INFORMATION PRODUCTS

Simple changes in the way you market can result in big changes in your profit. In fact, with a few tweaks you might easily increase your income by several hundred dollars each week, depending on your traffic and offers. [Read more…] about Product Owners: 5 Ways To Make an Extra $500 Every Week

Sure you can make some great money promoting other people's products. And then what? You've made a sale, you've earned a commission, and now it's time to do it all over again.

Being an affiliate marketer is akin to being a salesperson on a car lot. You're competing against every other salesperson on the lot, as well as every other car dealership in town to make that sale. And if and when you do sell a car, you only get a piece of the commission. The dealership owner and car manufacturer get the rest of the profit.

Now if you're thinking that being a product creator is like having your own dealership, think again. Creating your own products is akin to being Ford, GM, Mercedes Benz, etc. You are the one and only person creating your particular products, and you've got thousands of dealerships and hundreds of thousands of sales people all competing to MAKE YOU MONEY.

The difference here is profound. As an affiliate you're competing against every other affiliate to sell that product. As a product owner you've got affiliates competing to make you money.

Now then, once a car is sold, who gets the follow up business? Again, it's the dealership and manufacturer, not the sales person. Sure, that sales person might sell that customer another car sometime down the road, but in the meantime the dealership is selling services to the car owner and the manufacturer is selling parts. Again, the sales person worked his or her hind end off to make the product CREATOR money.

It's the same way with info products. As the product creator you are the authority, the one the customer looks to for answers, help, coaching, additional (higher priced) products, etc. Your affiliates have worked hard to build you a golden list of customers who now come back to YOU for more products.

And what happens when these customers purchase directly from you, the product creator, instead of going through the affiliate? You keep 100% of the profits because there is no longer any affiliate to split it with. Yes, some affiliate programs do cookie the customer for a few months or as long as a year, but eventually that customer belongs 100% to you, the product owner, and the affiliate is cut completely out of the loop.

So how do 100% commissions sound? How about having affiliates build you an ever growing list of happy customers you can market to again and again? And one more thing – when a customer is happy with the initial product, it now becomes far easier to upsell them to a related and much more expensive product. So even if you give away 100% of your initial commissions to your affiliates, you can quickly recoup that money and much, much more.

Why give away 100% commissions on the front end? Because this is the incentive that will build a rabid pack of affiliates who cannot wait to sell your product. If you are a product owner with a hot selling product that pays 100% commissions, then advertise this to affiliates and they will work extra hard to build your business for you.

If you haven't already, get started on creating your own product. Keep it simple – a report will do. Make it on something that will immediately benefit your customers, something that gives them tangible results quickly. It doesn't have to be long and it doesn't have to be fancy – it just has to deliver great info.

And then hook up with a program that pays immediate commissions to affiliates, like the Warrior Forum or JVZoo. Offer high commissions, write a great selling sales letter, and see what happens. And yes, do it this week. There is nothing like selling your own product to realize that you can in fact build a very lucrative business online.

One more thing – have an upsell ready. This might be something you own the rights to, or find an appropriate affiliate program. Yes, in the beginning you may be combining affiliate marketing with your own products, and that's okay. As soon as possible, you'll want to create your own upsells to go with your products, but in the mean time 50% commissions are still better than none, and you'll own the list your affiliates build for you.

Have you ever done work that didn’t really interest you? If you’re like others who have, then all you wanted to do was to get the job finished and get on with what really did appeal to you.

Publishing is like that. It’s really hard to be enthusiastic when you’re facing a genre that doesn’t interest you. Just because you think you probably would be good at writing a particular genre doesn’t mean you should.

Some people say the genre chooses the writer. Others say you can just pick one. The way to choose the best genre for you is to write what you actually enjoy reading. The reason is because you’ll have familiarity in reading that genre and you’ll have a feel for the type of stories that are published in that arena.

If you find yourself drawn to a particular type of book – like suspense – then that’s what you should write. Always write whatever it is that you read. If you enjoy reading young adult, westerns, dystopians, or whatever – then that’s what you need to write. Your passion for that genre will show through.

What if it’s not an easily definable genre? Go ahead and write it anyway. Never forget that writing is a form of artistic expression and the different expressions appeal to different audiences.

Don’t worry about it if you don’t know a lot about the genre. That’s easy to learn. For example, if you wanted to write suspense and you needed to know how the police would handle a crime scene, there are all kinds of online blogs written by experts that will give you the knowledge you need to write with authority. And those blogs are free.

If you want a lot of information at your fingertips, you can invest in eBooks or print books that cover the research details – so don’t let what you don’t know stop you from writing the kind of book you want to write.

Knowing whether you should write – fiction or non-fiction – is a choice you don’t really have to make. It’s possible to do both and do both successfully. However, that doesn’t mean you have to. You can write what you’re drawn to and some people are naturally better at one versus the other. Just always aim for whatever you’re passionate about.

With non-fiction, if you’re going to write something that you already know such as marketing or how to build a website or create a business, then that’s information where you’re the expert. So your time researching will be minimal. If you’re going to write non-fiction like true crime, then you’ll need to make sure your facts are absolutely correct.

If you’ve decided to publish your book through Kindle, you’ve made a step in the right direction. What a lot of people really love about publishing through Kindle is how easy it is to set up your manuscript and then watch it go live as a novel. [Read more…] about Going Through the Kindle Publishing Process

Writing a book is an exciting endeavor, but you need to know what you’re doing. You need to do the research and for some people, writing an outline before you do the actual writing helps them go from start to finish. [Read more…] about Researching, Outlining and Writing Your Non-Fiction Creation

When you have something to say and need to get it in front of people, one of the best publishing avenues to look at is Kindle. This popular publishing entity is fast becoming the top resource authors turn to in order to get their book out into the world. [Read more…] about Why Kindle Is a Great Self Publishing Platform

If you take a stroll through the Kindle marketplace, you begin to notice something in the paid bestseller list. The further away you get from the top spot, the more amateurish the covers begin to look in some cases. [Read more…] about The Importance of Having a Good Kindle Cover

It’s easy to learn how to publish a book on Kindle, and it’s a free opportunity for every author who has a story to be told. You can publish fiction or non-fiction books at no charge. [Read more…] about How to Publish a Book on Kindle

Kindle publishing is a wonderful platform for authors to use to get their books out before hungry readers’ eyes. There’s no fee for you to publish and your creation is on a very popular, highly trafficked website filled with buyers. [Read more…] about 5 Kindle Self Publishing Tips

Amazon’s Kindle platform has been getting a wonderful buzz from authors in both the fiction and non-fiction categories when it comes to income potential. Several authors have turned down 7-figure deals from traditional publishers because their self-published books were so profitable on Kindle. [Read more…] about Becoming a Part of the Kindle Publishing World

As a work at home marketer, you need to understand the main reasons that people purchase eBooks. They buy them for discretion, for convenience, and because they’re readily available at a time when their problem has caused them to go online and seek out a solution. [Read more…] about How Long Does an eBook Need to Be?

There’s no doubt that information products are a great way to make profits. Digital downloads are easy to format and can be created by anyone who has something to say. For the marketer, eBooks are a great tool to bring in profit.

But one of the best things you can do is add more than one form of media to your sale to increase profit margins. The reason that multi-media products increase profits is because even for people who are great readers, how-to examples set in a step-by-step visual guide make it easier to learn and retain knowledge.

It’s easier for most people to grasp learning something new when it’s presented visually. You may know what you mean in your eBook when you talk about formatting something or putting it up on a website, but for the beginner, those words will seem like a foreign language.

Using videos to sell your products also gives you the edge of being able to add a personal touch. You can also add audio files for the customer to be able to download as an MP3 to their player for on-the-go learning.

Audio courses are just another way to use multi media to raise the level of profits you earn. Audio files are more portable and versatile than ever before and with the rise of the iPod and other MP3 players, almost everyone has a way to play audio files.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of fancy computer software to create quality audio files. All you need is a microphone that plugs into your computer or laptop and recording software, some of which is already pre-installed on your computer.

Audacity is one free audio editor that works across multiple platforms, enabling you to record your lessons. Audio files are particularly good if you get easily flustered in front of the camera. You can reference a quick outline you’ve written in an audio recording without the audience ever knowing.

When you’re ready to make your recording, find a quiet place. You don’t want to have to scrap a perfectly good recording because your microphone picked up the sounds around you.

Once you’re finished with the recording, listen to the playback carefully in one sitting and make a note of anything that needs to be edited or changed. Audacity and other audio recording programs can help you remove long pauses or unnecessary words for example ‘like’ or ‘um’ or any pet phrases that you might overuse.

When you sell products for other people, you’ll get a percentage or a commission based on how much the products sell for. Many online entrepreneurs can make a nice living promoting for others.

But there’s a difference between a nice living financially and making the profits that can give you the kind of life you’ve always dreamed of. When you promote products for others, you make some good money – but the product owner gets rich.

By creating your own products, you’ll see the profits surpass anything you could earn if you just stuck to selling for others. That’s because you get 100% of the profits for some sales and a percentage of profits that your army of affiliates send your way.

If you sell a $200 product for someone else and make 50%, then you get $100. But if you sell a $200 product of your own, then you’re doubling your profit. Not only that, but you can sign up other people to sell for you, pay them a commission – and you’re earning effortlessly as they do all of the marketing work that delivers targeted traffic!

Plus, if you write an eBook, you get to place affiliate links or links to other products you own within it and you’ll wind up with even more in sales. Making money online isn’t about who works the hardest.

If that were all it took, then everyone online who worked hard would make money hand over fist and be able to retire fast. It’s not always who shows up that gets ahead. All you have to do to see that is take a look at real life.

You can have someone who’s been in the job ten years and they get passed over for a promotion (and the bigger paycheck) by some guy who joins the company and gets promoted after just one year.

Creating a product and getting it up for sale on your site doesn’t have to take that long. You can have an eBook finished in a day, a week or a month or more depending on how fast you write. Create a perfect balance of info product development and affiliate marketing for the maximum return on your investment of time and effort.

