Writing an eBook: First Steps to Creating Passive Income

Writing an eBook Just Makes Sense

Learning more about writing an eBook can be the first step in creating information products to build passive and residual income in your online business. You may not be aware that eBooks are more popular than ever, especially after books on Kindle have become all the rage. Readers are able to print out eBooks, and I believe this may be the biggest reason they continue to grow in popularity.

The first eBook I wrote and sold online was on the topic of real estate “farming”. This is a common activity among people working in real estate and refers to the process of choosing a geographical area that you can “farm”. I used to knock on every door in my farm once a month. It consisted of about three hundred homes. Over the years I became quite proficient at this activity and turned my door knocking into a steady stream of excellent clients. It just made sense that I would share this knowledge and experience with others.

So, where do you begin? Writing an eBook may appeal to you, but you must understand the process to truly be successful with this. Here are some steps to help you move forward:

Choose a topic that you know well and one that is of interest to others, Search on Google and at Amazon to see what is already available and what is selling well.
Purchase a domain that will serve as the “home” for your new product. Remember than an eBook is an information product and I will refer to is as such.
Create an outline for your eBook to make sure you cover everything you intended.
Start writing! Writing an eBook takes time, but it will be well worth it over time as you add another information product to your inventory.
Begin blogging about your topic and discuss your upcoming eBook.
When your eBook is complete, set it up as a product on your new domain.
Discover creative ways to market your eBook, including adding affiliates, hosting teleseminars and webinars, advertising on Facebook and other sites, and connecting with people locally who would be interested in learning more about your topic. This worked extremely well for my real estate farming eBook.
Ask others to interview you to introduce you, your topic, and your eBook to their audiences.
Think about what else you could create that would be a helpful addition to your new eBook. Think checklists, workbooks, and templates. These are amazing add-ons and will bring you additional revenue over the years.

Writing an eBook can be an excellent way to begin your online marketing as an entrepreneur. Remember that an eBook is a digital information product that will serve you for years to come. And once you have written one eBook, begin outlining your next one. Jim Edwards has a new training program for writing and marketing eBooks that is second to none. Check it out and get started right away.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I’ve been an online entrepreneur since 2006. If you are ready to get started on your journey to multiple streams of online income, visit my site at Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and download your complimentary training to get started today.

Creating Your Free Giveaway to Build Your List

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Is Your Free Giveaway Complete?

Long ago, before I came online in 2006 it was said that people would opt in to your list just to be on your list. You didn’t have to promise them a newsletter or provide them with a short report or other opt in gift or free giveaway. All of what we now do on the internet was new and exciting and everyone involved looked forward to receiving email messages from people who had information on any of a variety of topics. Those days have gone the way of the dinosaur and you must accept that fact and move on.

There was a short period of time where people would join a list just to receive a newsletter, but these days that typically would only be effective for those who are already well known in their niche. The very first list I joined in 2006 was for a newsletter on being positive in our lives. This newsletter was from Jon Gordon, an author and speaker on the topics of leadership, sales, culture, and teamwork. I eagerly awaited each issue arriving in my inbox and took his valuable information and tips to heart. Jon had become an icon in my mind at that time.

For the rest of you who are not known to the world, you must provide something of value to the visitors whom you hope will opt in to your list. I have found two effective ways for you to make this happen.

There are several names for what you will offer people, including free giveaway, ethical bribe, and opt in gift. I will refer to it here as your free giveaway. Typically this would be a short report on a specific aspect of your overall topic, and could vary in length from five to thirty pages. The preferred length has gone back and forth over the years, and I now recommend that my students offer something that is between fifteen and twenty-five pages. You include a table of contents, an introduction, a resources sections, and information about the author at the end. It’s sort of a mini eBook in that it is self-contained and filled with excellent, helpful information.

