Most people come online looking for an easy (and fast) way to make money. Many are in the throes of desperation, and without being able to find work offline that sustains their families, they turn to the online marketplace for opportunities.
To say that making money online is easy would be a lie. It’s not a point blank fact for just anyone. It requires the individual to possess certain mindset skills – such as determination, clarity, fortitude in the face of setbacks, and more.
You have to be willing to pursue your business model(s) like it’s your prey and not let the self doubt that everyone eventually feels overpower you. If you can harbor a mindset that supports, instead of defeats you, then you’ll have a much easier time of making money than the rest.
Some people think desire is the only personality trait you need to have, but it’s simply not enough. You can want something a lot, but unless you know how to face every obstacle that you will encounter, you won’t cross the finish line.
Understand that success in online marketing requires you to put yourself out there. That means you need to get past your fear of people thinking you’re not good enough, not pretty or handsome enough, and don’t possess leadership qualities they’re looking for.
Think of it this way – there’s always someone out there who knows less than you do. There are people who don’t know how to send an email, people who want to grow a garden but don’t know the difference between fertilizer and top soil, men and women who would like to pick up golf but couldn’t tell a driver from a 3-iron.
If you ever have any doubt about your qualifications, just focus on these people. They want someone to lead them. Now let me ask you this – would you rather be led by someone who is so far past you, they’ve forgotten what it was like to be a newbie?
Someone who forgets to fill in the gaps of information because it’s been so long ago for them, they just assume everyone knows that stuff? Probably not. You want someone who has the skills and ability to plow forward ahead of you, while keeping in mind where you’re at in your journey.
This is what your target audience will want from you. They want you to guide them. And not everyone will want the same guidance. It’s okay to weed out your non audience. Some people learn better in different ways – audio for one person, video for another, text for someone else.
There are those who like to watch things unfold, people who need hands on tutorials, and some who have to have direct one-on-one hand holding through it all. You’ll be matching your best skillset with the needs of your audience, and letting the others find the best person to teach them, if it’s not you.
We’re going to look at 6 easy ways to cash in online – providing you have the mental resilience to go for it. It’s okay to discover that one business model isn’t right for you. But don’t narrow down the list so much that you pigeon-hole yourself into one area because it’s risky for your financial security to have all of your eggs in one basket.
1 – Tangible Affiliate Marketing
Tangible affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to start online for zero to very little investment. It’s perfect for those who don’t want to be the creator of a product and for those who don’t have a lot of start up money for their online pursuits.
You can promote a wide array of tangible (physical) products online, but it’s best for someone who still wants to position themselves as the expert for that niche. People will want to get buying advice from someone who knows what’s best for them.
So if you get into a niche just because the products have a high price point, yet you know nothing about electronics (for example), your audience won’t be able to trust your recommendations.
Tangible affiliate marketing is basically looking at the marketplace and making recommendations for your audience based on their specific needs. That means you have to uncover their needs on your own, using keyword tools, common sense and research on consumer reviews and more.
So let’s take gaming headsets as an example. The best person for the job would be someone who games. This person would know that there are all different kinds of needs and wants gamers have in their headset design.
- Some will want headsets that don’t give them a headache from being too tight.
- Some will want headsets that fit nicely with glasses.
- Some will want headsets that block out all outside noise.
- Some will want headsets that don’t make their ears and head sweaty.
You wouldn’t know that kind of stuff if you weren’t a gamer – you’d probably just go on hints like, “cheap headsets” or “bestselling headsets” and in order to truly be successful as a tangible niche marketer, you have to prove to your audience that
Tangible affiliate marketing can be an evergreen, year-round business, seasonal – or both. You want to think in terms of how consumers shop. So obviously, toys would be an evergreen niche – because people buy toys for birthdays and “just because” all year.
But from September through the end of December, there’s a huge boost in how many toys are sold because of Christmas shoppers. So this is a dual tangible niche – evergreen and seasonal.
Dieting is the same. Diet products are sold year round. Treadmills, workout DVDs, nutritional supplements and more sell all the time – but right before New Year’s resolutions, there’s a big spike in sales. Likewise, right before Spring break and summertime when people want to slim down for their beach attire.
Now if you chose a niche like “Christmas décor,” then you’re pigeon-holing yourself into a seasonal gig. Yes, you might sell the occasional odds and ends at other times of the year, but it’s a primarily seasonal niche.
Tangible affiliate promotions are mainly done on Amazon, but that’s not the only place you can sign up to sell. Many Amazon Associates were very disappointed to see their state be put on the no promo list, and many lost their entire business because they put all their eggs in one basket.