Write in a friendly, informative manner, give people something they can really use and your customers will become repeat customers as your eBooks and other products gain a reputation for helping them solve problems that they’re seeking a solution for.

The Internet is the ultimate ‘equal opportunity employer'. Anybody can start a membership business on the Internet. All that is needed is a subject, a website and the tools to build the site. You can start a membership website business but the question is should you? [Read more…] about Is Starting a Membership Site for You?

How to Create a Best Selling Product…

Should you sell products that people need? The answer might surprise you. And that’s because the answer is “not always.” [Read more…] about Creating Sizzling Hot Products That Sell

How Your Content Delivery Affects Your Profits…

[Read more…] about Can You REALLY Make Money With a Membership Site?

Information product marketing is changing because of changes taking place in the marketplace. “Ignore these at your own risk!” says Internet marketing expert Terry Dean. [Read more…] about Four Information Product Marketing Dangers to Avoid

Starting a membership site is a smart business move, but only if you do it right. Every month dozens of people start membership sites only to shut them down just a few months later. Often the failed site ruins their reputation because they didn’t deliver what they promised to members. In other cases, they didn’t pick the right topic to begin with. Here are the top seven mistakes that you can make with a membership site and how to avoid them.

1. Picking the wrong topic

A membership site needs a wide customer base. Your topic should be specialized but not so narrow that you can’t attract new members on a consistent basis. Unlike a short report or niche site, your membership site topic has to be large enough that you can produce fresh content month after month. Pick a topic that a lot of people are interested in but that also has the potential for evergreen content.

2. Not actively contributing content

Members of your site are looking for fresh content every month. You need to give this to them or they’ll unsubscribe in droves. You should develop an editorial schedule so you know exactly what you’ll deliver each month. This will help you stay on track. Base your editorial schedule on the benefits that you promised in your sales letter and you’ll have happy, satisfied customers that will stick around for month after month.

3. Not taking the time to craft a good sales letter

Your sales letter is your 24/7 sales person. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to your membership site if your sales letter isn’t doing its job. If you don’t trust your own copywriting skills, hire a professional writer. The investment will be well worth it as you see higher conversions and more members in your site.

4. Not marketing for new customers

You should always have new members coming into your membership site, but the only way you can do that is to market your site continually. You should be conducting pay per click campaigns, distributing article marketing articles and doing social networking to drive more traffic to your site. Work this into your weekly plans so that you can keep the flow of new members consistent.

5. Not being accessible

When you start a membership site, your members are looking for a lot of attention and care. Most of this will come in the form of an easy to use site with quality content. But you should also make it a point to be accessible through e-mail or a help desk function. There’s a high level of trust involved in a membership site, so make sure you’re there for your members.

6. Not looking for opportunities for backend sales

Opportunities for backend sales exist in many different places in your membership site. You can sell advertising space within the site or create a platinum level of membership with special coaching. Just because the members are paying a monthly fee doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to pay for extra information on the site’s topic.

7. Not taking steps to increase retention

If you’re concentrating on getting members but aren’t worried about keeping them, you have a recipe for disaster on your hands. It takes much more effort to get a new member than it does to keep one that you’ve already got. By posting consistent content, offering polls, running contests and getting involved the community in your membership site, you’ll be able to hold onto the members you’ve got.

A membership site script will help make running a membership site very easy. Most scripts allow you to securely set up a website so that non-members can’t access your private content. There are many different membership site scripts available. Before you purchase a membership script, look for answers to the following questions on the script’s website. If you can’t find an answer, it’s best to look elsewhere.

1. Does the membership script have a satisfaction guarantee?

Study the sales page for the membership script carefully to find a satisfaction guarantee. When a creator of a script includes this, you can buy the script confidently knowing that if you have trouble later you can file a refund request. If the script doesn’t function the way the creator promised, you’ll be able to get your money back. Reputable product creators understand this and will display this clearly on their sales page.

2. Does the script come with an instant use website template?

Your membership site building process will go a lot easier if your script comes with a website template. The website template will allow you to set up the script and the basis for your website within just a matter of hours. You can normally edit the template with your own custom header and icon.

3. Does the membership script offer automatic activation for paid accounts?

Once someone pays for their membership to your website, they’ll want to login right away. That’s why it’s so important that your membership site script offers automatic processing for member sign ups. This way the new members are automatically transferred to the login page, allowed to login and automatically activated to gain access to the site.

4. Does the script immediately send a welcome e-mail to new members?

Many scripts offer this helpful option that allows you to build rapport with your new members immediately. A welcome e-mail will help make your new members confident about their purchase and introduce them to the major features of the website. This should be a standard feature on the membership script that you purchase.

5. Does the script allow for an affiliate program structure within the site?

A lot of membership scripts will let you easily set up a multi-tier affiliate program within the site so you don’t have to use a third party affiliate program. If you’re planning on implementing an affiliate commission structure (and you should be!) this is an important feature to look for. Using a built in affiliate commissions structure will make your affiliate processing super simple.

6. Does the memberships script integrate with popular payment sites?

You’ll save a lot of time and energy by finding a membership script that works with Paypal or other major payment processors. If you find a membership script that does this, you’ll be able to get started all the more quickly.

7. Do the script creators offer ongoing support?

A membership script is totally worthless unless it is working properly. When you make an investment in a script, make sure that you can get the support you need so that your site can make you money. Look for promises of ongoing support on the sales page or reviews from current customers that prove the membership script creators follow through with those who purchase their product.

Many people mistakenly believe that their membership site income only comes from the monthly subscriptions that they receive. This is far from the truth. There are several different ways that you can make backend income from your membership site. Here are some ideas to help you turn your site into a profit-pulling machine.

Promote affiliate offers

Affiliate marketing works really well within the membership site model because you’ve built up trust with your audience. They’ve seen your monthly content and know that you offer quality. They will trust your recommendations because you’ve offered good content in the past. Choose affiliate offers that tie directly into popular topics within your membership site. Ebooks, video courses and short reports will add value for your members and boost your backend sales. Send an e-mail article to your membership site members with good content and a link to the recommended product.

Sell advertising

You can charge a small fee per month to existing members or outside advertisers to display their text ads or display ads on your site. You can display advertising in the sidebars and just under the header of your membership site. Search for advertising directories to list the advertising space and add the offer to your signature file in forums that you visit. You’ll start to see advertising dollars start to roll in the more you publicize the offer.

Offer personalized coaching

No matter how much instruction you provide inside of the membership forum, there will always be people who will want something a bit more hands on. You can offer exclusive one on one coaching for members who want that extra help. You can charge this as a one-time fee or as an additional monthly subscription (sort of like a membership site within a membership site). Alternatively, you can offer teleconference calls for membership site members for a small additional fee.

Sell your own advanced products

There are bound to be topics within your membership site that deserve special attention. You can make backend sales by creating products around these topics and offering them to your members. For example, if you’re running a membership site on weight loss you can create a special report on the best exercises to do to blast through a weight loss plateau. Offer this at a special price to your members. You can also sell the same report at a higher price to non-members to drive traffic back to your website to grow your membership.

Turn membership site content into individual products

Once you’ve built a good amount of content within your site, you can start using the content for other purposes. Package up your articles on a specific topic and sell them as a special report. You can even sell resell rights to the report so that your membership site’s name and link is distributed widely around the ‘net. You can do this with several different sections of your website to make some backend income and get new members for your website.

With one or several of these techniques you can create several streams of income from your membership site and attract new members.

Once you get your membership site up and running, you’ll need to stay on a weekly maintenance schedule to add new content to your website, promote it and promote the affiliate program. Fortunately, there are just a few simple steps that you need to take on a weekly basis to keep your membership site moving along.

Respond to customer support questions

This should be your top priority because it helps you hold onto your existing customers. One dissatisfied customer can make you lose out on a whole bunch of future customers. Try to get to this at least twice a week so you can respond promptly to their inquiries.

Cull out cancellations

Most membership scripts will require you to manually remove canceled members from the database. Take care of this quickly each week so that you won’t have people getting into the site for free.

Post new content

This is a given. Your members are paying for fresh content delivered each month. Rather than have them wait all month for a new update, split up your monthly delivery into four different parts. This way there is fresh content for the members to see each and every week. An editorial calendar will help you stay on track and keep your customers satisfied. If you have a forum as part of your membership site, be sure to check in several times a week to stay on top of important threads and respond to questions from members. Be present and your members will see that you are dedicated to helping them.

Poll your subscribers

Your membership site’s success depends on giving the members exactly what they want. You can keep your finger on the pulse of the market by offering a weekly poll. Ask them about their favorite parts of the site, what they’d like to see next, and their worst problems with the topic or any other information that you’d like to know. If you do this on a weekly basis, the members will look forward to participating and give you tons of valuable feedback.

Send out a “wrap up” e-mail newsletter

Toward the end of the week you should send a short e-mail newsletter to your subscribers to let them know what happened in the site. Many times people will sign up for a membership site, forget why they did it and then unsubscribe a few months later. With an e-mail newsletter, you can remind members of what is going on within the site and encourage them to come back, see the new content and get involved.

Write and distribute an article on your membership site’s topic

Your membership site won’t grow unless you promote it. Article marketing is a powerful way to drive traffic to your site and brand yourself as an expert in your niche. At the beginning of every month, brainstorm a list of four to six different topics that you’ll write about that month. Write one to two articles per week and then distribute the articles to a few key article directories. The whole process won’t take more than an hour per week and it will be well worth it.

Make new connections on social networking sites

Spend some time each week finding and connecting with people in your market on Facebook, Twitter and any other sites you may already be a part of. Use search terms related to your niche and add new people as friends. This will help build your circle of influence and get potential new members to your site.

Membership sites are a great way to make recurring income online. If you’re thinking of starting your own site or you already have one going, here are a few quick tips for success with your membership site. They will help you simplify your content creation process, get affiliates to promote your site and get new members.

