Finally! I just launched my 1st ebook - Top 6 Hardwood Refinishing FAQ's. This has been on my "to do" list for about 2 years. I finally took the plunge.
As background, I'm currently getting over 60,000 unique visitors a month on my site. And, over 90% of them are out of my area, so I can't service them. Since Thanksgiving, I've been trying to figure out ways to monetize the traffic I'm already getting and this is one of those experiments.
After listening to many of Pat Flynn's podcasts from SmartPassiveIncome.com, I was determined to get my 1st ebook out quickly. I used his guide of Ebooks The Smart Way as a guide. I highly recommend this for anyone considering writing an ebook.
I basically collected the epic posts I already wrote for the top questions my customers and readers ask me (the ones they ask me while I'm in appointments and the ones that get the most traffic from google). I organized it in a way I thought made logical sense. I did some editing (adding a bit) and subtracting redundancies between articles (as they are now all together). I added in pictures, too. I added in an intro, and conclusion section. I added in links to some other related articles. The ebook is 67 pages (but part of that is due to all the pictures).
I did this gradually over the last 4 weeks (after all, I do have a business to run). My friend Jonathan Bao helped me get this set up.
I think we did this on Microsoft word, but as Pat says, "To start publishing your eBook, all you need is a word processor. Whether you use Microsoft Word, Pages for Mac, Google Docs, or Openoffice.org, the most important thing is that you somehow get your content created now! We’ll worry about converting the content later."
We are starting this out at $10. We will see if it Will It Fly
I don't know how successful my ebook will be nor the right price, but I figured worst case, I'll just get an expanded email list, so I really have nothing to lose.
We are currently using selz.com for the ebook. So, people can download it directly from there and pay for it with their Credit Card or Paypal. Pat recommends using ejunkie.com and I may end up switching to that. Both of these are inexpensive (nearly free ways of using this service) and they have tracking mechanisms as well.
Initially, we chose selz.com under the mistaken belief that we could get a free landing page, but it turns out you only get the "free" landing page if you have one of the more expensive monthly plans. Oh well. Right now, it's a free monthly charge, but I think it's 2.9% charge + .30 per charge...or something like that. It's a small amount. Ejunkie is $5/month. However, I think w/ ejunkie you may need to pay extra to allow them to use credit cards and that's how the majority of people pay. Since we already had things mainly set up on selz.com, I didn't want to "undo" that work and wanted to get this launched quickly so we can see if this is working/how many downloads getting etc and then revisit which place we use in a month or so. (Did I mention I have a full time business to run??).
So after we got this part ready, we then worked on the landing page. I stress that this is a work in progress. It's not a true landing page, and my ultimate plan for landing pages is to use Thrive Landing Pages. These seem great and extremely economical. I didn't want to use some of the landing pages where you need to pay a monthly fee ongoing (e.g. $49-99/month). With thrive pages, it's just a one time fee of $97 and you can use on multiple sites (as I intend to use on more than 1 site). I think it may just be $67 for one site, BTW. My plan is to convert to this sometime later in the spring, when I ready to launch several landing pages for different topics.
For now, we went the cheap and cheerful way (and fast way) where we just created a new page on my site. I figured out how to delete the side bars on that page (not sure yet how to delete the menu bars, but leaving them in isn't the worst thing in the world. You can check out my "landing" page here.
I then reread Neil Patel's awesome guide on landing pages. This is a MUST read. I think this is my 3rd time reading it. The Definitive Guide on Landing Pages by Neil Patel. In there, he has a guide on the Anatomy of a Landing page. This is a great reference.
So, I have my first draft of this and will probably edit a bit more next weekend. Then, I installed Neil Patel's Hello Bar at the top of the page. (see the orange bar below.
This creates a banner at the top of the page to direct people there. (You can put on bottom or side or change colors and other things). It also tracks everything for you. I wasn't sure if I had installed it correctly, but after an hour, I could see that I already had over 250 views so it seems to be working. There is also the opportunity to A/B test it...so soon I may try that too...next weekend...or the weekend after (did I mention I run a full time business?).
I then added the new page to my menu bar. Then I added in a side bar button.
Then, I added the button to my most popular post. I will be adding to several other posts over the next few days. I also intend to add Pat Flynn's suggestion of the "magic button" soon. Soon, I will activate and take action on my Active Campaign plugin (Yes, I'm still not leveraging my mailing list for my visitors - how crazy is that?)...Next weekend I will have to do that. I also need to share this on social media and copromote.com and viralcontentbuzz.com. Oh and I should add to my footer here and on my own blog. As you can see, there is a bunch I want to do, but I have to take baby steps here...and run my full time business.
Soon, we will be creating the "lead magnet"...yes, I know I'm sort of doing things out of order. But, this should be much simpler as I'm leveraging 1 epic post for this and it's the one that did super well on my Facebook ad: Top 10 Flooring Mistakes Homeowners make. This will be much simpler and faster to do as we now have things set up.
I have a ton of things to do on my list, but as I said, I run a full time business and I have 3 more things I must get done today/tonight. I will share with you my learning...once I have it.
Oh, and if you or your customers have an interest in my ebook - Top 10 Hardwood Refinishing FAQ's, please feel free to head on over there (or bookmark for your clients). I hope this is helpful.
So, we shall see if this work.
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