You can sell through Commission Junction, Share-a-Sale and many others, too. Go to a website for a store you want to promote, such as Walmart or ToysRUs.com. Look at the bottom for a partner’s link and sign up with whoever they’re affiliated with.
Consumers love to get advice from an outside source before they go shopping. The sheer number of items for sale can be daunting, and if you, as an affiliate, take time to compile “best” lists or lists of items for a specific purpose, it’s very helpful to the shopper.
When you start promoting on Amazon or other programs, you’ll want to have a plan of action. Don’t have one site that promotes anything and everything. Have a theme of some sort.
It could be home goods, electronics, or something narrower such as kitchen appliances, toys for toddlers, or electronic gadgets for golfers. You want to become an authority site for your target audience.
Launch a blog to review the products. You can do a mixture of text and video, and even include some unboxing videos where you showcase the new purchase on camera and give your thoughts off the cuff.
Remember that your goal is to get the reader to click through on the link – but that doesn’t mean you lie or gloss over obvious criticism of the product. Consumers are savvy, and you want to cater to their needs with honesty.
Digital Affiliate Marketing
If you’re the type of person who loves interacting with an online audience, then digital affiliate marketing might be right for you. It’s not as hands off as tangible promotions are.
With digital products, there’s more of an emphasis on it being a solution to a problem, rather than the specifications of what the product includes. Of course, readers do want to know what’s included, but more importantly, they want to know if this digital download will be the answer they were searching for.
The types of people who buy digital downloads want instant gratification in terms of getting the information. They don’t want to wait and drive to a bookstore or order something via Prime on Amazon.
They’re seeking information on a whole host of topics – everything from health and weight loss to success and mindset – even dating and gardening can be on the digital promotion frontier.
They want the info now, and they’re willing to pay a little more to get it. That’s an attractive reason to promote digital products as an affiliate – because instead of a few pennies on a tangible book on Amazon you might get $20-100 or more on a digital course that your audience loves.
As an affiliate, one of the great things about promoting tangibles is that it’s often more interactive and supportive than a tangible item is. If you promoted a Tony Robbins book, there’s no guarantee your buyer would ever get to actually ask him a question.
But often, with digital downloads, the support is just an email away, and many product creators have blogs, webinars, and fan pages where they’re constantly rubbing elbows with their customers.
A digital download promotion can come in many forms. It can include:
- A simple eBook
- A membership site
- A software program
- An audio product
- A video product
There can also be a mixture of the above items. And don’t forget coaching programs, too! You might be able to promote a coaching service and earn a commission off of that live interaction.
Digital promotions are typically year round, evergreen niches, but there’s one exception. There are some niches where timing does matter, such as gardening by the season, dieting for New Years’ resolutions or Spring Break, or the Survival niche whenever something happens on a financial or health scale that threatens to wreak havoc on citizens.
But as you’ll notice, all three of those digital niches are also evergreen – they just have certain times of the year when sales might spike. A topic like “nail fungus,” however, wouldn’t have a spike – it would just be year round.
When you promote a digital product, you’re not just promoting the information itself. You’re promoting the person selling it. So you have to be very careful to align yourself as an affiliate with trustworthy sources.
As a digital affiliate marketer, you want to familiarize yourself with the launch of products in your niche. This means getting on notification lists for JV (joint venture) opportunities. You can check launch calendars and sign up on the list of the product creator to find out more details and get access to tools that other affiliates might not have.
You can also check affiliate platforms like ClickBank, JVZoo, Warrior Plus and other places to see what’s recently launched so that you can get in early on a launch, if you didn’t know about it beforehand.
There are different schools of thought about when you should promote digital products. Some people think you shouldn’t promote often, while others say every email should have a promo in it.
That’s up to you – only you will know the preferences of your list. While the tangible niche doesn’t always open itself up to subscribing, the digital one typically does – especially if your free opt in gift is enticing enough, and your newsletter is valuable enough to keep them.
A good rule of thumb is to keep the value at the forefront and that way no one will be disappointed to where they feel like you’re spamming them or using them as a cash cow to milk whenever they feel like it.
Your digital promotions will be done in three places. The first is your blog. You’ll be able to conduct thorough product reviews of the digital products and explain the pros and cons of each one.
You can have banner ads, text links, and more on your blog. This is a great place to participate in what’s known as a launch jack. When you jack a launch, you’re positioning yourself to take a large portion of the traffic for that product.
