I first looked at creating an autopilot ebook sale after having bought one myself. It seemed such a simple transaction and struck me as an awesome business model; an automated sale, no dealing with customers and no handling of products. I wanted to get on the other side of this transaction and learn how to create a full time income from the internet.
My initial ebook purchase was from eBay. I bought an ebook which taught me about how to start a profitable ebay business. After making several sales using the system, I turned back to the autopilot ebook purchase I had made and tried to copy the idea with my own ebooks.
Autopilot Ebook – The Perfect Business?
It’s not that the eBay business was bad. It was in fact working and making me a small profit. But the time and effort I put in seemed too much for the reward I was getting. I knew that the internet had something better to offer; something much more efficient.
The autopilot ebook sale struck me as a perfect business model not only because it was more efficient, but also because it could be downloaded from anywhere in the world without paying any postage! Plus you didn’t need to physically handle products or deal with customers. It was in fact an “autopilot ebook” sale which meant an “autopilot income system“; at least in theory.
Anyone can write their own ebook and sell it from a website. You can read about the method I used to setup an ebook sale in my article how to sell ebooks on your own website. But there’s a few problems I encountered using this strategy.
Autopilot Ebook Problems
One of the main problems with selling your own ebook online is that everyone and his dog has an ebook on their website. Also, many of them are giving them away for free! So how are you going to sell an ebook when so many are giving them away?
Another problem I faced was traffic. I threw up a website hoping that people would come running but what I didn’t know was that I needed to either pay for traffic or create some content to draw people to it.
Since paid traffic is more expensive than an ebook is worth, this only leaves content creation as a viable source of visitors to your website. But even after months of blogging on my site, I was struggling even to give away my ebooks for free!
Ebook Autopilot – Problem Solving
So even if your ebook is the best thing since sliced bread, without visitors to your site, no one knows about it. Even when you do get people visiting your website, you still have to convince them that your ebook is worth purchasing.
This is pretty tough if they’ve never heard of you! If Tony Robbins is raving about it, no problem – people will come running. A recommendation from someone like my mate (I jest) Tony is worth its weight in gold! But if you’re a newbie like I was, nobody has heard of you and they don’t know how valuable your ebook is (or isn’t!).
To get around this problem, you can do a couple of things. First, create value on your blog or website so that people can see your style and content. This can also be used as a marketing tool. People will find you from your blog content and if they like what they see they can purchase your book. But in most cases they won’t! They’ll take the free content and leave your site. After all, the internet is a tool for information gathering and is, by and large, a free tool!
Email Marketing
The other thing you can do is collect their email address by giving something away for free. Perhaps even a few pages of your ebook. Once you’ve done this, you can keep giving value to your visitors through an automated email marketing service. See autopilot marketing.
When someone lands on your website, they only have a “window” of a few minutes to make a decision as to whether or not to purchase your ebook. Once they leave your website they are gone, often never to return. But if you can collect their email address, you can extend this time period to days, weeks and even months and years.
Affiliate Marketing – A Better Business
The idea of an autopilot ebook sale is what ultimately led me to a business model known as affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you can sell other people’s products over the internet for a share of the profit. After several months of attempting to sell my ebooks I had a lot of problems.
I put myself on a marketing course to learn how to better sell my own ebooks. The course taught me affiliate marketing and I switched gears, aware that the many affiliate products I could promote offered far more value than my ebooks, and to a much wider audience.
My first ebooks were about the film industry: how to become a stuntman and a TV Extra/Background Artist. I knew a little about this after pursuing a career as a stunt performer for several years. But this topic wasn’t as appealing for a large audience. At least not as appealing as the many courses I found online – which I could also promote as an affiliate.
Why Affiliate Marketing Is Better
Not all affiliate products are equal and it took me a long time before I found something which worked consistently. Amazon, for example is an affiliate program I am a part of. But Amazon only pays its affiliates tiny commissions; between 1 and 11% of the sale value.
Before I had success with affiliate marketing I made a lot of mistakes. I promoted small value products and spent years on activities which didn’t create the results I wanted. The key is to promote recurring commission affiliate programs which pay out again and again for each sale you make. High ticket programs too, give you much more scope for profit and allow you to venture into paid marketing strategies much more easily.
With a high value program, you can use paid marketing. You simply can’t afford this with your own low value ebook. A high ticket affiliate program can pay you commissions worth $1000+. An ebook will pay you $10-20 and only per sale. So it’s much more viable a business to choose products which offer both recurring commissions and high ticket products. High ticket recurring commission programs are the best use of your time, if you can afford to invest in the product range.
Get Help
One of the biggest mistakes I made was not getting the help I needed. Although, back when I started looking at these kinds of things, there wasn’t much offered in the way of mentorship. Luckily for you today there is! Don’t spend years like I did struggling alone to sell low value products online for little reward. Join a mentorship program and learn from people who are already succeeding online. Access an online business mentorship program and all-in-one affiliate program and online business by clicking on the image below. You can access a free video series to learn more.
