on demonstrations. But when you’re selling online, of course, it’s not necessary. You can also create webinars and make them viewable for a fee, using PayPal or E-junkie to allow access. There’s plenty of software around, such as Glance (
www.glance.net
) and GoToWebinar (
www.gotowebinar.com
) that make the whole creation process very simple. The best way to learn how to use them is to do it. Try them out, practice, and you’ll soon discover that creating webinars really doesn’t demand any great skill at all.
www.glance.net
) and GoToWebinar (
www.gotowebinar.com
) that make the whole creation process very simple. The best way to learn how to use them is to do it. Try them out, practice, and you’ll soon discover that creating webinars really doesn’t demand any great skill at all.
The same principle holds true for webinars and information products: They have to contain solid, practical information. Watch other webinars to see how other people do it, then slot your expertise into their models.
One neat strategy is to use the information webinar not as a product itself, but as the free sample you use to sell a different information product. The post explaining the FTC rules that I put on my blog, for example, was very popular. But it was also light. The rules were horribly complex, and it’s very easy for online sellers to make a mistake that could cost them dearly. So my lawyer, Kevin Houchin, got together with a bunch of other legal minds—people who specialize in contract and commercial law—and produced a 230-page toolkit that explained exactly how the new rules worked. Buyers also received modifiable legal documents and regular updates as the rules were applied in the real world.
Figure 4.4
The Site Compliance webinar provided solid information and helped Kevin sell his FTC toolkit.
The Site Compliance webinar provided solid information and helped Kevin sell his FTC toolkit.
I know that a lot of work and expertise went into creating that information product, and I also know that the risks involved in not following the FTC’s guidelines—even accidentally—could be massive. So at $97 for 230 pages of legal advice I was certain they’d need some pretty big servers to handle the demand.
Kevin’s a good friend and I wanted to help him, so to bring in buyers, we put on a free one-hour webinar (
Figure 4.4
). You can see that webinar at
www.sitecompliant.com/webinar.php
. You’ll see that first we used the webinar to capture e-mail addresses. Again, we don’t sell those e-mail addresses. Kevin just uses them to send potential buyers information about the legal aspects of doing business online. If they don’t want to receive that knowledge, they can unsubscribe. Kevin’s challenge is to make the information he supplies so interesting that no one wants to unsubscribe and that people who didn’t buy his FTC toolkit the first time they saw it do so in the future.
Figure 4.4
). You can see that webinar at
www.sitecompliant.com/webinar.php
. You’ll see that first we used the webinar to capture e-mail addresses. Again, we don’t sell those e-mail addresses. Kevin just uses them to send potential buyers information about the legal aspects of doing business online. If they don’t want to receive that knowledge, they can unsubscribe. Kevin’s challenge is to make the information he supplies so interesting that no one wants to unsubscribe and that people who didn’t buy his FTC toolkit the first time they saw it do so in the future.
Users then receive a confirmation e-mail containing a link to the webinar itself. We tried to pack as much vital information as we could into that webinar, but we didn’t think that people would want to watch for more than an hour. To discover the rest, they’d have to buy Kevin’s kit, which is advertised at the bottom of the page.
So you can put your information on DVDs and sell them online like any other product. You can create a webinar and sell access to it. And you can use that webinar as a free sample of the information that you have available in your premium information product.
Is all of that stuff easy? Moderately. As with anything, when you know how, it’s a breeze. Creating DVDs and producing webinars doesn’t require any specialized knowledge. You just have to do it. The first time will be confusing. The second time will feel a little more comfortable. The third time you open the webinar software or upload your class footage to a DVD fulfillment company, you’ll wonder why everyone isn’t doing this.
A webinar is usually about an hour. That’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough to provide an introduction to a topic or go into detail about one strategy. A DVD course might consist of multiple discs and take several hours. An alternative approach is to create a complete online training course. Instead of being delivered on a disc, these classes can be taken on the Web. Once you’ve created the course, you’ll be selling access—exactly like a webinar.
Creating a course isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Software company Articulate (
www.articulate.com
), for example, has a range of e-learning programs. They’re not cheap, but they do come with a free trial that lets you see that they really do create some attractive courses.
www.articulate.com
), for example, has a range of e-learning programs. They’re not cheap, but they do come with a free trial that lets you see that they really do create some attractive courses.
This isn’t a product that’s going to suit every publisher or every topic. But if your subject can be turned into a long-term course, and if your site has a large enough audience to generate sufficient sales, the $399 or so that Articulate’s main course design program costs should start to look like a very good deal.
Books—both digital and traditional—DVDs, webinars, and online courses are just some of the ways that you can create information products. Online entrepreneurs are using these methods, and I have successfully used many of these methods, too. But it’s not the format that’s important. It’s always the information.
Get that right and the format is just a way of delivering your expertise to your buyers—and hearing a KaChing.
Once you’ve created your information product—whatever kind of product it is—the next step is to build a sales page that pitches it.
Of course, you’ll already have a web site that has regular readers, trust, and brand value. You won’t have to do more than mention that you have a book available for many of those users to rush out and give you your first KaChing. That’s the result of the online sales process: Like me, know me, trust me, pay me.
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