At the end of your free giveaway you absolutely must include a call to action. This is what you want your reader to do next after they come to the end of your report. I send people to look at my author page on Amazon to see all of the books I have written, to one of my products or online courses, or to another one of my sites where they can find further information. The idea is to move them through a process that will serve their needs while also allowing you to share more about who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer.

Free giveaways can consist of audios and videos as well, but I would not create them without including a written component as well.

As you can see, there are many things to think about when it comes to creating and distributing your free giveaway to build your list. I offer a training on this called Really Simple List Building that continues to be beneficial to new online entrepreneurs who want to build a list and grow their business.

Online Courses to Build Your Business

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Create Online Courses

Information products can come in all shapes, sizes, and formats. One of my favorite ways to create an info product is to create online courses. I have done this over a hundred times since coming online a decade ago, and each time I perfect the process so that my students may learn it from me and implement the strategy for their own business.

I define an online course as one that can be accessed and consumed virtually, meaning that there will not be a face to face component as a part of the training course. I began by teaching on teleseminars, but for years now I have used webinars to teach a variety of topics online. Also, I record the audio separately so that people in my online courses may choose whether to watch the replay or to simply listen to the audio. Over the years I have found that the majority of people will only watch the webinar once, but want to have access to the audio to listen to additional times.

Online Courses: Choosing Your Topic

Deciding what to teach does not have to be a lengthy process. I get my ideas primarily from conversations I have with my students. I run an active mentor program where people come to me at various points in their online entrepreneurial careers and the discussions that arise lead me to teach a variety of topics. If one person asks about or struggles with something related to their business, then I know that many, many more people are also stuck on that topic. I make some notes and then create a new online course to answer the questions that need to be answered and to share some strategies that are working for me.

You may also come up with ideas based on news articles, discussions in a forum or on social media or even from face to face contact with people you know, and by thinking of things that you struggled with in the past. Ideas are everywhere and when you think about the problems and solutions people have and are seeking you will quickly come up with viable topics for online courses you could teach.

Online Courses: Delivery

Like I stated earlier, I deliver my online courses using webinars. I may also include handouts, checklists, study guides, and other materials. In this live interaction with my students I am able to guide them through my course over a period of several sessions. In between each session I assign them activities and tasks that will enrich their experience and bring them closer to achieving their goals.

Online Courses: Accessibility

Membership sites work well for accessing materials and replays for your online course. This can all be set up quickly and easily by you or someone who helps you with the technology portion of your online business. This way your students may log in to the member’s area whenever it is convenient for them and consume your training at their own pace.

I teach a popular training course on how to do everything I have discussed here, and more in my Really Simple Online Courses training program. I would love to teach you everything I know on this topic so that you could get started right away with this lucrative business model.

Email Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

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Email marketing is the preferred means of communication between those wishing to learn more about a topic and those providing this information. You may be surprised that I didn’t say that social media served this purpose, but the fact is that the social media experience is connected to down time from thinking about business and other important issues for the majority of people. When you want to connect directly with prospects and clients, do it with email.

I send out emails to my community anywhere from seven to ten times each week. This allows me to share a little about myself and what I am doing, as well as to let my people know what is available to them to help them to reach their online business goals. I may recommend my own or other people’s products, services, and courses, or to tell them about my latest blog post on a topic of interest to them. It is also a way to stay connected with people in order to build relationships over time.

Email Marketing: When Do You Begin?

Begin your email marketing campaigns as soon as you have even one person on your list. This is an activity that takes some time to master, so there is no time like the present to jump right in. I began sending email messages to my list when there were only about a dozen people and this gave me the practice and the experience for when more people joined. By the time I had a hundred people I was already accustomed to staying in touch regularly. And remember that people join your list by choice and may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the bottom of your message. This is in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by then President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions.

My emails tend to be about two to three hundred words in length, and I break this up into about a half dozen short, narrow paragraphs. My goal is for people to not be forced to scroll and to be able to easily read my messages on any device they are using. I want the user experience to be a positive one for them. I also include at least two clickable links within each email I send out.