So for instance, a few weeks before a launch of a product, you can begin blogging about it and using the title in your blog posts. The day of the launch, since people will be looking for information online about it, they’ll come to your review, and then head to the sales letter.
You can also promote directly inside your emails to the subscribers who join your list. You never have to send them to your blog from that point, just directly to the product’s sales page.
And of course, social media also offers a place for promotions. Twitter and Facebook would be the two most-used social media sites for text-based promotions, but you can also try Pinterest for images, and YouTube for videos.
Digital affiliate marketing is a great business branch to combine with tangibles. Not only does it provide you with increased income, but it also helps your target audience get more out of their search for solutions to their problems.
You might be in the stress niche, and find that you can promote stress relieving tangibles on Amazon, with meditation or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) products in digital format. The two go hand-in-hand nicely.
As a digital affiliate marketer, you want to have a strategy that makes you a leader in the niche, even if you don’t have a product of your own. That means you need to gain respect for the products you promote (as well as the people).
Ask for review copies, or purchase the product yourself so that you can review, instead of simply promote it to your audience, sight-unseen. Giving a thorough review builds trust with your audience, but only if you’re honest about the product’s potential shortcomings.
As a digital affiliate marketer, you might be able to include a bonus, depending on the platform. That way, if the customer buys through your link, they get an additional freebie.
This works well on JVZoo, where the bonus can simply be uploaded by you and downloaded by the customer inside their purchase area. Make sure your bonus is relevant and pairs well with the product being sold.
Digital Product Creation
Some newbies mistakenly believe that digital product creation is reserved for those who are already big names, who already have a following, who have certain upper level degrees or experience – but they’re wrong.
Anyone can create a digital product, and it’s often the launch pad for some of the better known experts in a niche. It’s what puts them on the map. And this can be intimidating for some people, who feel shy and uncertain of their abilities to lead others.
But digital product creation is very lucrative. Not only do you earn money from the sales that you generate with your traffic skills, but you also recruit an army of affiliates who go out getting more leads for you to convert, so your earnings expand.
It’s great for anyone who wants to teach in a niche. You don’t have to have a degree, a set number of years’ worth of experience, or anything else. As long as you have an idea and slant for your product, it’s a green light situation.
So what does a digital production endeavor look like? Well first of all, it can be anything you want it to be, as long as it’s online content. The content can come in the form of:
- An eBook
- A membership site
- A video course
- A podcast
…or a combination of those items. So you’ll want to start with whatever format you enjoy most and are experienced with. Sometimes, you have to look at what you’re good at (and not as good at).
For instance, if you “um” and “ah” a lot, then podcasting probably isn’t the right choice for you, unless you work on your verbal skills. If you make tons of typos, spelling or grammatical errors, then text may not be a good fit.
A digital product is going to teach your readers something – educate them about your topic. So if you’re into diet and fitness, you might teach them how to adhere to a Paleo diet plan.
If you’re into survival, it might be how to prepare for 72 hours, or a year. If you’re tackling the dating niche, you might teach men how to pick up women, and so on. You want to have a solution to the problem your target audience is experiencing.
You can launch digital products that are evergreen or trend-based. If you go with a trend product, then you have to jump on the topic quickly and get it to market before your competitors do.
If it’s a seasonal product, then you’ll need to prepare well ahead of the date, and give yourself enough time to recruit affiliates, and give them enough time to plan for your launch – at least 3-4 weeks’ notice.
Play your cards right in your niche, and you can launch one digital course after another. This is why specific “one problem, one solution” courses work so well. Instead of trying to cover everything in one course, you have it broken up into multiple selling opportunities. Plus, it makes it easier on your audience to digest and implement.
You can sell your digital courses on many platforms. Here are a few of the more popular ones:
ClickBank
This is a digital platform where they handle all of your affiliate payments for you. They have a healthy seller base where all sorts of niches are represented (not just online marketing), such as home and garden, parenting, self-help, and more.
Udemy
This is a real education-based platform where you list your online course and recruit students from within. Your course has to have at least 30 minutes of content, and 60% of that has to be video.
JVZoo
This is a great place for affiliates to find products to promote to the Internet Marketing and other target audiences. When you list your product, affiliates can find it in the marketplace and apply for approval to promote it.
Warrior Plus
This is similar to JVZoo in that it caters primarily to Internet Marketers, but also has other products for sale. This is mainly connected to the Warrior Forum as a place to host your sales letter.
Your Website
This is hosted on your own domain, and you can connected it directly to PayPal to take payments. There are various programs you can invest in to host an affiliate program where you pay the affiliates yourself. This option does not give you a built in list of customers or affiliates as the other platforms do, so it takes more work.