1. Outsource content creation.

Your membership site’s success depends on the new content that you deliver each month, every month. If you want to cut down on your content creation time, consider hiring a ghostwriter to provide your site with articles, reports and blog posts. When you use a ghostwriter you’ll be able to concentrate on your strengths (like promotion) rather than struggling with the writing. When you outsource, you don’t have to worry about being a good writer or knowing a lot about your topic. You can have professional content that gives the site value without writing it yourself.

2. Get professional graphics.

Studies have been shown that outstanding graphics can compensate for average content. Of course, this isn’t an excuse to produce lackluster content. But if your site looks good, people will want to be part of it! Your site’s graphics don’t have to be overly fancy, but they do need to look good. If you’re not a pro at graphics, you should find a website designer to give you the professional look that you need to draw in customers. You may be able to barter with a designer for free graphics by offering a free membership to your site.

3. Have two or more levels of membership.

Creating two levels of membership or more can help you draw in a wider customer base. You can help people join the site who might not be able to if the price is higher, but you still have the opportunity to get a higher monthly fee from those who want the added benefits of being in the top tier. To encourage more sign ups, you can have a free membership level, a silver level and a gold level.

4. Use a blog to promote your membership site.

Create and maintain a blog outside of the gates of your membership site in order to build traffic and increase your presence within the niche. You can maintain your blog as part of your main website or create it on a completely different domain. Blog about popular topics in the membership site’s forum and give teasers about the content that members are receiving. When you give quality content and mix in references to your membership site, you’ll create credibility and get new members for your sites.

5. Add video to your membership site for major impact.

Video marketing is the next revolutionary step on the Internet. You can be part of this growing movement by adding video to your membership site. Most anything that can be expressed in writing can be made into a video. Whether you use traditional video where you talk in front of the camera or screen capture video technology like Camtasia, you can offer top quality content for your members through this new media.

A membership site is a great way to get consistent monthly income but it can bring you even more money if you sell it after it’s been established for several months. By doing all the groundwork for a membership site, you can sell your website to someone who wants to take it to the next level. When you follow these simple steps, you can be ready to sell your first website within a matter of months.

1. Start with a profitable idea

The future buyer of your membership site will do a lot of market research to make sure the site will be profitable. You need to do the same. Start by looking for a profitable market using Clickbank, Amazon's best sellers list and other niche market research techniques. Be sure to check out the existing competition and pick a membership site topic where you can quickly gain dominance.

2. Register a new Paypal address

Your future site transfer will go a whole lot easier if you have a separate Paypal address to collect memberships. If you have the new memberships go to your existing address, you’ll have to have all the subscribers unsubscribe and then re-subscribe to the new owner’s Paypal address. By setting up a separate Paypal address, you’ll increase the likelihood of keeping subscribers with the new owner.

3. Install Google analytics

Google analytics is a free tracking program that will tell potential buyers all about the traffic that your website is receiving. Register for the service and install the code onto your web pages from the first day you start the site. You’ll have a nice history of your site’s traffic to show the buyers as well as proof that you’re receiving the daily visits that you claim you are.

4. Create a few months of content

Get your membership started with a month of content and have a second month ready to add. If you want to add more money to your bottom line, add a few additional months of content and include them with your sales price. This will give the new owner plenty to work with once the site transfer takes place.

5. Drive traffic to the site

Use article marketing, pay per click campaigns and viral reports to start building traffic to the website. With a great sales letter, you’ll have your first subscribers in no time. Continue the traffic building techniques for the entire time the site is under your control.

6. Prepare your site to sell

Once you’ve gotten a good amount of members into the website and feel you’re ready to sell, gather together your traffic data and post an ad. Webmaster forums like Sitepoint and Digital Point Marketplace are some of the best places to sell your site. Browse through the existing listings to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to the starting prices for auctions and price your site accordingly. Be sure to answer all buyer questions and be prepared to collect a big payout for your hard work!

Starting a membership site is easier than you think. Although there are a lot of requirements involved, you can breeze through them all with this simple checklist. Once you get through this list you’ll be in prime position to launch your own membership site and start gathering a consistent monthly income from your site.

Domain name

Your first step is to get a domain name. Use the most popular keywords in your niche and add a community-oriented suffix like club, group or team. For example, your weight loss membership site could be hosted at www.loseweightclub.com.

Website

Your website design will have a big impact on how your members use your website and how often they come back. You’ll need a welcome page, a blog, a downloads page and perhaps a forum, depending on the nature of your membership site. If you want the best look for your membership site, consider hiring a professional designer who can give you a consistent look from start to finish.

Sales letter

Your sales letter should convince visitors why they should join your membership site. Some would consider it to be the most important part of your site because it gets people in through the door. The sales letter needs to emphasize the benefits of your membership site as well as mentioning the features. Build desire to become part of the “in crowd” within the membership site and you’ll make the decision easy for them.

Order Processor

You won’t make any money with your membership site unless you have this set up properly. While many people use Paypal to process their monthly subscriptions, you can also use Clickbank, Paydotcom or Ejunkie to process payment. These three options are your best choices if you want to have an affiliate program for your membership site.

Membership Site Script

A membership site script will keep your website secure. The script will build a registration form into your site, which will allow paying members to sign up and access the site. It will also keep visitors from accessing your content without paying. Thanks to membership site scripts you don’t have to hire a coder to set up a custom script for you.

Autoresponder program

You’ll want to keep in touch with your members and let them know what is going on inside of the site. Using an autoresponder e-mail list is a great way to keep people active in the site. You can send out a new message each time there is a content update, or you can e-mail a weekly newsletter. Place an opt in box on the welcome page that members get to after they’ve successfully subscribed.

Startup Content

Before you launch your site, you should have several articles, reports and other forms of content available for your members to enjoy. If you plan on having a certain amount of updates per month, you should have at least twice as much content when you start. This way the members know that they’ll be getting quality from you in the future. Write the content yourself or have a ghostwriter do it for you.

Editorial Schedule

Just like traditional newspapers, your membership site needs an editorial calendar. You don’t want to scramble around each month trying to get your content together. Plan ahead at least a few months of content and get it prepared before you need to post it.

By following these steps, you’ll be ready to promote your membership site and start earning monthly income.

You can build the best membership site in the world but if you don’t promote it, you won’t make any money from your best laid plans. The following tips will keep the traffic flowing to your website and your income growing by leaps and bounds. No matter what type of membership site you have, you’ll be sure to find some inspiration in these tips.

1. Article marketing

Article marketing is by far one of the most accessible forms of online marketing. Research the top keywords for your niche, write a quality article and distribute it to a few top article directories like EzineArticles.com. It doesn’t get any simpler than that!

2. Affiliates

When you’re running a membership site, affiliates can be your best allies in getting new members. An affiliate program that pays well and that offers affiliates tools like articles, solo ads and e-mail messages will attract top affiliates and bring you new customers. Register your membership site with Clickbank to reach a wide pool of affiliates.

3. JV Partners

Unlike affiliates, JV partners get a special level of commission by promoting your membership site. They’ll run special promotions for your membership site when it launches and get you some of your first members to your site.

4. Pay per click ads

Running a successful pay per click campaign can bring you a lot of targeted traffic to your sales page. Choose the right keywords, craft an attractive ad and you’ll have lots of new members.

5. Social marketing

Sites like Facebook and Twitter can offer you lots of opportunities to connect with your niche market and get new potential members. Start a profile for your membership site and search for friends who are interested in your niche.

6. Yahoo Answers

This website is a good place to find questions that people are asking related to your niche. Search through the open questions a few times a week and provide helpful answers. Use your membership site link in the resource area to drive targeted traffic back to your site.

7. Forum marketing

If you already participate in a forum related to your niche, this will be an easy way to promote your site. Add a link to your membership site in your forum signature file. Each time you post, your sales page link will be promoted.

8. Viral reports

Write a short report on a popular topic within your niche. Solve a major problem or provide a plan of action for your niche. Include lots of links back to your site within the report. Allow others to distribute it for free and your membership site link will get in front of thousands of potential subscribers.

9. Reviews

Contact bloggers and other product creators to give them free access to your membership site in exchange for a review. They’ll offer their opinion of the site to their readers and you’ll get lots of new traffic into the site. You can also find paid reviews sites that put you in connection with bloggers who will review your site for a small fee.

10. Blog comments

Search for blogs in your niche and post insightful comments from time to time. Use your membership site link in your blog comment and you’ll get some new visitors to your site.

Membership sites are one of the best online business models that you can use. There are many different types of membership sites that you can start so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make them part of your Internet marketing strategy. Reselling information to your market on a monthly basis is a smart way to go!

1. Monthly Recurring Income

This is one of the most popular benefits of starting a membership site. When you build a membership site you’ll have 100, 200 or even 500 members paying you on a monthly basis for your information. Imagine the possibilities! With a $15 monthly membership fee, you could be looking at a $7500 a month just for one site. If you provide more content and charge a higher price for your membership site, you could be earning well over six figures a year for your site.

2. Affiliates Promoting For You

Affiliates love membership sites. If they have a choice between recurring monthly income and a one-time ebook sale in the same niche, they are going to spend their time promoting the membership site. They are looking for the same type of recurring income that you are. You can easily set up your affiliate program through ClickBank, 2CheckOut or PayDotCom. Promote your affiliate program to your members and super affiliates to get more sales.

3. Niche Dominance

No other platform allows you to have widespread coverage on a niche the way that a membership site does. Within the gates of your membership site, you can offer a wide variety of content. In addition to articles and short reports, you can do teleconferences, videos and interviews. The more content you put into your membership site and the more members you have, the more your content and your recommendations will be respected within the niche. There’s no faster way to brand yourself as an expert within your niche than by creating a membership site. All your future content and products in the niche will have a lot more clout.

4. Backend Sales Opportunities

The income from a membership site doesn’t stop with the monthly membership fees. There are plenty of opportunities to make additional income from your site. You can sell private tutoring, advanced products and platinum memberships. You can also repackage part of the content used in your membership site and sell it as an independent product. You can sell advertising as well to boost the profitability of your membership site.

