homeschoolingincome.com » Product Creation

Rocket Product Creation; A Review

Audrey — Sat, 01 May 2010 23:36:35 +0000

I must admit, I’m a fan of Kevin Riley. I like his big smile, and he always looks happy on his videos. Not only that, but his products are good.

Rocket Product Creation was released just prior to Christmas, with the announcement that it would help you earn Christmas cash by creating an info product and selling it online, all within 3 days. It’s now being promoted as a general “how to write a report and sell it” ebook. Sounds too good to be true? Well, I tried it, and here’s my opinion.

Kevin’s report is over 100 pages long, so grab a coffee before you start to read it through. It not only tells you everything you need to know about how to create your report, but also gives you a report template to make layout easier, and a copy of the $7 script. Never heard of the $7 script? It’s pretty powerful. It allows you to set up automatic download of your report after your buyer has paid with Paypal. It also allows you to easily recruit affiliates – people who will promote your report because they can make a commission any sales they generate. Imagine 1000 people you don’t know promoting your report, and you share the income 50/50 – that’s income you wouldn’t have if you’d restricted yourself to making sales on your own.

There are screenshots throughout the ebook on how to set up the $7 script, and Kevin even gives you ideas on how and where to sell your report, and find affiliates.

This ebook does tell you everything you need to know to start selling your report online, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Did it work for me? Yes, and no. I did write a report, which I was very happy with. I’m not at all technical, and in spite of the excellent screenshots that are in Kevin’s ebook, I did need help with the script setup, so had to add a few dollars for tech help to my outlays. Overall it took me more like 5 days, slotting it in around making sure the children did their maths, and arranging activities for our homeschool group. I also still have writing clients to keep happy. Yes, I did make sales, so this method definitely works.

This report is currently selling for $24.95, which, for the ebook, report template and sales script, is very good value. All you need to get up and running is a domain and some web hosting. If you want to dip your toe into the world of online publishing, or if you’re already working online in some other capacity and want to try creating and selling your own info product, this report will get you started. Click on the image in this post to find out more about this product. Highly recommended.

Mailing List Money

Audrey — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:58:37 +0000

Have you ever head the saying “the money is in the list?” Well, it’s true.

If you can build a list of people passionately interested in your niche, and provide them with good information on a regular basis, and the occasional freebie, you’ll develop a good relationship with them. This can be turned into a nice little earner.

Your first step, as with any online business, is to check out your niche. Are there enough people interested in it, are there some good affiliate products to match, are there enough searches on related keywords, and what is the competition like? Once you’ve chosen your niche, let’s get started.

There are a couple of ways of earning money from your mailing list. In this post, we’ll look at a monetising a mailing list that’s free for a subscriber to join.

You really don’t need much to get started publishing a free email newsletter. A domain and web hosting is necessary, but one important essential is an autoresponder, or some other reliable method of bulk emailing subscribers.

It’s important you don’t send bulk emails to your newsletter subscribers from your own email address or your own domain for a couple of reasons. One is that if you get a spam complaint, your webhosting company may close down your account and ask questions later.

Another is that you have to handle any problems with the autoresponder setup yourself, and unless you’re into the technical side of things, that can be tricky.

Yet a third is that if your list grows too big for your own autoresponder, and you have to transfer it to a service such as Getresponse at a later date, you’ll need to ask all your listmembers to resubscribe, and you may lose a number of them.

It’s much easier to sign up with a professional autoresponder service from the start. I personally use Getresponse, there’s a small monthly charge to set up an unlimited number of mailing lists, and I’ve found it very straightforward to set up. I won’t go into detail about the setup because there are videos on the Getresponse site which explain it better than I could. You can also try it out with a free account before you start investing $$ in the service.

How do you find people to subscribe to your mailing list? A simple method is to set up a sales page (did I mention you could do this with WordPress!) and offer a free report to download in exchange for subscribing. The report could be something you have private label rights to, or one you’ve written yourself. Either way, make it a quality product. Getresponse will provide you with the code to create a neat little signup box on your site.

When you have your list, you can pre-add messages into your autoresponder, and set them up to be mailed out in a particular order after a new subscriber signs up, so the process is on autopilot. You can also send out a broadcast email at any time, if you have something urgent to share.

So, how do you monetize a mailing list? There are a couple of options. One is you can occasionally send a message with information about a suitable affiliate product, and make commission from any sales. Or, you could offer your own product for sale. A third option is, if your list is big enough, you may be able to sell advertising on it to someone promoting another product.

It’s really important when you’ve built your list, that you work hard to maintain the relationship, and keep your credibility intact. Respect the privacy of your list members; don’t sell or give away their email addresses. Only promote products you are happy to recommend, and make sure you don’t sell advertising for products you’re not comfortable with.

It also goes without saying that any products you promote should be closely targeted to your niche, otherwise your sales are likely to be dismal.

