I’ve mentioned e-books a few times already, and always with contempt. Let me just start off by saying that e-books in general are great. I’ve got tons of e-books, fiction and non-fiction, on my desktop and on my laptop for easy reading.

It’s the e-books you find on ClickBank and similar sites that piss me off. You know, if I had the patience and the knowledge to make an e-book without totally ripping off someone else’s, I would. The thing is, for most of these, you don’t need patience or knowledge. You can pay people to write them for you, you can reiterate a lot of what other people are teaching in their e-books. Or better yet, you can take the oldest tricks in the book, add something small of your own to it that isn’t exactly ingenious, and sell your techniques. A lot of what these e-books do is overpromise and underdeliver. That’s the tired e-book model.

And it’s not just the e-books. It’s the way they’re marketed, too. I’m positive most of you have seen the bold red title, images of these guys’ earnings or “proof” or “endorsement” that their product works, and the highlighted text (I’m not even going to bother highlighting this time). What you’re reading is a sales letter. I am sick of the common internet marketer’s sales letter. They copy off each other, propagating this shit across the internet. The worst part is that they are still making sales. If I ever write an e-book, I’ll skip that format.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few quality e-books out there, but they are a few out of thousands.

There is one person I know who is also fairly new to the online entrepreneurship game, and he has a site of devoted readers and is marketing e-books directly to them. The thing is, he doesn’t overpromise and underdeliver. He makes mini information products covering very narrow topics and sells them cheap.

Why is this a good model? First of all, he has a group of people to market to, sort of like an e-mail list. He has a site with tons of free information available, so his site is very “sticky” as they say. His site also has an active forum. And this is all in his own fairly tight niche. He has become a trusted source of information, and now he is selling mini products on his website along side his other affiliate product promotions. Making yourself look like an authority alone will boost your sales. Just ask the “gurus.”

So in a nutshell:

1. E-books nowadays are quite shitty for the most part. Only a few gems.
2. The way e-books are marketed is apparently successful, but I don’t know why because looking at the average e-book or other info product sales letter gives me a headache.
3. Making yourself appear as an authority therefore winning the trust of potential customers will boost sales. John Reese, a very well known internet marketing guru, made one million dollars selling his info product “Traffic Secrets” on the first day, back in 2004. I have not checked out this product, but the power of trust and authority is obvious.
4. If you have a user base or some sort of online community, look for unique ways of marketing e-books.

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