Why would you want to go this route, instead of just promoting products as an affiliate? There are many reasons, including the fact that maybe you have something unique to say – or you don’t like what’s being taught to people by others.
It’s also a great way to become a published author in digital form, and it provides a level of residual income that you don’t necessarily have with promotions as an affiliate, or with services provided to others.
To get started, you’ll need to decide on a topic you want to teach first. Then pick a specific slant. You’ll want to choose a format. Remember, if it’s going to be hosted on Udemy, then it must contain a good portion of video.
Give yourself time to create good content. This is your reputation on the line, whereas with affiliate promotions, it’s not as much your reputation as it is someone else’s. There’s not set amount, just create enough to thoroughly teach the solution.
Have someone proof it or test it for you after you get it uploaded onto your chosen platform. You want to make sure it’s all in perfect working order and that there are no glitches.
Then begin recruiting affiliates and start work on your follow up product, because digital product creators often develop a series or set of info products they can sell to the same target audience over time.
Kindle Publishing
When you have a story or information to share with the world, you want to get it out in the easiest way possible. Sadly, that isn’t by going through a traditional publishing house – and it’s not because your work doesn’t have value.
It’s because agents and editors are the gatekeepers of the traditional print publishing world, and it’s a business that’s based solely on a few peoples’ opinions. But, we all know those opinions can miss the mark.
An example of this is J.K. Rowling, author of the extremely popular Harry Potter series. She struggled to get any publishing house to take interest in her work and yet, her writing was top selling material.
So if you’ve been told no, or if you just want to see your work in print, there is a better way – and that’s by using Amazon’s Kindle publishing method. If you’ve always had a dream to write fiction, then you should go for it.
Life is too short not to chase after your dreams. Thankfully, Kindle is a wide open door that levels the playing field when it comes to writing. All you need is a little know how to get it done.
Of course, there are a few things you’ll need to learn about writing fiction if you want to have a successfully selling Kindle book, but plenty of authors have done it and are making a lot of money since they took that leap into the digital publishing world.
Fiction isn’t the only way that people can benefit by turning to Kindle publishing. There are plenty of nonfiction books published as a Kindle edition, too. The program is perfect for anyone who has some insight or wisdom that they want to share with others.
This is usually useful information that has a waiting audience willing to pay to get that information. It can range from topics like how to set up a garden to getting started in dog training and more. There are so many things that people want to do, but they don’t have the knowledge.
By sharing what you know, you can reach a greater audience, establish yourself as an expert and boost tangible or intangible sales. Going through Kindle publishing is the perfect venue for any would-be or established entrepreneur who wants to make money online.
It’s so easy that Kindle publishing can be used by beginners. But it can also be used by anyone who already has an established business and is just looking to expand. Kindle has all sorts of ways that their books are promoted and that’s half the battle – the marketing of it all.
There are so many people in the world who had their dreams dashed because traditional publishers said no. Here’s a little tip that you might not realize. The odds that the actual publisher ever even saw your work is slim.
That’s because in every single publishing house, there are assistants or interns who go through the manuscripts, or slush piles, as they’re called. These assistants, often fresh out of college and with very little publishing experience, decide if the work is worthy of being seen by the editor.
It’s the same setup at most literary agents’ offices. An intern will make the decision. While that doesn’t seem fair, the reason behind it is because agents and editors see hundreds of manuscripts each day.
Since they’re only one person, it’s only natural that they would need help. Knowing what goes on behind the scenes, it’s easy to see why your manuscript didn’t get the attention that it should have received.
So if you’ve been rejected, take heart. The odds are very high that the rejection had nothing to do with your work – but that the person who saw it wasn’t experienced enough to realize that it should have been passed on to an editor, or it just wasn’t that one person’s personal preference.
Publishing is a very subjective business. You have to have a thick skin and a mindset of determination to make it. That’s how Kindle publishing can be an answer to all of your dreams if you have the perseverance to go for it.
Self-publishing on Kindle simply means doing the work that a publisher would normally do. It means that you have complete control over the content of your book. When you go through traditional publishing, the entire event is a series of approval requests.
You have to get the approval for the manuscript from an agent or editor. He or she will come back to you with suggested changes. Some of these suggested changes, you’ll be urged to make.
Other changes will be non-negotiable. From there, the book will go through a round of edits. The editor and the copyeditor will get back to you with anywhere from a page to several pages of changes that you must make.