Maintaining an email list is a great way of building residual income, however, as with any online business, you need to maintain traffic flow to your site.

How To Use Private Label Rights Material In Your Business

Audrey — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:25:38 +0000

If you look back to one of my earlier posts on writing web content for dollars HERE, you’ll notice I’ve mentioned you can write private label rights (or PLR) articles for payment.

In a nutshell, PLR articles, reports and ebooks are those which you have the legal right to modify and call your own. Rights do vary, so you need to check what rights come with each package. Generally speaking, you can usually use them as blog posts or website articles, or sell the ebooks and reports.

Why not look at it from the other side, and think about using PLR products yourself that others have written. PLR is very useful indeed when you’re building or maintaining an online business. It can save you doing all your own research and writing, and allow you more time to take care of your children’s needs.

There are plenty of places you can get free PLR, such as PLR Wholesaler. This type of site has a free membership option where you can pick up PLR for nothing. These sites make their income by offering a wider range of PLR if you upgrade to a paid membership, and by making you a special offer when you login . There’s no obligation to take advantage of either of these; I know that in the early days of your business, the budget is tight and there’s not a lot of room for such extras.

Another great place to check for good PLR is the Warrior Forum special offers. You can often pick up a great pack of well written PLR for under $10.

I would suggest that you don’t use any PLR as is, and you rewrite it to make it better fit your site. This doesn’t just mean that you rewrite and include your keywords, but that you write it such that it sounds like it comes from you.

So what can you do with PLR material?

Look at this example from the Warrior Forum:

One forum member picked up a great WordPress theme, 25 niche articles, an ebook with resell rights ( so he could offer it for sale and pocket the profits, or give it away to his readers) and a rough guide on how to use it all for $9. He then bought a suitable domain for $9. Because he already had a hosting package, he now had a brand new website for less than $20.

From there, he checked the Affiliate Directories for products that suit his niche. I’m thinking he’ll offer the ebook free in exchange for signing up to his newsletter. When he has a list of people interested in his niche, and he’s developed a relationship with them by providing them with good information, he can then start to market the affiliate products to them in the newsletter.

Newsletter marketing is a great way of earning ongoing income from your website visitors, and it too is a whole post topic on it’s own.

You can also rewrite PLR articles to compile into an ebook that you can give away or sell, use them as content on your niche blog, or add them to your own newsletter.

If you’re building a blog or website, and you’re pressed for time because you’re educating your children, see what PLR you can find in your niche. It’s a great timesaver!!

Affiliate Marketing – Part 2

Audrey — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:03:29 +0000

When we look at affiliate marketing as a means of earning from home, there are two sides to the coin.

We’ve checked out how you can use affiliate marketing if you are a website owner – promote a product on your site and get a commission if you make any sales.

The other side of that coin is useful if you create your own information products or ebooks. You can list your product on an Affiliate Directory such as Clickbank, and have it promoted by many website owners. More and more people will see your product, and the result will be increased sales.

So, what do you need to get thousands of people promoting your product?

Firstly, your product must meet a need or solve a problem. There’s no point in creating a product that nobody wants, and if that’s the case, you can’t expect website owners to promote it.

Secondly, you need an eye catching sales page. Website owners won’t be keen to direct their hard earned visitors to an unattractive sales page, because they’re less likely to buy. You can use a WordPress blog as a sales page, install a simple theme such as Elegantio, and create a good looking header to match your product. In your admin area, click on settings >reading and select “static page” for your front page, and you have a site that will open to that front page.

Thirdly, your sales letter must be convincing. It must show people that by purchasing your product, their lives will be changed for the better. There are lots of tutorials in cyberspace that can guide you in creating a good sales letter, so do use them. Check out other sales letters and see what you like and don’t like about them.

Professional copywriters can command hundreds of dollars to create a sales letter, and they get results, but they’re not within budget. Give it a shot, and you may surprise yourself.

Fourthly, get some testimonials. Find some credible people in your niche to read your report, and give you feedback. If it’s not great, then improve the product, but if it is, ask if you can use that testimonial on your sales page. A purchaser is more likely to buy your product if he can read good reviews on it.

Lastly, there must be a good commission paid to the website owner. Most commissions are in the range of 50-75%, which, when you compare to offline businesses, is huge! However, don’t forget that it has cost you no more to have your product promoted on another website, and your product could be marketed to people all over the world that you may not be able to reach yourself. 25% of another hundred sales by an affiliate is better than 100% of no sales because it wasn’t worth his while promoting your product.

Setting your product up on an Affiliate Directory can take a bit of time to do properly, and may cost a few dollars. However, the payoff is that if it’s a good product, you’ll make sales that you may not have made on your own. It’s worth doing!