5. It’s Never Been Easier!

It has never been easier to run a membership site, especially if you don’t have any technical expertise. It used to be that you would need the help of a web programmer to get a membership site set up properly. Thanks to easy to use content management systems like WordPress and membership site scripts that will make security easy, you can have your membership site set up within a matter of hours. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t start one today.

“This was a presentation I made at Product Camp SoCal. In this real life case study, I will show you how I created an info product in 28 days, marketed it online, and made $200,000 of sales in the first month. All done with a starting budget of less than $1000.”-John Chow

Learn how to make money from one of the top bloggers in the world. Notice how and why John Chow uses ClickBank to promote his information products. Also, find out how important your mailing list is to your success.

A well known catch phrase from a popular movie is “follow the money.” For Internet marketing, the best advice is “follow the problem.” The most effective online products are those that address problems.

How to break into Internet marketing. How to lose weight. How to avoid foreclosure in a down market. These are problems that drive people to search engines desperately looking for answers. How do you know what people want and need to know?

You have to research and listen into the online conversations in your niche. Start with keyword research for your topic. Check in with Google Labs and find out what the trend of online interest is based on up to the minute searches. Over days or weeks, you can see when the trend shifts and a new hot topic rises.

Another expanded Google tool, the Google Talk Labs, lets you get involved in conversations about trend topics. You have a chance to interact and possibly influence the conversation. At the same time, you want to drop into several discussion forums that focus on your niche.

Don’t be a lurker, be involved. You can use a different name – just make sure that you contribute to the conversation. Nothing will get you barred from a forum faster than showing up with a sales pitch instead of being a participant.

Once you make several posts and join the conversation, then you earn the to right to offer suggestions or recommendations. That’s another reason why you want to use a name other than your own name so that you aren’t obviously recommending your own site.

When you get a hint of a problem from comments in the forum, be bold and ask, “Does anybody have a good resource for how to . . . ” If no one has a suggestion, there’s a product waiting for you to develop.

You can also get a feel for problems by scanning major blogs like Technorati and Boing Boing. Subscribe to blogs that are popular with followers of your niche interest. Chances are they will comment on those blogs.

If you find that there’s a product to address the problem, take a look at it. What can you do to improve, simplify, expand or add a new twist to that answer? Is it a high priced product? Then you need to develop something at a slightly lower price point.

Is it too cheap and vague? That’s your cue to add more substance, get endorsements from reviewers and position your product as the premium solution. Millions are made online by solving simple problems where the public is using the ‘net to find a solution.

One attraction for an online business that sells information is that your car can still fit into the garage. If you were selling tangibles on a site like eBay, your car would be out in the rain because the garage would be filled with inventory.

That’s both costly and inconvenient. With online marketing of information, your “inventory” of products can fit on the thumb drive in your pocket. Even if you sell actual deliverable products, you can have those sent from a reseller and have plenty of room at home.

Since your products don’t take up space, it’s easy to forget just how many “assets” your business owns. You need to keep an ongoing list of the “assets” for your Internet marketing efforts. Not only do these have an economic value, but you want to know what’s available and have it organized for your convenience.

It’s too easy for files to get lost on the hard drive and linger instead of getting revised and back on the market. Keep everything in separate folders or files and then make a back-up on a regular basis. It only takes one computer meltdown to lose your entire business in a flash.

Here are a few prompts to use in listing your online marketing assets so that you stay well organized:

• EBooks – custom written, original product or collaboration.
• PLR Products – articles, eBooks or courses that you own rights to resell
• Articles and reviews related to your niche
• Video or audio products that are marketed separately or with eBooks
• Customer list of buyers
• Prospect list of people who ask for more information
• Product reviews and testimonials from satisfied buyers
• Recommendations from influential people in your niche market
• Sales letters, squeeze page copy and ad copy from successful campaigns
• Graphics and logos identifiable as the “brand” for your site
• Opt-in pages and forms from successful campaigns

These “assets” have a monetary value, but they’re nothing until you “monetize” them for online marketing. By keeping track of your marketing assets, you discover what’s most profitable in your niche and what isn’t. Make the most of your assets and you’ll get more income with fewer useless files (the electronic equivalent of the packed garage!).

You worked so hard to prepare an eBook that’s right on trend in your niche. After the initial burst of sales, all that remains is a trickle of buyers. Even your returns are rising. So what just happened?

The information is solid and unique. Do you have to change the content to pump up the sales? No, but you may need to make simple adjustments to get those sales back on the rise and prevent more refund requests.

Give away free samples. You know how that draws people in the grocery store or at the coffee shop. Everybody wants to try something that’s free. Let prospective buyers have a sample of your eBook.

Provide a link on your website that allows viewers to read a sample chapter. Then circulate that link to every site, forum and discussion group in your niche. The more people who sample your work, the more potential buyers you attract.

The free sample is another way to reduce requests for refunds. The buyer has a chance to see if this is the kind of information and presentation that’s worth buying. You can also add a free look at the table of contents. An informed buyer is more likely to be a satisfied buyer.

Don’t be afraid to highlight the money back guarantee. Rather than prompt refunds, a strong guarantee of satisfaction actually reduces refunds. Add a gold seal or other icon that shows a guarantee symbol.

Buyers want to know that their purchase information is safe. Instead of saying, “ Your order is secure” add to your link “Order Now on our Secure SSL Server” (or other appropriate security message).

Speaking of the Order Now link, apply this several times in your sales letter and in several locations on the sales page. Each time you add more reasons to purchase or add a bonus offer, put in the Order Now link.

Don’t make your prospect search for how to buy. You want to grab them while they’re still overwhelmed by the urge to have what you’re selling.

Inside your eBook is a great place for a Check New Titles link. You can add it in the copy a few times as long as you don’t interrupt the flow of the content. Have that link in the opening page with your welcome, in the signature line of your “about the author” page and on the last page of the copy.

If you already have a title for the next eBook, use that in the link. While the reader is enjoying your work, it’s a great time to promote another eBook. Make it easy for a satisfied reader to find and buy more eBooks from you.

Add a bonus survey at the end of the eBook. Ask your reader to “review” this eBook by answering a few questions for a Special Free Bonus Gift. Add the link for the review. When the reader finishes, the reviewer goes into your autoresponder and the Bonus Gift is sent immediately with a note from you.

The Bonus Gift is the incentive to complete the survey. You can get useful information from your readers that will help in targeting your next product. But even if the survey information isn’t that important, it’s a way to build a relationship with your buyers. Let them know what you have to offer and give past buyers the first chance to get your newest information products.

Once you've developed your membership site, it's time to advertise it. If you don't advertise, you're going to have a hard time getting members because they won’t just happen upon your site. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to do this – many for free, and some for fairly cheap.

Let's take a look at the advertising methods that are free to implement. These include using a signature file, biographies, contributions to article directories, and ezine promotions. All of these are easy to do.

A signature file is typically a short statement that is attached to the end of emails and in forum posts. A signature file gives information about your website(s) including links, so that interested people can visit your site and learn more about gaining membership.

Anytime you send an email out that’s related to the niche of your membership site (or make a post in a forum that’s relevant), make sure it has a signature file. For unrelated emails, you can also include a link to your new membership site – simply have your signature file say something like this:

John. A Doe, ABC Marketing Enterprises, domainname.com, other contact information.
Interested in XYZ123? Take a look at the new XYZ123 site!

Something similar to a signature file is a bio box that’s attached to the end of an article. Your bio box provides a bit of information about you, your expertise, and links to your website(s). These can be instrumental in bringing traffic your way.

Making contributions to article directories is an excellent way to get people to notice you and incite interest in your membership site. When you contribute well-written articles that offer value to your readers, they’ll learn to look to you as a respected expert.

This gives you a name in the business and puts some power behind the links in the biography that you include with your articles. Your reputation as an expert is going to encourage people to check out your membership site.

Another great way to advertise your membership site is through ezine promotions. You can either start your own ezine or online newsletter, or you can become a contributor to another marketer's ezine. Either way, this gives you a perfect opportunity to remind readers that you have a membership site that they would like to explore.

Part of free advertising is offering an incentive for trying your membership site to everyone who makes his or her way to you. This could be a free sample, discounts, coupons or a sale price. Don't forget this step, because it's going to be instrumental in creating interest.

One way to advertise your site that does cost money, but that can be well worth your investment is PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. PPC gives you a perfect way to place enticing advertisements in places where your target audience will be looking for information.

You can set your own advertising budget with PPC, and you have complete control. While it's important to learn to use PPC correctly, once you do that, it can be a great tool for bringing more traffic to your membership site.

Your membership site won't advertise itself. You have to get out there and put some effort into this step. Fortunately, for your investment of time, energy and a possibly a bit of money, you'll find that your traffic is increased as is your membership enrollment!

Membership sites offer something exclusive, something above and beyond what's available to the mainstream. Membership sites teach things that can't be learned from just searching for information on the web, and offer things that can't be found with a free search.

People are willing to pay for something good that isn't available to just everyone. So membership sites are a great way to get paid for providing the world with excellent, specialized content, information and knowledge.

But even if you have a fantastic idea for a membership site, you can't just create it and rely on its fabulousness to keep current members and gain new ones. This is the issue at hand – membership sites are plagued by stagnating sign-ups.

Often people sign up for a membership site only to leave the site a month or two later, so site owners are left scrambling to find new members to replace those that have wandered off.

While you should never be discouraged from starting a good membership site, you do need to be aware of the inherent risks, and the answers to the question of how to get new members and retain them which will result in a growing site, and your growing income.

We know that people are willing to pay for good online content, and it’s a hot way to generate revenue. The key is to provide continual excellent content that is completely exclusive. Depending upon the type of site, you can offer articles, reports, eBooks, software, forums, videos and even games to your paying members.

The issue of losing members occurs when there either just isn't enough new “stuff” offered on a regular basis to keep them interested, or they feel the membership fee is too high for the value they're getting from the site.