Most people assume that an editor or a copyeditor fixes all of an author’s grammar mistakes or content mistakes such as a plot problem. But that’s not true. Authors are given a list of what needs to be fixed and then it’s up to the author to fix them.
Some of these fixes, you won’t agree with. But more often than not in traditional publishing, you won’t have a choice but to make these changes. The rights that you sell to a traditional publisher gives them certain rights to make changes to your work.
It’s usually in the contract that you’ll work with these edits. Once the editing is approved, then you’ll move on to formatting. You won’t get a choice in the formatting style or which preferred grammar rules the publisher likes.
Next, it’s time for the cover. An author can have input on this, but again, he or she doesn’t get the final say. The reason is because the cover artist contracts with the publisher, not with the author.
So when it comes to opinion, yours will be considered lower than the editor’s opinion. If you happen to receive an advance from a publisher, that advance is paid toward earnings the publisher thinks the book will earn.
Some publishers will make an author pay back an advance if the author doesn’t follow the rules listed in the contract. The advance will also go to offset the author’s expenses in the event there’s a book tour set up by the publisher.
If there is a book tour, the author isn’t in charge of deciding this. It’s subject to approval from the publishing company. From start to finish, everything about traditional publishing takes you out of the driver’s seat.
With Kindle publishing, you don’t have to get approval for anything. You’re the one in control. That means that unlike traditional publishing, you get to publish your book with as many or as few pages as you want – even a short, 15 minute story is viable!
It means that you can publish as many books as you want, unlike with traditional publishing, which often demands a series – even if the author had no intention of creating an entire series.
The great thing about Kindle publishing is that you will be published in digital format. So people will receive eBooks when they order. But, authors also have the option of using Createspace so that their books can be print on demand.
That gives customers who prefer print books the option to buy, as well – so you reach a bigger audience. One of the most often asked question by writers looking to become authors is wanting to know when the process is complete. The answer is that the process depends solely on the writer.
You are the one who will decide if it takes you two weeks, a month, several months or years to see your publishing dreams come true. One of the things that will determine how long it will take is your writing speed.
Writing is like any other job in that you need to show up at a regular time every single day and make some progress. You’ll have to let go of the desire for perfection, which is something that causes a lot of writers to freeze.
Just get the words down on the paper or in the writing software. You can go back and edit and tweak, but you should always finish the story first. Remember that you can fix something that’s badly written, but you can’t fix something that’s never been written.
Some writers will sit down and start writing, allowing the words and ideas to flow from the action itself. Other writers can’t work that way. They need to warm up, so they do some prewriting first.
What prewriting does is get the creative juices flowing. It can jumpstart you into writing mode. Freewriting can also help. This is an exercise where you simply write about whatever topic comes to your mind in order to loosen up your creative thought process.
Brainstorming is a method that’s long been used by writers. This can help writers figure out all of the ins and outs of a plot. It can also be used to help when a writer has written himself into a corner.
When you use brainstorming, you think about your story. Some writers will simply write down their thoughts as they’re brainstorming – while others will type them into a document.
But the purpose behind either way is to generate ideas about your story. This can be a new idea or expanding on an idea that you already have. You can brainstorm to fix a plot hole or to help you reach a conclusion about the story.
If you’re writing and you feel completely blocked, brainstorming can help. If you do reach a point where you feel the story has nowhere to go, it means that you’ve written yourself into a corner.
You need to back up and see where the story veered off track. You can start thinking, instead of your characters doing or saying one thing, what if they did something else? Brainstorming can jumpstart a stalled story, but it can also lead to the creation of new ones, too.
That’s because this method allows you to look at your story from a different angle. Some writers choose to brainstorm alone, while others enlist the help of fellow writers. This can be helpful, because sometimes writers are too close to their own work to be able to see it differently.
When you submit your work to the Kindle publishing program, it won’t take anywhere near as long as traditional publishing. In traditional publishing, a manuscript that sells in March, is often not even released until the end of the same year or the beginning of the next one because of how it has to go through those approval steps in the publishing house.
Publishing through Kindle is amazingly fast. The guidelines state that your book will usually be available all over the world in as little as one to two days. However, it usually only takes a couple of hours until you receive the confirmation that it’s gone live.
If you don’t receive a confirmation, it means that something could be wrong with your book and needs to be fixed first. When you want to use the Kindle publishing program, you’ll need a great looking cover for your book.
You don’t want to skimp here, because a cover can make or break your book. How long it will take to have a cover made for your eBook depends solely on the cover artist that you use and how much customization must be done.
Many cover artists have pre-made covers that you can look through, and if you choose one of those, your title and author name are placed on the cover and the files sent to you. The more intricate work that you want done, the longer that it will take.