Even though some people in the online marketing community strongly believe that email will soon go by the wayside, many of us still have faith in this system. And there are no viable alternatives available at this point in time. I only want to receive text messages from friends, family, and some retailers, and social media is not the best way to share information with your community for a variety of reasons. Email marketing works and I would encourage you to learn more about this today. I offer my Really Simple Email Marketing training course both live and in Home Study and would love to have you come aboard.

Passive Income: Your Silent Sales Army in Action

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I like to think of my information products as being my silent sales army. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, these digital soldiers are looking out for me by getting out in front of my prospects and clients to let them know exactly which info products I have available. You can have the same kind of business if you set it up this way for passive income.

Teaching online courses is a joy for me, and at this point I have over a dozen of them. This means that I am able to teach my courses live the first time so that I may interact with my students in real time. As a former classroom teacher this aspect of my business is one that I do not wish to abandon. But I can have the best of both worlds as an online entrepreneur. For once I have taught the course live it immediately goes into what I refer to as “home study”. Then the real magic begins.

The course in home study immediately becomes an information product that will sell over and over without my being there in person or virtually. Because I use SEO (search engine optimization) throughout my site I am able to benefit from the organic traffic Google and the other search engines will send me. I am known online as the “Marketing Madwoman”, so I begin to market my info products before they are even completed. And I have many affiliates who continue to let their prospects and clients know about my products. Over time this all builds up to quite a nice business model and an excellent income stream. And my silent sales army is always working in the background to make everything fall into place.

Now I do have many other products that do not contain a live element at all. I created them to stand on their own as information products consisting of written content, audio recordings, and videos that teach and explain the topic completely. These info products can be created very quickly, and as you gain experience you will find that you can put together a new high quality product in just a few days. Your silent sales army will help you to make sure the right people see what you have to offer and the sales will begin rolling in right away.

This business is anything but a “get rich quick” scheme. Instead, it takes time, effort, and hard work to learn what you need to know and to put all of the pieces in place. But once you do, you are unlimited as to what is possible in your business. My Really Simple Info Products training course teaches you everything you need in a step by step manner so that you will not leave out any of the pieces. Begin by creating simple information products on topics you are familiar with, and then expand to more sophisticated products and courses. Over time you will build your own silent sales army and enjoy massive passive income for years to come.

List Building for Beginners – How to Begin

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List Building for Beginners

It is said that when it comes to online business, the gold is in your list. This is true in the offline world as well, where a company’s database is one of its most valuable assets. List building for beginners is a topic many people discuss, but doing what actually works is much more important than simply discussing the topic on a regular basis.

When I came online more than a decade ago I was like all new entrepreneurs in that I had no list at all. I added a couple of email addresses to my empty list so that it wouldn’t be blank, but these were two alternate emails that belonged to me. Then a few people I knew personally joined my list and I was ready to move forward. This was only a psychological shift, as I really didn’t have a list or even a business at that point.

Now this was before social media, so there were few places to connect with the people who might be your prospects and potential clients. One strategy I started using quite by accident was to introduce myself on teleseminars I was attending. The host would open up the line for a few minutes before that training began, and this gave us all the opportunity to say our name, our city, and our website. You had to be fast or you would miss out and I learned quickly how to say everything without taking a breath. It went something like this:

“I’m Connie Ragen Green from California teaching people how to write and market eBooks at eBook Writing and Marketing Secrets do com”.

And yes, this was an effective way for me to pick up five to ten subscribers every day. But that strategy is not scalable. I soon learned that creating relevant content to distribute on the internet was a much better way to connect with my prospects and clients. I wrote blog posts and articles and then repurposed those into short reports. When people read something that helped them in achieving their goals they were anxious to get on my list.

Soon I began hosting my own teleseminars and allowing people to introduce themselves at the beginning of my calls. This was my way of paying it forward to the next wave on online entrepreneurs. And my content became the basis for information products and books, further reinforcing the importance of creating something that will be available for years to come.