The problem of gathering new members occurs when there simply isn't enough to entice them to join up. There has to be a really compelling reason to get out that credit card and cough up the initial membership fee to gain access to the exclusive treasures that wait inside the site.

So here’s the bottom line: If you have a great idea for a membership site, go for it! But you have to commit yourself to creating a website that makes information and content available to your members that is truly above and beyond the things that they can find elsewhere, possibly for less money or for free.

Keep your content fresh and be sure to offer something new and exciting on a regular basis – it has to make your members feel that they are getting their money's worth and make them glad every time they pay that membership fee.

When you're working to attract new members, you have to make sure that the landing page(s) that you're using to attract potential members gives them a very, good reason for signing up and giving you their money.

You might want to offer a free taste of what they have to look forward to by signing up – discounts or free samples. Do what it takes to get them in the door, but be sure that once they've joined your membership site, you're giving them what you promised – plenty of exclusive content that they can use!

As with any business, your own membership site needs to offer potential members more reasons to join. People sometimes need some serious enticing, even if the membership site is perfectly great, offering incredible value. It often takes promotions to get them through the door, just as if you had a brick and mortar business.

You can pull in more traffic by using advertising promotions that ignite interest and really get the future member excited about the possibility of signing up for your membership site. And assuming you've created a great site, once you get them to try it out, they'll be so pleased they'll want to stay.

Special deals that will help spark curiosity and interest can include advertising promotions such as giving your new member a month for free, or the first month for a deep discount.

You can offer coupons to your potential members through the doors. These coupons could be for access to something that only a coupon holder can get. This could be a special piece of software, or an instructional video that gives detailed information that cannot be found elsewhere on your site.

Giving free previews to some of your best content is also a good way to pull in more traffic. Offer up a section of a report or eBook, or an audio report that explains an important, yet little-understood concept, method or solution, as a preview to what your members can expect when they join.

Free samples are a fun way to encourage interest in your site, and work much like a preview would. The difference is that a preview will only give a piece of the puzzle and serve to make the prospect curious and interested enough to join up.

A free sample is giving prospects something that they can use as it is – this could be an informative article, or a video that illustrates how to do something. People love to get something of value for free, so you can always count on a free offer to bring in the traffic.

Remember to use sales and discounts as part of your promotions arsenal. You know how happy it makes you to discover that your favorite store is having a sale. This works for membership sites, too. Offer sales on memberships, such as two for the price of one (that could be two members for the price of one, or two months for the price of one, and so forth).

You can also offer discounts on the membership fee. With discounts, you can give your new members the first month at a ridiculously low price. By the time the month is up, they'll be hooked, provided your membership site is top-notch!

Or you can offer the first few months at a moderate discount and then go to the regular membership price after that. Again, by the time the discount period has expired, they'll love your membership site and be willing to pay the higher price to stay with it.

Never underestimate the value of promotions to bring more traffic your way. People love to get a deal – especially on something that they just know is going to make some sort of positive difference in their life.

Once you've brought members to your site, you want to keep them for a good long time! This isn't always so easy to do. People unsubscribe from sites regularly unless they feel that they have a very good reason for staying and continuing to pay.

There are several things you can do to guarantee that you'll keep your members and continue to bring new ones in. The basic key to membership loss prevention is always going to be site excellence.

What does site excellence mean? First and probably foremost, site excellence means great customer service. Without it, you're not going to achieve the success with your membership site that you could have.

Customer service predominantly involves being available to your members. This includes answering questions they have about the site, or its content. You also want to have a presence and make yourself available on the forum (you do have a forum on your membership site, don't you?).

Your members will like being able to “talk” to you via the forum – it will give them a feeling that you are truly invested and involved in the success of the site and their success, enjoyment or happiness, whether your membership is in a niche such as health, pet care, gaming, or Internet marketing.

Remember to provide your members a way to contact you via email, and to answer questions and requests promptly. This is another key to great customer service. Another way to prevent members from straying is to keep everything on your membership site current, fresh and new.

You don't have to get rid of old content, but you should make sure that it's kept up to date. Sometimes information changes and you don't want stale or outdated information on your membership site.

Remember also that your membership site should be presenting members with new and fresh content on a very regular basis. Depending on the type of membership site you have, that could mean new videos, articles, images, games, tips and tricks, breaking news, and reports. If people are paying for membership to your site, they are going to want to see new content, or they'll get bored and discouraged and give up their membership.

You can invite members to special events that are members-only. And be sure to let members know that as a benefit of joining, they will receive preferential treatment, such as being given access to content well before non-paying site members or the general public.

Conducting polls is a great way to keep members. This lets them know that you care about their opinion and that your intention is to give them the most valuable membership site possible.

Membership loss prevention involves going above and beyond in all ways for your members. That's the bottom line. You'll find that members appreciate your efforts to be available, and to provide them with some great value for their investment in your site.

Remember that keeping members and adding more is all about putting the needs and expectations of your members first, and then taking that extra step in order to gain their loyalty for a very long time.

You have a great idea for a great membership site and you're excited – that’s excellent! Now the hard work begins. One of the jobs you have ahead of you is marketing your membership site with the right angle. You need to make sure that you're branding yourself and your site to reflect the type of value your members will get for their investment of a membership fee.

People need to have a good reason for investing their hard earned money in your membership site, so let's look at what it will take to create a marketing plan for your membership site.

The first things you should look at are the benefits that your future members will reap from becoming a member. What will you be listing as the benefits of your membership site?

Think of what you plan to offer. What’s different from all the other membership sites like it? Are you capitalizing on a new niche, or approaching a tried and true niche from a different angle. Think about what you plan to offer as specials for new members, too.

Make it very clear that you're offering benefits that potential members can't afford to be without. When you're branding yourself and your site, keep everything you're offering related directly to that topic.

If you've created a membership site around a health topic, make it clear that once someone joins that site, they're going to be provided with expert information in every form available – all about that particular topic.

While you're creating your membership site, be sure that you're providing value at every turn. This will help you market your site effectively. Content is valuable, but so is a forum where your members can talk to others (and you) about the focus of the site. This is valuable because it provides a sense of community, and that will keep people coming back and bring in new members, too.

You'll also want to brand your site as a reliable source for the best information. Part of how you'll do that is through your promotional and advertising methods, which will most likely include articles and other content that you submit to directories and pay-per-click ads.

When you're marketing your membership site, remember that one very valuable key to getting new members is to make it clear that you are available to your members. This is customer service, and customer service is very important to anyone who is buying something, whether it's a car or a bag of groceries or a membership to an exclusive site.

The angle you have to take when marketing your membership website is one that is going to make it clearly outline what your site is providing and the fact that you, as an expert, are offering something that isn't available elsewhere, or all in one place.

Find out what your potential members want, then brand yourself and your site as the best place to find all those things, all in one place, all with the promise of great customer service!

Publishing a book of fiction is an art that includes knowing how to maneuver the publishing process to your advantage. Getting a publisher to approve your fiction takes know-how, determination – and a little bit of luck.

Knowing how to submit your fiction manuscript is a key factor in whether your work will ever see the light of day at a bookstore. But it’s easier to submit a fiction proposal to a publishing house than a work of non-fiction because the fiction must be a finished product.

Sadly, though, most major publishing houses won’t even consider taking on a novel from an unknown writer unless it’s submitted by an agent. They just don’t have the people to evaluate every manuscript than appears on their desks daily.

An agent’s fee can cut into your sales if your fiction is accepted, but they’ll also be able to drive the best deal and will know the ins and outs of the publishing business and be able to negotiate what’s best for you.

You can search online for lists of agents who represent your genre of fiction – or purchase a “Writer’s Market” that contains up-to-date listings for agents.

When you’re ready to submit your manuscript to an agent, be sure you send a cover letter telling her a little bit about yourself and the book. Also, send a plot synopsis that’s no more than two pages. Be sure it’s interesting enough to make her want to read more – and never send anything to an agent or a publisher until it’s free of typos and spelling errors.

There are a number of well written, informative books and tip sheets available online and at bookstores that will step you through the submission process. Guides also exist that can help you write an effective synopsis.

If you’re submitting a manuscript to a publishing house, be sure to send a query letter first. Most publishers have guidelines for the fiction they’re interested in, and they can be found online or requested by snail mail. Stick to the guidelines when submitting a query letter or they’ll never look at your work.

Competition in the fiction publishing industry is fierce, but if you have a great story to tell and have written it well, don’t be afraid to present it. A publisher or agent will be much more apt to approve your work for publication if you, the writer and creator, is enthusiastic.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is this:

“Jimmy, after being a full-time internet marketing for more than a decade, what's one thing you know now that you wish you knew back when you started?”

Good question.

The answer is simple: I wish I knew about fixed-term memberships back in the late 90's so I could have built a residual income base much earlier in my “career” than I actually did.

SIDEBAR: “Fixed term membership” is a phrase that I personally created and introduced to the internet marketing crowd, although the concept itself wasn’t original to me. A “fixed-term membership site” (FTM) consists of content shared via autoresponder to paid members for a specified period of time.

There are a variety of reasons why a fixed term membership is a better model than the “traditional” membership site that are explained at the above referenced site, so I won’t go into them here.

But perhaps the most significant is the fact that all you need is that FIRST LESSON created in order to launch the site, as opposed to needing a bunch of content to stockpile a “traditional” membership site.

That’s important because you LITERALLY can have a FTM up and running in just a couple of days.

What I want to teach you in this article is a simple way to quickly setup an FTM site without writing a word of the content.

If you want to create residual income in 72 hours or less, here’s what you do…

Step 1: Buy Quality PLR Content.

It begins with purchasing a private label rights license to “quality” content. Choose this carefully as you’ll be converting it into your membership site lessons. You want it to be first rate since your name is going to be attached with it in the end.

A) Look for content that “teaches a process”. In other words, you want content that is very “how to” in nature. The materials you purchase PLR to sell should teach the reader how to accomplish a desirable result.

Examples: How To Build A List, How To Lose 20 Pounds, How To Shave 10 Strokes From Your Golf Game, etc.