Ecover artists can use stock photos, which the author pays for as part of the cover price – and once the stock photo is chosen, your cover will be made. If you choose an ecover designer who’s in high demand, you may end up on a waiting list.
Many nonfiction eBook covers can be designed by the author himself as long as he has a good graphic program and a little bit of knowledge. But working with a fiction cover is different. You don’t want one that ends up somewhere on the Internet on a list of worst book covers.
You’re ready to publish your work once you’re done with the editing process. Go to the Amazon’s Kindle publishing link when you’re ready to publish. The link is https://kdp.amazon.com/.
You can build an author page using Amazon’s Author Central by using this link. https://authorcentral.amazon.com/.
This is a great marketing tool because readers like a personal connection. You can use your author page to put up a biography about yourself. You can include your professional author photo and link the page to your author blog.
Author Central is only a tool, so you really need to make sure that you have your own domain. The reason for this is that an author should have as much control over his work as possible.
So have your own domain name and don’t use a free site. This looks unprofessional and if someone complains about your site, it can be closed down while the owners of the free hosting decide whether or not your site should be permanently closed down.
Throughout the entire process, and as you grow your line of books and series on Kindle, you can publish your book using your vision – and get paid quickly for your efforts. You don’t get that same option with traditional publishing, where it becomes about someone else’s vision.
Sadly, so many writers think of traditional publishing as the holy grail of writing – that once they’ve had an acceptance at a big publishing house, fame and fortune are headed their way.
This isn’t the case. There have been numerous stories of publishers cheating authors out of money. You can check this yourself simply by doing a search on whichever publishing company you have in mind plus the word lawsuit.
Or you can type in the name of the publishing plus the words “not paying authors.” Another thing that can happen with traditional publishing is either a folding line or a resigning editor.
When a line at a publishing house folds, if your book doesn’t fit into any of their other lines, it’s shelved. But because you signed a contract, that doesn’t mean that you get to take your book elsewhere.
It means that because you sold the rights to your book, they can let it languish there, unpublished and there’s not a thing you can do about it unless you have a clause in your contract that reverts the rights back to you.
Most publishing houses will revert rights to the book back to the author after a certain number of years. So say that you received an advance of $75,000 but the line folded and you can’t get the rights back for five years.
That means that advance that looked pretty good for one year just became $15,000 per year. Not even poverty level. And if the editor leaves, it’s up to the company to find you another editor – one you might not want to work with, but will have no choice – because of the contract you signed.
Most authors who are with traditional publishing houses still work a full time job. Not because they want to, but because they have to in order to pay the bills. For every book that’s sold, the profits are divided and the author is the last one to get paid.
The publishing company takes the lion’s share of the profits. The author gets what’s left over after the publisher is paid. How much the author will get paid will depend on the royalty break down in the contract.
For example, some authors earn 8% of the cover price of a book that’s placed in bookstores. So a book that costs $3.99, the author only sees about .32 cents. This royalty payout changes depending on whether the book is in hardcover or paperback.
Digital copies are paid differently as well and usually at a higher rate because the publisher’s overhead is less. The royalty payments are also determined by where the book is sold.
Books sold in the United States earn a different royalty rate than books sold in foreign countries. Kindle is a good business model to add to your online marketing efforts for several reasons.
Not only can it help brand you as an expert, but it creates a stream of passive income for as long as your book is for sale. And you get control over the money in a way that you don’t have with traditional publishing.
Using Kindle to self-publish fiction or non-fiction books can fulfill your dreams, help you increase your income, and lead to other opportunities that leverage your expertise, like speaking engagements.
When you’re ready to use Kindle publishing, there are some specific things that you’ll need to decide. The first thing that you need to decide is whether or not you’re going to write fiction or nonfiction.
One thing about choosing one or the other is that there are writers who do both. However, while there are some similarities between the two, such as making sure that you research if you’re mentioning a real place or event, they are very different animals.
The next thing that you need to so is to pick a genre. A genre simply means a category. It’s where the book will fit. For example, horror is a genre. Suspense is a genre. So is chick lit.
Some advice about choosing a genre is to pick one that you personally enjoy, ones that you read. If you love to read horror stories, then you’ll enjoy writing about them. If you absolutely hate romance novels, you won’t like writing them.
And you want to choose a genre that feeds your passion, because writing can become a fulltime career. There’s a lot to be said about the actual writing process. You’re going to hear a lot of conflicting advice about which process is the “right” way.