List building for beginners does not have to be a challenge if you approach it properly. Choose your niche carefully, begin blogging and writing on the topics related to your niche that can eventually become books, and begin hosting teleseminars that you can eventually turn into a podcast. All of these methods will work in unison to attract the people who want and need to be on your list. Always remember that business is about serving others and you will be on your way to success as an online entrepreneur.

What Is An Information Product?

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An information product can be defined as a communication of information via various types of digital media such as eBooks, webinars, teleseminars, online audio and video, website content and much more.

These products are more commonly known as “info products” and have revolutionized the way people are able to learn and obtain the information they want and need on the internet. And more importantly, info products are an excellent way for online entrepreneurs to create and distribute their own products, courses, and trainings.

Perhaps what I appreciate most about information products is my ability to make changes so easily. For example, if I create a short report or a book for Kindle and see that there is a mistake or a typo I can simply make the change, save the file, and upload it again. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional way of having your content already printed and having to print it all again to correct a mistake.

Another benefit of information products to deliver your information and training is how quickly you can connect with your students and clients. I can host a live webinar training and within an hour I have provided both the webinar replay and the audio in mp3 format in the member’s area for that training. Someone halfway around the world will be able to download and access the information they have paid for immediately (if they are on the live webinar) or within an hour if they are waiting for the replay.

And an information product will always consist of electrons, so there is nothing to store. Long ago we would have to store books, CDs, and other materials and wait for them to sell. Fulfillment was also an issue, as someone had to take the packages to the post office or have them picked up by a delivery service. This was all time consuming and expensive, not to mention inconvenient. So digital products changed everything for online entrepreneurs.

If you are considering creating an information product of your own, make sure you are providing a product your target audience will benefit from. The fact that it will be digital must not affect the quality of your information and training. Delivering it through a membership site works best in terms of product security and perceived value.

Think of your idea, do some research, and then get busy creating a product you will be proud to call your own. You may want to start by writing and publishing an eBook on your topic, and then add to your product by teaching a webinar or teleseminar. Add some worksheets, checklists, and a resource guide and your product is sure to do well on the internet. The world of information products is one that will be lucrative for years to come.

Podcast: Affiliate Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

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New Rules for Online Marketing It is estimated that about ninety percent of the people who get started online begin by choosing the business model of affiliate marketing. New entrepreneurs can get started in this way without having products of their own and by partnering with some of the most established names in their niche. I recommend this strategy as well.

In this podcast I go into great detail about getting started with affiliate marketing as your first stream of online income. Throughout this training I reference my latest Focus Guide on affiliate marketing. Download it here to follow along with what I am sharing. It will open up in a new window so that you may save it as an important resource for your business.

Affiliate marketing for new entrepreneurs is an excellent opportunity. As I enter my eleventh year as an entrepreneur I am more committed than ever to helping you succeed, and this is the way you can easily get started. Early on in my career as an online entrepreneur I earned the status of “super affiliate” and you can do the same thing if you are willing to put in the work and learn as much as you can. These are some of the topics I cover during this podcast:

First, let’s define exactly what I mean here. Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

I have always described affiliate marketing as recommending what you love in exchange for a commission on whatever is sold. I even wrote a bestselling book on this topic, entitled Huge Profits with Affiliate Marketing: How to Build an Online Empire by Recommending What You Love where I explain exactly how to do this successfully.

Knowing which products and courses to promote as an affiliate marketer needs careful consideration. When I was just getting started I was taught to choose the most popular products and those that paid the highest commissions. But that did not feel right to me, so I abandoned that advice in favor of the strategy I still use today. I only recommend the products and services I have used and benefited from. I continue to refer to this as “recommending what you love” and it has served me well over the past decade.

Knowing what an affiliate leaderboard in will help you to compete successfully in affiliate contests. Instead of focusing on just one affiliate contest at a time I now compete across several contests simultaneously for best results. This adds to your credibility and visibility and establishes you as more of an authority in your niche.