This is important because the “fixed term” model works best when your members learn a series of steps for reaching a desired end result.

B) Look for content that is written by a qualified expert. Preferably you’d like content that wasn’t created specifically for a PLR sale, but rather was originally sold as an actual product. This will generally yield a better class of content. (Especially if you’ve purchased the product in the past and KNOW personally that it’s good stuff.)

C) Look for content that is lengthy enough to be divided into at least 12 lessons of 5-9 pages each. In other words, you’ll need 50-100 pages of meaty content to use for a 3-month FTM site that offers members weekly lessons.

Step 2: Extract Marketing Materials.

After you’ve purchased the content, you’ll want to “extract” some marketing materials. By “extract” I simply mention that you take out small portions of the content and convert them into a variety of marketing materials.

A) The default recommendation that I generally make is this: you want 2-3 ezine articles, 4-5 short blog posts (think “tips”) and one short report (7-15 pages).

B) If you can find PLR offers that INCLUDE bonuses specifically created to promote the content, that’s even better. The “best” PLR offers include marketing materials (in ADDITION to the product content itself) that were created specifically to promote the product you are licensing. These are your best options.

You’ll use these extracted marketing materials to promote the FTM site once it is completed.

Option 1: Use the materials yourself. (IE Post articles to directories, post tips to your blog, send out report to your list, etc.)

Option 2: Get affliates and joint venture partners to distribute.

Option 3: Be smart and do both of the above options.

Step 3: Setup FTM Membership Site.

The biggest part of your time will be used in actually setting up the FTM membership site. But, even that can be done in just a couple of days.

Here’s the general overview (clearly this is an abbreviated version … it’s NOT a tutorial on how to do this)…

A) Register a domain and secure hosting.

B) Write the first lesson and set it up on a member autoresponder list.

C) Create a sales page and a download page with access to the member list.

That’s it. You’ve got an FTM site setup.

So, that’s how you use PLR content to setup an FTM site. The overall model here is solid. It’s an easy way to create residual income from scratch virtually anytime you want to do so. If you locked me in a room with no content on my computer at all, I could have an FTM site setup in less than 24 hours using this model. I’m guessing that any intermediate marketer could do it in 72 hours and certainly in less than a week.

If you're looking for the kind of content that I've been talking about, then you'll want to check out Membership To Go. It's a complete, one-year fixed term membership site that you can license for your own use. This has never been offered before and it includes EVERYTHING you need to get started, including private label rights to the membership content, its sales letter, presell report, articles and other marketing materials.

Set it up at your site, sell as many memberships as you want, keep 100% of every sale.

A fixed-term membership site is the ultimate “set it and forget it” way to generate income online. You create the site one time and it basically runs on autopilot.

—————–
Jimmy D. Brown is the founder of the PLR industry and creator of Membership To Go, an “everything included” membership site package that you can setup at your site and keep 100% of every sale you make.

Some ideas burst into the air like a rocket.

Others quickly fizzle off into the night like a bottle rocket.

There's a big difference between an “idea” and a “great idea”, right?

Fortunately, there’s also a simple process that you can follow to get great ideas for your membership site. If you’re unsure how to begin and are stuck for ideas, try out these tips. Your next membership site may not be that far away.

1. PERSONAL.

Begin by brainstorming your own life. Get personal! Creating your membership site is going to be much easier if you know a little bit about the market. That’s why it’s a great idea to start your ideas list with hobbies, interests and activities from your own life. Write down everything that you and your family members are passionate about or interested in. This list could be a goldmine for your membership site.

2. PRODUCTS.

Ebook and video course creators have done a lot of niche market research in order to create their products. You can piggyback on this research specifically by keeping an eye on “product launches”. For example, if you see a lot of products being produced on article marketing you can safely assume that a membership site on the same topic would do well. Subscribe to email lists in your potential market to watch for product launches and get ideas for your site.

3. PERUSE.

Persuse means “to examine in detail”. It also begins with “p” so it fits my outline.

If you want a comprehensive list of existing electronic products that are selling well, Clickbank Marketplace is the place to go. Search through the marketplace to find out what topics your market is interested in learning about. You’ll be able to find new market ideas, content to fill your site as well as affiliate offers to create some backend sales.

4. POPULARITY.

Visit Amazon.com’s best-seller list. Amazon is the top bookseller online so it makes sense to search their marketplace for membership site ideas. The bestseller lists in various categories will help you see what topics are popular. You can easily gather membership site ideas from these lists. Hint: Go with the topics that are popular.

5. PULSE.

Forums are the pulse of your market. You can be sure that a market has members that would be willing to pay if there is an active forum dedicated to that topic. Track down some popular forums in your potential market and spend some time browsing through the topics. See what the market is talking about. Pay close attention to the FAQs section and the threads that have a lot of activity. These are indicators of the kinds of topics which might serve as a topic for your next membership site.

6. PERIODICALS.

You gotta go to Magazines.com! This website is full of membership site ideas. If a market has a buying audience, there is probably a magazine out there dedicated to it. Magazines don’t get started without advertising dollars to back them up. If advertisers are paying to get to a market, it’s a safe bet that you can create a membership site for the same market. On Magazines.com you can search by category to find membership site ideas. I love this place!

7. PROBLEMS.

The final stop I want to mention is Yahoo groups. These free e-mail discussion lists cover a wide variety of topics. Subscribe to a few groups in your potential market to look for ideas. The benefit of using groups like these is that you’ll often be able to see problems in the market that aren’t currently being met by other products.

By going through these simple outlets you are sure to find a great idea for your next membership site.

If you'd like a shortcut for finding a great idea — and an even bigger shortcut to getting a membership site setup and taking orders, grab a copy of the Membership To Go package.

Membership To Go is a complete, one-year membership site that you can license for your own use. This has never been offered before and it includes EVERYTHING you need to get started, including private label rights to the membership content, its sales letter, presell report, articles and other marketing materials.

Set it up at your site, sell as many memberships as you want, keep 100% of every sale.

Plus, the topic is related to one of the most popular niches in the world. A market that has had multiple million dollar launches, countless sales every single day and a huge marketplace of potential buyers.

—————–
Jimmy D. Brown is the founder of the PLR industry and creator of Membership To Go, an “everything included” membership site package that you can setup at your site and keep 100% of every sale you make.

Starting a membership site is a smart business move, but only if you do it right. Every month dozens of people start membership sites only to shut them down just a few months later. Often the failed site ruins their reputation because they didn’t deliver what they promised to members. In other cases, they didn’t pick the right topic to begin with. Here are the top seven mistakes that you can make with a membership site and how to avoid them.

1. LACK OF COMMUNITY.

If you pick the wrong topic, you’re doomed from the beginning. A membership site needs a wide customer base. Your topic should be specialized but not so narrow that you can’t attract new members on a consistent basis. Unlike a short report or niche site, your membership site topic has to be large enough that you can produce fresh content month after month. Pick a topic that a lot of people are interested in but that also has the potential for evergreen content.

2. LACK OF CONTENT.

Members of your site are looking for fresh content every month. You need to give this to them or they’ll unsubscribe in droves. You should develop an editorial schedule so you know exactly what you’ll deliver each month. This will help you stay on track. Base your editorial schedule on the benefits that you promised in your sales letter and you’ll have happy, satisfied customers that will stick around for month after month.

3. LACK OF CONVERSION.

Your sales letter is your 24/7 sales person. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to your membership site if your sales letter isn’t doing its job. If you don’t trust your own copywriting skills, hire a professional writer. The investment will be well worth it as you see higher conversions and more members in your site.

4. LACK OF CIRCULATION.

You should always have new members coming into your membership site, but the only way you can do that is to market your site continually. You should be conducting pay per click campaigns, distributing article marketing articles and doing social networking to drive more traffic to your site. Work this into your weekly plans so that you can keep the flow of new members consistent.

5. LACK OF CONNECTION.

When you start a membership site, your members are looking for a lot of attention and care. They want to connect with you. Most of this will come in the form of an easy to use site with quality content. But you should also make it a point to be accessible through e-mail or a help desk function. There’s a high level of trust involved in a membership site, so make sure you’re there for your members.

6. LACK OF CREATIVITY.

If you’re not looking for opportunity for backend sales, you’re leaving money on the table. Opportunities for backend sales exist in many different places in your membership site. You can sell advertising space within the site or create a platinum level of membership with special coaching. Just because the members are paying a monthly fee doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to pay for extra information on the site’s topic.

7. LACK OF COMMITMENT.

If you’re concentrating on getting members but aren’t worried about keeping them, you have a recipe for disaster on your hands. Retention is critical. It takes much more effort to get a new member than it does to keep one that you’ve already got. By posting consistent content, offering polls, running contests and getting involved the community in your membership site, you’ll be able to hold onto the members you’ve got.

These 7 mistakes could be dooming your membership site. Correct them and see your sales soar.

If you'd like to eliminate these mistakes in one simple step, then consider grabbing a Membership To Go package.

Membership To Go is a complete, one-year membership site that you can license for your own use. This has never been offered before and it includes EVERYTHING you need to get started, including private label rights to the membership content, its sales letter, presell report, articles and other marketing materials.

Set it up at your site, sell as many memberships as you want, keep 100% of every sale.

I think you'll find that using the Membership To Go package for your own membership will eliminate these costly mistakes and keep you on the fast track to membership site profitability.

—————–
Jimmy D. Brown is the founder of the PLR industry and creator of Membership To Go, an “everything included” membership site package that you can setup at your site and keep 100% of every sale you make.

Most fictions writers know that the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire from publishing a book has about as much likelihood of happening as winning the lottery. The success of writers such as Tom Clancy rarely happens.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to realize true monetary success from having a work of fiction published by a major publishing house. That’s why self-publishing endeavors (such as print-on-demand) have become so appealing to authors.

If a book of fiction is published through the traditional publishing house, an author can expect an advance in payment based on what the “experts” anticipate the earnings of the book will be. Advances can vary from a few thousand dollars to into the millions of dollars if you’re the caliber of a Tom Clancy.