Here’s something that you don’t want to forget. The right way is the one that works for you. If it helps you get the words down, then that’s the one that you should use. If the process causes you to be unable to write, then don’t use it.
There are two main methods that writers use. They either outline or they don’t. Either one of these methods is correct. Your personality will be a determining factor. If you’re someone who enjoys making lists and you like knowing where you’re going and having bullet points and subheadings, then using an outline would be good for you.
In fiction, outlining is just another word for plotting. There are plenty of authors who plot. Then there are those who don’t. Authors who don’t plot or outline write off the cuff. Another word for that phrase you’ll run across is the word pantser.
It means writing by the seat of your pants. You have no idea what’s going to happen next in your story because you haven’t looked ahead at the plot. With that type of writing, the author is often surprised at the way the characters will behave.
Some authors like writing this way because they don’t want to know how the story ends. They want to be like the reader and learn the story as it unfolds. There are valid writing pros to both methods.
If you have an analytical mind, it’s highly likely that you’ll find writing off the cuff more difficult. All writers must have the time to write. If you don’t make time, you won’t find it. You need to learn to treat writing as a job, with times that you’re supposed to show up and produce a word count.
It takes a lot of discipline to sit down every day and write. You need to have a goal. If you want a book done in thirty days, then take your projected word count and divide it up by 30.
That’s the amount of words that you have to write every single day. If you miss a day, then you have to double up the next day or divide the count that you didn’t get by the remaining days and tack those extra words on.
An editor is an absolute necessity. The person who thinks they don’t make mistakes writing is only fooling himself. When you’re writing, it’s easy for the mind’s eye to add words, thinking that you wrote them in.
It’s easy to transpose letters. These little mistakes pull a reader out of the book and reviewers expect a book to be edited. Books that go up unedited often receive the harshest reviews.
Make sure that you get a professional ecover made. If the ecover is ugly, it can turn away potential readers. The ecover reflects the book. If readers see a bad cover, then they’ll often think that the writing must be equally as bad. Always make the best impression with your book that you can make.
Once the book is edited and you have the ecover, check the formatting for any last minute issues. Sometimes, writing programs will add an extra blank page between chapters and you’ll need to take those out.
Once you’ve gone through all of that, it’s time to submit your document for publication. Then, you can take a deep breath and start on the next book. Have a little celebration for your publishing event and keep your momentum going.
Freelance Services
Freelance services have become a booming business online for many new entrepreneurs. This is because it’s easy to do work for someone who is launching their business or maintaining an already successful one, but much harder to start your own from scratch.
Entrepreneurs online often end up in over their heads. They need help, but working for yourself means you can’t call an assistant in your office and delegate tasks. So these people primarily outsource to people like you.
Freelance services are great for people who want to jump right in without building their own business. You don’t care about the glory and fame – you just want to get paid and enjoy what you’re doing.
You have to be able to take orders from people. Even though you’re working from home, a client isn’t too different from a boss. They will have specific tasks for you to do, deadlines, and quality concerns about your finished product or service.
What does freelancing entail? Basically, there are two ways to go about getting clients who pay you for the tasks they can’t (or don’t want to) do. You can put the word out there that you’ve launched your business, such as a website listing or advertisement.
Or, you can be proactive and go out bidding on project listings. There are all sorts of websites that allow clients to create an advertisement to hire freelancers for things like content creation, website building and more.
When and if you’re awarded the job, you’ll need to abide by the client’s chosen process. Some will pay upfront and expect delivery on a certain date. Others will pay in increments – as each milestone is reached for the project.
There are always new projects being awarded on a daily basis. Some will be quick, short-term projects that take you an hour. Others might be (or develop into) long-term, on-going freelance projects.
There are many places you can go to find freelance work. You can set up your own website, which would tell a little about your services and prices, and possibly give examples of your work.
You can also go to established sites that serve as a go-between for clients and freelance workers from all over the world. Don’t be intimidated by those who underbid you.
Some countries have a lower cost of living, but because they’re often not from countries with English as a first language, clients would prefer to pay a little more to hire someone who does speak fluent English.
To find these sites, look up freelance marketplaces on Google, and if you want something specific, add that, too – such as “writer for hire” where you’ll be more likely to get results about sites that pair freelance writers with buyers.
Don’t forget word of mouth, too. This is very powerful. If you know online entrepreneurs, make sure you spread the word that you’re making yourself available for hire. If you don’t know any, there’s something else you can do.
Approach some marketers with a free test run of your services. You don’t have to offer to write an entire eBook, but whip up an article on a topic of their choice. That way they can see the quality of what you offer.
