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Make Profits from FREE e-Books
by Brian Adamson
E-books are one of the most beneficial and easiest ways to make money on line - if you sell them. But how
can you make profits from free e-books? This closely-guarded secret of the self-styled guru's has recently
become easily achievable by just about anyone with something to say, and certainly by everyone who already
has a e-book or other information product to sell.
What is a free e-book?
A free e-book is usually an abridged or shortened version of a full e-book or information product. However,
neither the fact that it is free or that it is a shortened version of something else means that it can not
have value on its own. In fact, you will quickly find that if it does not have its own intrinsic value,
that it will be very difficult to distribute - even for free.
For example, our own free e-book gives away our entire content on heart disease and cholesterol - something
that virtually everyone needs to know about if they want to maintain their health. The reason for this is
two-fold. Firstly, even if it isn't costing them money, people always want something for their efforts. To
download something then actually read it takes effort, and that effort had better be worthwhile! Secondly,
the whole point of creating a free e-book is to showcase the main product i.e. the full book or information
product, in order to generate sales. If the free book is not up to scratch, then you can be sure that sales
of the full product will not benefit from it.
Why a free e-book, why not just sell it?
Good question. The simple answer is that people love to get something for nothing - or at least to feel
that they are getting something for nothing. As stated above, in order for this to be the case, they need
to perceive that the "something" has some value to them and the process needs to be as simple as possible.
This means that far more people will be prepared to read your book if it is free than if they have to pay
even a small amount for it, which both suggests it has little value and adds time and effort to the process.
Conversely, if people see your e-book is free it not only makes them more likely to download it, it also
adds value to your main product, i.e. your paid-for book, by letting them know they can only get so much for free.
How will people find my free e-book if I have no website traffic?
This is perhaps the most crucial aspect of giving away anything from your website, and until recently, a
difficult issue to resolve. Building traffic to your site takes both time and considerable effort - building
the site, getting it hosted, promoting it etc. There are many ways to make this easier and relatively
automatic, but it still takes some effort on your part, and, inevitably - time.
The secret of generating both interest in your product and traffic to your site is to get others to help
you do it - in other words, multiplication of your efforts. Of course the people you will want to sell your
product will already have successful websites (ideally with subject matter relevant to yours) and will
want some reward for selling your product (or even giving it away), and this is the part that until recently was difficult.
How to get others to give away your free e-book?
The first thing you need to do is to arrange some reliable way to ensure that those who you want to help
you will benefit from sales of your product. This is easy to arrange by setting up an affiliate program
and there are many different ways of doing so, which vary enormously in cost, complexity and ease-of-use.
Personally, we find Clickbank both inexpensive and easy to use both to set up your program and for your
customers to make purchases.
The real key, however, to getting others to give away your FREE e-book is to ensure that THEY will benefit
from any sales that it generates. That means that you need to allow them to add THEIR affiliate links to
YOUR e-book, so that any recipients of the free book that click on the sales links will generate revenue for both of you.
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