When the check is issued, it’s the author’s to keep, no matter how many sales of the book may occur. The publisher then subtracts the monetary advance issued to the writer from the royalties the book earns.

Royalties are based on a percentage (usually between 4% and 8%). After the advance is subtracted from future royalties, the author will begin to receive a royalty percentage on every sale of the book.

Most writers are happy if they receive a total of $50,000 on their first book. Depending on how the first book sells, it may be easier to negotiate your next one with a publisher.

If a book of fiction is published using the POD method, the author will receive profits based on a per sale basis. A larger amount of profits occurs if the sales are generated from the POD service’s web site. The author can also purchase a number of the books from the web site and market them himself.

Another way to profit from publishing fiction is to sell it as an ebook online. The profit received is 100%, but the author must have knowledge about how to generate sales for the book online.

There are several downloadable programs that you can access to learn about the ebook business. Selling books online is becoming an increasingly popular way to self-publish all types of writing.

Research all methods of self-publishing and then decide which would be the best way for you to see your fiction in print. There is no lack of information both online and in informative books that can help you in your venture.

In the olden days of fiction publishing and marketing, the author sent her precious package of verbiage to an overworked and underpaid editor of a publishing company and waited for an acceptance (more often a rejection) letter in the mail.

If the book happened to be chosen and accepted from the slush pile of manuscripts, the author was notified and small check was sent as an “advance” for what the publisher hoped would turn into a fiction best seller.

The publisher was in charge of all the marketing efforts and all the author had to do was sit back and wait for the commissions from sales to start pouring in. If the book proved to be a success, the lucky author might be sent on a promotional tour of the book.

Things are notably different today. Authors of fiction need to be proactive in the marketing process of their books. They have to create the buzz and make sure it gets out to bookstores, is endorsed by other authors and hyped on as many online sites as possible.

If you’re promoting a self-published book of fiction, one of the most important things you can do to ensure its success is to go the extra mile on the book cover. It doesn’t have to look “fussy” – in fact, a simple design has a much better chance of success than a busy one.

Whether your book of fiction is self-published and distributed to book stores or print on demand (POD), it should contain no typos. If a publishing house is handling the marketing of your book, be sure you read the galleys carefully before you release it for publishing.

You are your own best fiction marketer. Take some time to send out copies of your book to major reviewers like The New York Times and Publishers Weekly. If you do happen to get a review from one of these highly credible publishers, your sales will increase and your popularity among publishers will climb.

Marketing your fiction can be almost as daunting as a blank computer screen when you first begin to write your book. But the time you invest in promoting it will ultimately determine the outcome of the amount of sales you’ll realize.

Use every source you possibly can to promote your book of fiction, including the media, online web sites and small book stores that welcome an author’s presence at book signings.

Above all, remember that you know your fiction book better than anyone else, so you are the perfect one to market it. You can use unusual methods or tried and true ones – just so you keep trying and never lose faith that your book will become a success.

Every aspiring author who has struggled to have their work accepted by an agent or a publishing house – only to have collected enough rejection slips to paper a wall – turns to thoughts of self-publishing.

If you’re thinking of publishing your own fiction, you owe it to yourself to find out everything you can about the self-publishing business. Besides the vanity presses, there is now print-on-demand (POD) that has emerged as a viable competitor in the self-publishing business.

Another element of publishing your fiction is knowing how to market it. Knowing how can mean the difference in selling a few books as opposed to thousands. Be sure your marketing efforts are professional and mistake-free.

If your promotional materials contain typos and misspelled words, the people handling your fiction will assume that your book is unprofessional and will be reluctant to promote it.

The Internet contains online discussion groups for various genres of fiction. Be sure you search out these groups and become involved with them. You’ll find out what people are reading and what they like and may discover ways that you can polish your work to appeal to more readers.

When communicating with people online, be sure and include a “signature file” on your correspondence. A signature file is a pre-written file that is automatically attached to the conclusion of an email message.

The signature file can contain information about your work of fiction and where the reader can purchase it. It’s a valuable advertising method of getting information out about your book.

Once the word is out about your book, the print on demand method helps to reduce the cost of publishing and printing by only printing and mailing the books as the orders come in.

Vanity publishers print a number of books for a fee. After the printing, the author is free to market her fiction without the restrictive contracts required of mainstream publishing houses.

If your self-publishing venture is successful, consider sending the results of your efforts to an established publishing house for your next book. It may be enough to rattle their cage and make them want to take a chance on you.

Digital technology is in the forefront of every marketing venture these days, including publishing. If you have a work of fiction that you’d like to see published, print on demand (POD) is certainly worth you time and effort to consider as a viable option to traditional publishing.

Print on demand makes it possible for a complete book to be printed and bound in an extremely short amount of time. The traditional method of printing and binding thousands of books promotes waste and isn’t very cost-effective.

If you’re considering the POD method to self-publish your fiction book, there are many online publishing service sites that will help you market your book. They’ll also print and bind the book per each order and provide listings in online bookstores.

These online service providers will charge a fee for handling your fiction book. Their services do not include mastering, formatting or editing – although they will usually run a spell check on your document.

As a first time author, POD can be the answer to publishing your initial work of fiction. You don’t have to contract with a publishing company and wait for an editor to review and pass approval on your work.

Print on demand has become especially popular in academic circles to avoid the high expense of producing and storing a large print run of books. POD is also becoming more accepted with fiction and non-fiction circles as a way to get their books out fast and for little cost.

There are a few differences in POD and “self-publishing services.” For example, traditional self-publishing gives the writer control over all facets of the publishing process, including cover art and pricing. If you choose POD, you’re limited to the publisher’s offering of services.

If you’re thinking about the print on demand route to publishing your work of fiction, visit some of the most popular POD online sites to see what they offer. They include, BookSurge, iUniverse, Xlibris and Blurb.

You should definitely consider the POD method of publishing your fiction if you simply don’t want the hassle of going through the submission process of commercial publishers. And, if you’ve tried the “normal” route with no success, POD may be the best option to catapult your work of art for the world to read.

The prices for information products are largely determined by the product owner. That’s far more freedom than that of a book on the shelf at a major retailer. Print books have to make enough to pay the author, editor, printing, marketing, publisher profit and cut to the retailer.

Information products only pay the owner and affiliate sales. No inventory to store, no big upfront costs and if it doesn’t sell, just transfer it to an archive file or hit the delete key. When you consider all of those factors, the information product owner has freedom to set the prices with one exception – what will the market pay?

That’s the tricky part. Ebooks are well established in every genre from textbooks to popular topics so the price is dependent on the market and the following of the author. Let’s say you’re starting out and lack that major following, how do you price your product?

Start by surveying the prices on comparable information products on at least a dozen sites or vendors. Have you noticed that many information products end in “7?” Popular pricing is $17, $27, $47.

This price seems to click with many buyers. Other frequently used price points are $9.95, $19.95, $39.95. The “.95” is borrowing a retailer’s trick of making the price sound less than it really is.

After all, $19.95 isn’t a full twenty bucks since buyers tend to ignore the impact of retail tax or shipping. With information products delivered electronically, the $19.95 is the true price, leaving a big nickel for whatever a nickel still buys.

It’s not the nickel – it the psychological satisfaction of spending less than twenty dollars. The $17 products have the same appeal of spending less than twenty dollars. Look for the middle ground in pricing.

Avoid starting too low or the value of your product won’t be seen as worthwhile. Even if you start slightly higher than comparables, you have room for a price reduction or a “special offer” at the next lowest price point.

Think of how many times you see the infamous television infomercials that flash the price as $129 with reductions that end up at $39.95. The buyer gets excited about getting a discount when the product was never going to sell at the inflated price in the first place. It’s about letting the buyer win.

Price only matters as part of the equation. Don’t give your buyers a reason to focus on the price. Keep them focused on the product and the excitement of the purchase and they’ll be willing to pay based on the perceived value and not the dollar amount you put on your product.

Information is a key element for Internet marketing, but never let this your passion for the topic get out of control. The more you’re emotionally invested in your information product, the easier it is to make this mistake.

If you create an amazing eBook on a topic that fascinates you, don’t assume it will sell. Unless you identify your market and know how to find that market, you’re wasting your time. Savvy Internet product marketers don’t even start writing an eBook or choosing an affiliate product until they find an interested market.

Have you ever encountered a struggling student trying to sell magazine subscriptions by going door to door? He has something to sell, but you aren’t interested. So he spends hours searching for one customer at a time and missing the mark more often than making a sale.

What if he took a different approach and went to doctors’ offices, businesses or auto repair shops to sell magazines to places where customers had to wait and needed entertainment? That’s targeting his market to willing buyers.

In online marketing, you can do this much easier with a few mouse clicks. Start by listening into the conversation in your niche. The “conversation” is found in discussion forums and Web 2.0 sites that are dedicated to the niche topic.

What questions are they asking? What information is difficult to find? What new twist do you pick up on using a product or concept already on the market? The answer to any of these questions can be the perfect start for identifying and developing an eBook.

Next, check out ClickBank eBook selections. Look in the section that best relates to your niche. What eBooks are offered that relate to this topic? Did you find existing eBooks that answer any of the questions you found from your conversation research?

If there’s an eBook that works, then consider using it as an affiliate product. You can use this product in your initial campaign, and then develop your own eBook that expands on this information or takes the information in a different direction.

While you’re researching, check Amazon and eBay to see if there are comparable information products. And what does a Google search show? You’re likely to find other marketers who are using similar information products.

Scan a dozen websites that use these products. You might find other products on their sites and see how they are presented. Copy these URLs for future reference to use in marketing your eBook directly to these sites.

If you just want to write about your obscure hobby, do it in a blog and a few people may read it. But if you want to sell information products, locate potential buyers and sample their interests before writing or marketing an eBook. That’s the way smart marketers use the power of the Internet to literally make money while they sleep.

by Yanik Silver

Not too long ago I conducted a $10,000/person workshop on “How to Sell Super High-Priced Information Products and Services” and I’ll share a few insights here… If you boil down my biggest profit windfalls in my business (and the most astute marketers I observe) it has come down to selling premium products and services at premium prices. That's how my business has leapfrogged from 6-figures to 7-figures and now multiple 7-figures a year!