Freelance service providing gives you a great opportunity to get started making money online without having to put money into an online business up front. Instead of having to pay for everything, you get hired and get to work.
There are a few things you want to have in place before you begin freelancing. First and foremost, you want to have the tools you need to complete the job. The last thing you want to do is launch a service and get hired to do something you can’t create.
You should have a price sheet for the various services you’re offering. If you don’t know what to charge, compare your services to others to see what a beginner would charge and then go along those lines.
A profile is very important, whether you’re signed up to work on a freelance site or creating a biography page for your own domain. Let the prospective clients know what you can do for them.
After you set up a profile, create a portfolio. You don’t have to have a portfolio of actual work done for others. If you’re writing, whip up a couple of one-page samples on various topics.
If you’re creating logos, then create a few dummy company logos just to show the style and abilities that you possess. If you’re building websites, create a demo one for your clients to browse.
Coaching Services
Coaching people on the Internet has become an advanced strategy of making money online – but one any beginner can master easily. What makes it more advanced is that many entrepreneurs don’t feel qualified to call themselves a “coach,” so they steer clear of it.
Coaching is perfect for anyone who has the ability to inspire and motivate others. You don’t have to be an expert or have a PhD to be an online coach. You just have to want to help others and create a game plan to do it.
It’s especially good for those who have overcome an obstacle or achieved their own goals and now want to pass on what they’ve learned to others. For example, if you lost 100 pounds, you might want to coach others on how to do that, too.
Coaching can come in many forms. You can be a group coach or an individual coach. You can coach through emails, through face to face online video streams, or through chat or membership programs where a back and forth communication is possible.
The best thing about coaching is that you do it on your own time. So you could effectively launch a side business of coaching, even when you already had another fulltime job in the offline world.
You could have set hours that your coaching clients could schedule with you, whether you prefer days, evenings, weekends, or all of them mixed in together. You can set the coaching calls as long or short as you want them.
In fact, you can charge by the half hour. So your pricing strategy could be $97 for a 30-minute call, and $179 for an hour, giving them a discount if they order a longer time. You can also sell packages for your coaching calls, like a set of 5 calls for $397 to get more cash coming in quicker.
Coaching can be done from the comfort of your own home. You can use a myriad of tools at your disposal, from phone and email to Skype or Google Hangout calls. Live video is a great way to cater to your clients, and you can record the sessions for them to refer to at a later date.
Why coach individuals or groups when you can simply create an eBook or membership course and have a hands-off approach, instead? Many people want the security of some hand holding as they go through a process.
They want to be able to ask questions and get answers, and instead of you simply allowing that as a free perk of them buying your eBook, you can add it on to – or use it to replace – an eBook product.
The first thing you’ll want to do when you launch a coaching business is do a little spying on your competition. See what services they offer and at what rates. Craft something that works well for you in terms of your knowledge and convenience.
Set up your website and begin participating online in places where your service can gain traction. Run advertisements to let people know about your service. And make sure you give people a free, one-time consultation to get them hooked and make sure you’re both a good fit for each other.
The best part about cashing in online is that you can apply each and every one of these money making methods to your business. In fact, it’s recommended that you not put all your eggs in one basket.
Start off with one route you feel most comfortable with, most skilled at, and then add on one branch of your business at a time. For example, maybe you’re a great writer who loves the anti aging niche.
Start by creating an info product of your own and then add on tangible affiliate marketing. Later, partner up with other info product creators as a digital product affiliate. And perhaps publish on Kindle and find a way to get coaching clients to pay you for your one-on-one advice.
As you start to gain a foothold in your chosen market, you’ll want to begin delegating certain tasks so that you can expand your empire. There’s simply no way you can get it all done yourself once your level of success grows to a certain magnitude.
You might even choose to hire a virtual assistant who acts as something similar to a secretary or employee, even though they’re still technically solo entrepreneurs, themselves!
As you go through these options, you might find a couple that you really enjoy. And some may flop for you. Perhaps your heart’s just not in it, or you don’t yet grasp the concept.
That’s okay. Don’t let it affect you. Many entrepreneurs find methods they let fall by the wayside over time because they either don’t enjoy it or don’t fully feel like they’re good at that method.
One of the best things you can do is invest in your education about these money making methods. For instance, if you want to be a freelance writer, learn all you can about improving your writing.
If you want to coach people, spend time reading about how to read people and motivate others to succeed. These skills will serve you well, and it takes the place of a standard degree that is typically required with a job. You will have a self taught education to tack onto whatever formal training you already possess.
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