I also discuss how to handle affiliate refunds appropriately and why bonuses are so important. Both of these topics will be a part of your business as an affiliate marketer and will make a huge difference in your bottom line.

Promoting affiliate products requires you to get in front of the people who are most likely to be interested in what you are promoting. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways that I will share with you here.

Build a list of people who are interested in your topic
Blog about your topic and discuss affiliate products within your posts
Write reviews of the products you wish to promote on your blog
Add a “resources” page to your blog and include these products
Start a Facebook and/or LinkedIn group on your topic
Submit articles on your topic to sites like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse
Host your own webinars and teleseminars on your topic
Create short videos on your topic and add them to your YouTube channel
Start a podcast on your topic
Write a book on your topic

As you can see, the process of promoting affiliate products to others requires that you connect with people who are most likely to be interested in the topic of these products. Affiliate marketing for new entrepreneurs just makes sense. Be sure to visit the link below to listen to the audio version of this article.

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Affiliate Marketing and Social Media

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Do Affiliate Marketing and Social Media Fit Well Together?

Affiliate marketing and social media might seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate – but do they really? Let’s explore the myths and the facts around promoting affiliate products on social media sites.

First of all, think about why you joined social media in the first place. Most likely it was to connect with your friends and family and to share photos, videos, and updates. You may have gone along this road for several years before you had the idea to get involved with affiliate marketing on some level. So you posted a link to the latest product or course or service and kept your fingers crossed that someone, anyone would click on your link and buy what you were promoting.

It probably didn’t turn out this way at all. Maybe friends and family members thought your social media profile had been hacked, or maybe they were offended that you would post such a thing. No matter what the outcome, you should not have been surprised.

So now let’s discuss the most effective way to use affiliate marketing and social media in unison. I like to think of this as starting a conversation around a topic of interest to many and then drilling down to a more focused discussion about something much more specific. Let’s use dogs as an example.

I own several little dogs (actually, they own me!) and I like to share photos of them on my Facebook page from time to time. It seems that most of my friends love small dogs because they are cute and sometimes act silly. So let’s say that I’d like to recommend a product on how to prepare natural, healthy food for your dog through my affiliate link.

Even though the majority of my Facebook friends are willing to “like” or even “love” my post about how my Yorkie is snoring once again, very few will be interested in cooking healthy meals for their dogs. But I believe that out of my almost five thousand friends there will be a small percentage who are interested, so I’m willing to go for it.

I start the conversation with a photo of my dog sleeping in her basket and make a comment about her snoring. As people begin to comment I gently turn the conversation towards the food I have been preparing for her. If even one person asks me a question about this or shares their own experience in this area, then I will add my link to the product and share why it is a worthwhile one to check out.

What is even more effective is if you create a Facebook page on your general topic and then make recommendations there over time. I would recommend making it breed specific and addressing the common concerns of owners of this breed. Then people who like that page would be good prospects for what you will promote. Does this make sense?

Social media and affiliate marketing can indeed be a good match when you approach it in a logical way where everyone benefits.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my Really Simple Affiliate Marketing training course. Affiliate marketing tips will help you to achieve the success you want and deserve. And be sure to pick up a copy of my bestselling book, Huge Profits with Affiliate Marketing: How to Build an Online Empire by Recommending What You Love.

Marketing Tips

Connie Ragen Green Shares Internet Marketing Updates

Writing an eBook: First Steps to Creating Passive Income

Writing an eBook Just Makes Sense

Online Courses to Build Your Business

Create Online Courses

Online Courses: Choosing Your Topic

Online Courses: Delivery

Online Courses: Accessibility

Email Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

Email Marketing: When Do You Begin?

Passive Income: Your Silent Sales Army in Action

What Is An Information Product?

Podcast: Affiliate Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

Subscribe to My Podcast So You Won’t Miss Anything