To download, right click mouse on link above and save. To read online, left cllick mouse on link above. Requires Adobe® Reader® (available free).

When you make the decision to market information products on the ‘net, your first step is in conducting some niche research to see which target audience could provide you with a virtual goldmine of profits.

You can't just come up with a single idea for a narrow niche audience and expect that to be enough to deliver financial security for the long-term. Instead, you want to tap into a niche with endless possibilities, or at least enough to make your product development worthwhile. [Read more…] about Brainstorming Ideas to Create Your Information Product Empire

You've discovered a niche just waiting for a prime solution to their problems. Then you set out to create a mouth-watering solution no savvy consumer could turn his or her back on. So where do you list this information product for sale so that it can be found by the people who need it most? [Read more…] about Where to Sell Your Information Products Online

When you're selling information products on the Internet, customers usually expect an instant download of the product unless they're otherwise notified up front. Of course some courses in the information product realm consist of a box of DVDs or audio files that are manually shipped to the customer.

If your information product isn't tangible, then you'll need to know how to compile it for your customers so that they can instantly access the files and use them at their leisure. [Read more…] about How to Compile an Information Product for Sale on the ‘Net

When someone tells you they're selling information products online, you probably instantly picture the sale of eBooks. But although written information products are the primary way to disseminate solutions, they're not the only way to profit from this sort of venture. [Read more…] about Information Products Come in Multiple Media Formats

Before you begin selling information products on the Internet, you want to make sure you're targeting a niche that will be profitable for you in the short and long-term. A niche just means your target audience. [Read more…] about Finding a Niche to Target with Information Products

When you have information that other people want, you have a virtual goldmine at your fingertips. Information products line the shelves at bookstores nationwide in the non-fiction section, but they're permeating the online market and catering to the needs of millions of online consumers hungry for advice and insight at all hours of the night.

As a seller of non-fiction information products, you can build an empire of profits targeting a single niche of consumers. Or, branch out and offer solutions to a multitude of people who need guidance. [Read more…] about Non-Fiction Information Products Are Hot Commodities Online

YOU CAN GET MORE THAN 10,000 PUBLIC DOMAIN INFORMATION PRODUCTS at little or no cost and use them any way you want. Public domain (or “PD”) information is not copyrighted, so you can use it to create new products easily and then sell those products for a profit in your own business. PD information products are yours for the asking or for a small fee. They include many: [Read more…] about Build An Information Empire Starting With Less Than $1,000

NEWSPAPER AND TV HEADLINES SCREAM ABOUT LAYOFFS in almost every industry and business. Result–millions of unemployed men and women aching from the stress of being laid off and looking for a way to recover and rid themselves of the fear and turmoil of future layoffs. The answer: [Read more…] about Build Your Fortune With How-To Info For Ambitious People

People are hungry for the information newsletters give them. You –if you like the information business–can start building your fortune in newsletters. How? Here's how: [Read more…] about Use Newsletters to Build a Fortune on Little Cash

When the Internet came about to connect billions of users from all over the world, a business opportunity was born based on the insatiable appetite of consumers. When people go online, it’s information that they’re seeking above all else.

Some information comes in the form of free content on websites, or through emails getting passed from one person to the next. But if you want to profit selling information on the Internet, then you’ll want to position yourself as a virtual expert in your niche and capitalize on the problems of others where you provide a solution to their needs. [Read more…] about How to Profit Selling Information on the Internet

Would you like to profit from your own information empire? Here are a few ways of doing so. [Read more…] about Profit from Your Own Information Empire!

1. You CAN Do It! Will You?

You CAN succeed in your own information empire. Self-publishing valuable, how-to information is in great demand by people today. In today's busy society, people are pressed for time. They need concise, simplified, practical information. They will pay dearly for it if it will improve the quality of their lives. [Read more…] about Make More Money Self-Publishing Special Reports

Many people turn to the internet for information. They want to know something, so they turn on the computer and do a search on the subject. They scroll through the search results, looking for websites that can give them the information they need. By creating information products to sell on your website, you can create a very nice income from home. An information product can be anything from an e-book to a special report, or even an mp3 recording or video.

If you already have a website and have done your keyword research, you are one step ahead of the game. If not, your first step is to determine what market you would like to target. The options are limitless. For example, let’s pretend you are interested in targeting dog owners who would like healthy food options for their pets. By using a keyword tool you can determine what words and phrases people use when they search for healthy dog food. Are people searching for homemade dog food, vegetarian dog food or healthy vegetarian dog food? Your best scenario will be to find a keyword or phrase that a lot of people are searching for that is also not used by many other competing websites.

Once you have done your keyword research and know what your target market is looking for, it is time to build your website. You can outsource this and hire a professional web designer. However, if you plan on making lots of changes to your site, you might want to invest in software such as Microsoft FrontPage or Xsite Pro. These programs allow you to quickly and easily design websites without knowing HTML code.

The next step is to create your information product. When you are ready to set your price, take a look around the internet and see what the going rate is for your type of product. You will want to set up a shopping cart and information delivery system on your website. There are many to choose from, so do your research and find what will best fit your needs at a price you can afford.

When it comes to creating information products, you can also team up with another website owner and create the product together. This is called a joint venture. You will split the work and you can both sell the product on your websites. To increase your sales and profits, you might want to open your product up to affiliates. An affiliate will advertise your product, and when they get a sale for you, you will pay them a portion of that sale.

There are many benefits to earning an income with information products. People are always going to want to learn things, and there will always be a market for information products! This is a wonderful way to make a passive income from home. Plus, you can create a product today, and still be earning profits from it five years down the road!

Many Internet marketers are turning to membership sites as a way of earning recurring cash. Membership sites can be great for bringing in money month after month, with very little extra work required to maintain them.

A membership site is a site that’s password protected, and generally requires users to pay a monthly fee. Most membership sites are protected by special scripts that handle the managing of the usernames and passwords of members. They also take care of canceling members whose payments don’t go through, or members who cancel manually.

Starting a membership site is relatively simple. You need a script, a billing provider, and content. The script will generally take care of the billing, member management, and protection of the members’ area.

All you need to do is set up the script, add a billing provider such as PayPal, and add content to the members’ area. One thing to keep in mind with regards to billing is that if you use PayPal, the most popular form of billing for most Internet marketers, you’ll have a harder time selling your membership site later if you ever want to.

Many marketers get burned out with their membership site, or they need money quickly for something. Selling a membership site with members can bring in pretty good cash. PayPal doesn’t have any way to transfer payments to other accounts, and that’s a big problem when it comes to selling a membership site.

If you’re using PayPal, you’ll either have to continue accepting payments yourself (then send them to the new owner), or you’ll have to cancel all of the members and ask them to sign up again under the new owner.

If you continue accepting the payments yourself, you could end up with problems with your PayPal account if the new owner does anything to violate PayPal’s TOS, or if they stop updating and members start complaining to PayPal.

If you ask members to sign up under the new owner, many of them may decide to just cancel their membership. You can always have the new owner bribe members by offering them a bonus like a free month or a special upgrade if they sign up under the new owner, but some members will probably still cancel.

This is why it may be better to try to find other billing alternatives. Unfortunately, there really aren’t very many available. CCBill is one billing company that makes it easier to transfer memberships, but they aren’t used by most membership scripts, and they require a lot of paperwork to get started.

ClickBank offers recurring transactions now, but there aren’t currently a lot of scripts that support it, and cancellations generally have to be done manually. Getting members is probably the only truly difficult part of managing a membership site.

The best way to get members is to run an affiliate program and have other people bring in members for you. You can also get members by running PPC ads, advertising on forums, posting ads to relevant magazines and newspapers, and forming strategic partnerships and JVs with other webmasters.

As you get more members, your monthly income will continue to grow, and you’ll have money coming in each month. You’ll just need to continue delivering whatever it is you promised your members and subscriptions will stay on a steady increase!

While there are many ways to build a business online, building your own eBook empire is one method that creates long-term residual income that’s truly an automated “set and forget” system. Of course eBooks provide many perks up front.

You don’t have to stock any inventory. You can keep overhead costs low (no publisher and agent cuts like there are with print books). You have an endless supply that can be purchased at any time of the day or year.

But they also offer many benefits that aren’t so obvious. While a tangible book in Barnes and Noble might sell for $14.95, an eBook on the same subject could sell at anywhere from $49-99 or more online as a digital download.

You don’t have to be a professional writer to launch your own eBook empire. The writing is very different for an online audience – more like you do every day via email than what you learned in a college-level English class.

Tiffany Dow, author of Building an eBook Empire, used to ghostwrite for dozens of top Internet marketers on a freelance site. Then she discovered how profitable her eBooks were and decided to learn the entire process of launching those eBooks herself.

Needless to say, she quit ghostwriting and now goes head to head with the very people who used to pay her $1,000 to write a 50-page eBook and make that money back in a period of two days. You can find quality freelancers to create your products for you at a fraction of the price, and turn around and launch it with your name on it – and it’s not only legal – it’s standard protocol in this industry!

So what does it means to launch an empire of eBooks? You start with one, and then branch out – branding yourself as the go-to person for that demographic’s needs. You don’t write one definitive guide to wedding planning.

You write one about picking the perfect wedding gown, another on wedding flowers, one on honeymoons, and so on. Each smaller, niche idea that you drill down into gives you more selling opportunities.

There’s a step-by-step process for developing an eBook – which begins with finding your niche and ends with the launch of your powerhouse affiliate program. You want to have an army of virtual salespeople out there pulling in profits for you while you continue adding another building block to your empire with a follow-up product idea.

You can use many free and low-cost tools to launch your first and subsequent eBooks online. It isn’t a business opportunity that requires a large investment of money, but you do need to commit some time to ensure it’s properly launched in a way that bolsters your reputation in the community.