Those Not-So-Beaut Information Products

Every man and his dog will tell you that the Internet is an
information medium and this is precisely why one of the
greatest commodities you can sell online is information.

Many of you reading this article will already have been
suckered into believing that you can run a real "business"
selling ebooks from your site and may have even spent
countless hours creating a you-beaut site to showcase
the ebooks and various other forms of informational products
you have for sale. Why have your sales been so
disappointing?

Quite simply, you're wasting your time.

Granted, the Internet IS an information medium. Granted,
information products DO sell very nicely indeed online. But
not if all you're doing is selling someone else's product in
isolation. You will not generate an income from promoting
the latest Internet marketing guru's "insider secrets" marketing
course. Sure, you may make a sale here or there but you'll
also be spending a fortune in advertising. Don't believe
them when they tell you you will make thousands promoting
their products, if that's ALL you're doing. Despite what the
"gurus" would have you believe, it just ain't gonna happen!

Why?

Because people need to have a reason to seek out your
site.

How do you give people a reason to seek out your site?

Provide them with the information they're looking for. In
other words, in order to sell information products from your
site (or anything else for that matter) you must first
create a content-rich site that contains the sort of
information the target audience for what you sell is
looking for. Then, and ONLY then, will you have even the
chance to sell the information product.

There are a number of products out there that have done
EXTREMELY well for their authors by being bundled with
resale rights. In other words, if you buy the product, you
then have the right to resell it to others. These products
typically sell you on the notion that you, just like the
author, can make thousands of dollars each month reselling
the book.

There's just one teensy bit of information the author neglects
to mention. Although he "gives you" a website, just like the
one you visited when you bought the book, if you want it you
must host it with the author. For a monthly fee.

The product contains links to other products and sources
that you can't change. Guess who gets the commission every
time one of these links is used to make a purchase? You?
Hah! Author again.

And forget about choosing who you use for your payment
processor. 9 times out of 10 you're forced to use a payment
processor designated by the author because, of course, he's
negotiated the best possible deal. For you. Yeah right. He
gets a commission of every sale you make.

THAT'S how the author makes HIS fortune. By lining up an
army of patsies, most of whom will be lucky to sell a single
copy of the product. But because he has THOUSANDS of you
out there, he still makes a fortune. If each of the thousands
of resellers sells only one copy, he still makes commissions
on thousands of sales. You don't get that opportunity.

And one other piece of vital information. You need to be
one of the very first marketing these products to generate
any income from them at all. They have a VERY short
shelf-life.

Now, these types of products certainly have their place.
I promote one of them from my site, in fact. But I don't
promote it as something to generate an income with. I
promote it instead because of what it can teach you about
internet marketing in a very short time. And I say so.

Information products can do very well online, indeed. But
not these sort. Think instead in terms of creating your own
content-rich site that attracts targeted traffic (the more
specialized your niche the better) and then write your own
e-books and sell them from your site. Establish an affiliate
program to get others to sell your book for you. There is
a veritable army of people out there looking for a product
to sell, and any product, so it sometimes seems, will do.
In time, they will wake up and smell the coffee but until
then, put that salesforce to work for YOU. Just don't
promise them the moon though, OK?

Think also in terms of publishing a newsletter on the subject
of your choice. Not only does this help spread the word
about your website, vital to all-important traffic generation,
your newsletter can become quite a lucrative source of
advertising revenue once your subscriber base reaches a
decent size (of several thousand).

Or you might decide instead (or as well) to launch a
subscription-based newsletter to generate subscription income
as well as advertising revenues.

Another approach is to create a members-only area of your
web site and charge a monthly fee for access.

All of these ideas involve information products. Start
thinking outside the paradigm of "selling an information
product from your site". Your site *IS* an information
product! So is your newsletter. And utilized effectively,
they're MUCH more likely to result in a steady, reliable and
secure source of income for YOU, not just another internet
marketing "guru".