A Great Way Of Making Money From Your Hobby

Audrey — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:33:20 +0000

One thing I’d like to do as part of this blog, is to review products out there which claim they can help you start a business from home. As I’ve already mentioned, there are certainly a lot of scams out there, and to be sure I can help you avoid them, I won’t be discussing or promoting anything I haven’t reviewed or tried myself.

So, here is our first product review.

I’ve known of Kevin Riley for some time; although I’ve not met him personally, he’s a regular contributor to the Warrior Forum and I’ve always found him to be a very knowledgeable man. He creates guides and reports on how to earn an income online, and I’ve recently had the opportunity to check out his package entitled “From Hobby To Your Own Profitable Home Based How – To Business Empire”

This is a comprehensive package, consisting of a guide on setting yourself up for success, seven manuals covering how to research and write how-to guides, as well as how to set up your website to sell your reports online. Kevin also includes in the package templates for sales pages, the reports, newsletters, and check lists to make sure you haven’t left anything out.

What do I like about this package? Nothing is left out – it starts at the very beginning, discussing domain names and web hosting, and finishes with how to get targeted visitors to your product sales page. Not only that, but everything is spelled out in such a way that even the newest person to internet business could understand and follow the steps. Another feature that really appeals, is that this method can be adapted to suit any hobby – whatever your favourite interest or pastime, you can write a report on it to sell over and over again.

The other thing I really like is that if you don’t want to write a how-to report as such, you can use Kevin’s methodology to sell any sort of ebook or report you want to create. It is just as effective at selling any other type of information product.

Are there any cons? For me, as a homeschooling mum in a single income family, the price is a bit of a challenge. However, I think it is well worth it – this is basically a business in a box and will teach you skills you can use in other areas of business, both online and offline.

I haven’t yet had a go at Kevin’s course, but I will in the very near future. In fact, my 9 year old daughter has some great ideas, and we’ll be using this course as part of our home education – creative writing, technology and business studies. She wants to buy a new bunk bed, and she’s planning on earning the money for it herself. If you can use this system to teach your child to create their own income, they will be masters of their own future, and won’t be dependent on a “job”.

My thoughts – this is a very good investment indeed, it will teach you a lot about selling reports and ebooks online, and if you follow the step by step directions, you’ll find it pretty easy tostart your own internet business. If you can, sell some goods on ebay, save up a few dollars over the next few months, get the money together and grab this – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Find out more by clicking on either of the images in this post.

Ebook Writing For Fun And Profit

Audrey — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:03:43 +0000

Ebook writing would be one of the most popular online business models out there in cyberspace.

The beauty of writing your own ebook to sell is that there are very few expenses, and once it’s done, it can be sold over and over again. Not only that, but there are ways of getting extra income from your ebook, such as placing carefully selected affiliate links in your text.

There’s no reason why you can’t build an ebook writing business from home. It’s convenient to type up an ebook while your children are doing their schoolwork. In fact, if your children are old enough, you can set a research project for them, and market the results.

Let’s look at the basics.

As with any internet business, the first step in writing your ebook is choosing your niche. Look at yourself and your skills and you can easily come up with a niche or two. Within that niche, look for a topic to write on. I’ve been with my husband now for 23 years, that’s not all that common any more. How did we do it? Not a bad niche. I like to train my dogs – again, a popular niche. Do you have any skills or hobbies? It’s easier when you’re starting out, to write about what you know.

The next part of ebook writing is doing your research. Find a problem, or an obstacle, or a goal, and write about how to solve it, overcome it or meet it. Check out forums in that niche, and see what people need help with. I know of one smart marketer who went to a forum, asked for suggestions on how to solve a problem, compiled the answers into a report and sold it.

After you have chosen your niche and topic, it’s time to lay out your outline so you have a plan to follow. This can then be used as your table of contents. Then, just start writing. You can edit your work later. Alternatively, you can use a product such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking">Dragon Naturally Speaking, and you can talk as your computer “types”.

How many pages should you write? Well, there’s no arbitrary number of pages for an ebook – write until you’ve thoroughly covered your topic, but don’t add any fluff just to pad it out.

When you you get started on your ebook writing, avoid technical jargon and write in a way that an upper primary school aged child would be able to understand. Be sure to edit it when you’ve finished, to pick up any spelling or grammar errors.

Most ebooks are sold in pdf format. You can use Open Office, the free word processing software, to create your ebook - there are lots of very attractive free templates out there. You then convert it to pdf by going to file>export as pdf.

Many people also invest in an ebook cover graphic which you can place on your sales page. This can cost anywherefrom $5-20, or you

can grab a free template from Absolute Covers and add some text using your favourite photo editing software. If you don’t have any such software, then download The Gimp. It does everything you need, and it’s free.

There you have it – an ebook, a cover graphic, and it’s cost you nothing so far – you’re now in the ebook writing business.

To sell your ebooks, you’ll need a website, and a means of collecting payment. Again, it’s easy to do this with WordPress and Paypal, and all it will cost you is the price of a domain and web hosting.