5 Reasons Why Your E-book Sucks

Bryan, would you mind pm'ing me a link to your latest sales copy, the one you censored out? I'd like to check it out. Thanks for this great info too!

bertbaby said:

Amusing read but frankly you also describe 90% of the ebooks out in the marketplace. These ebooks all read alike as though they were all spun from the same hamster wheel. And we all know about the sad truth regarding hamster wheels!

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Yeah unfortunately that's too true. The bulk of the informational products are made for no other reason than someone was told making one is the best way to make money. That really is the case, but to make the money you still need to have a goal for your product to actually solve a problem. There are so many ebooks out there that don't solve any problems, nor provide worthwhile information.

That's one of the things that make it harder to do affiliate marketing. Not only do you have to find a good nich and product to fill the need, but you have to sort out a lot of crap before you can find a good product to sell. The good ones are out there, you just have to do some work to find them though.

I've been wanting to write my own book for awhile now, and the thing that's been delaying me is the fact that I want anything I produce to be exceptional. That kind of book takes a bit longer to produce, (hopefully I'll be done with it sometime soon though). If my name is gonna be on it I don't want the word 'crap' to be associated with my work.

bryanon said:

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2. Pick a forum, become somewhat active and reach out to VIP / veteran members, sending them review copies and asking them nicely for testimonials. Not suitable because they'll probably upload the ebook to warez sites. (lol)...

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That's pretty funny. She doesn't think that any of the first few buyers might not get the product, get a refund and then upload the book to those very sites? Offering a few review copies to people that have at least some amount of previous acquantance, (even if it's just being on the same forum) is much less likely to start the unauthorized copies flowing. Start out with people you have some level of trust with and you're less likely to have those kind of problems.

And good for you Bryan for having the integrity to not just go ahead an make a great sales page to help brand a 'crappy' product as something special and worth buying. In the pre-selfpublishing world the major publishers would make those kind of decisions everyday, that's why the quality in bookstores is a lot higher than what you find in POD websites. The authors don't like to hear it, but it's best for everyone if the authors learn from that criticism and then try to make their books better.

I've been wanting to write my own book for awhile now, and the thing that's been delaying me is the fact that I want anything I produce to be exceptional. That kind of book takes a bit longer to produce, (hopefully I'll be done with it sometime soon though). If my name is gonna be on it I don't want the word 'crap' to be associated with my work.

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My thoughts exactly. I've wanted to do an ebook for a while and I have tried to write it before but never really had any direction that I wanted to follow. The first time I tried I went about it the wrong way and brought a domain, semi made a website and then never really got round to any actual writing.

Now I've spent a hell of a lot of time writing, re-writing and proof reading everything over and over. Last week I thought I had it all 90% done but then I came up with some ideas and went over a few things again which has put me in a position of being about 60% done.

I really wanna be sure that when the product is ready its going to not only be of great value to my customers but also to any affiliates I can get promoting it.

@Gold Mike: It's right here on BHW so might as well throw the link out here. It's in my signature anyway, lol. http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...roof-how-i-made-10k-3-weeks-replicate-me.html

@GreyWolf: I agree 100% with everything you said above. What's funny, though, is that there's literally SO MANY areas that could use quality e-products, and so many people who actually have the knowledge necessary to produce quality, useful material - but for some reason the majority still tend to take the good old "rehash something that's been already rehashed 100s of times" route. Scratch that, actually. It's not funny. It's sad.

P.S. Really looking forward to your launch! I've got the exact same attitude towards launching products (I don't want to have my name associated with anything that's less than perfect) and in my opinion this is the *only* way to secure a long-term success in this business.

ash1ey said:

...I really wanna be sure that when the product is ready its going to not only be of great value to my customers but also to any affiliates I can get promoting it.

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I think that's the real key to having a successful product. If more people writing ebooks would include that statement in their plan of action, then there would be a lot less 'crappy' products on the market.

Not only would it be easier for people to find things than might actually help with their problems, they'd be a lot more willing to whip out their CC if they were more confident that most products were actually worthwhile. Since that isn't the case people are leery to spend the money and so we all lose.

The email sounds like somthing you would see on problogger or any other internet marketing blog out there. I hate this problogger kind of talk where we spend 10 hours on a sales letter or ebook garbage. If you want make money online you need a strategy. 1 + 2 = 3

For isntance if i put this ebook on the DP marketplace i should make about 40$ from 2 sales at 20$ if i do X.

You did the right thing! Shit is still shit no matter how you dress it :shot:

bryanon said:

... there's literally SO MANY areas that could use quality e-products, and so many people who actually have the knowledge necessary to produce quality, useful material - but for some reason the majority still tend to take the good old "rehash something that's been already rehashed 100s of times" route...

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That statement says a lot more than it appears at first read.

The "quality, useful material" part is what's important. I don't think there's anything wrong with writing books on subjects that have been gone over many times before, as long as "quality, useful material" is the result.

When people bitch about another "rehashed" product, it isn't necessarily because the material has been gone over many times before. It's because it's presented as something new even though nothing is included that's any more useful than anything in any of the previous books. Usually the only new part is the "hype" and a small amount of solid information is just thrown in so there can be a topic for the book.

edit-
PS. Thanks for the encouragement. You and Thomas are a couple of people on my short list that will get to see an early draft when it's ready. I'm looking forward to any feedback I can get from you. :cool2:

Well I have already gotten more from this post then I have trying to find other related threads over the last few days about product creation.

Really hope someone takes notice of the suggestion for a product creation forum.

bryanon said:

I've already ranted about this a few months ago over at the lounge: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/blackhat-lounge/221673-how-i-made-2-384-less-than-week.html.

Believe it or not - there's a lot of good stuff out there. It's just that for every good product there's about 20 horrible ones

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I totally agree with Bryan. The argument "if-they-could-do-x{x},xxx-a-month-they-would-keep-it-for-themselves" is over simplistic and inconsistent.

If it's definitely true that the MAJORITY of the ebooks on WF and other sources are out there only to make bank for their authors without delivering any significant or valuable information it's also worth noting that there's a lot of good stuff around...

Some methods CAN be scaled up and might even benefit from increasing the number of people that take action about them, maybe up to a certain threshold, but this can only be determined case by case. XFactor's or Googl3 Sn1per are the first 2 that come to mind in my personal experience: I'm 100% positive that the sales of these ebooks benefited their authors but at the same time I can guarantee you they've brought a lot of happiness to my days (and pockets..) too for quite a long time...

Some other methods just can't be scaled up (no matter what everybody says and all the ritual crap "work smarter not harder" that's mostly laughable...). You better keep the blueprint for yourself if you ever develop such an non-scalable method and enjoy the ride while it lasts..

In my opinion, a BIG red flag should be raised every time you realize that spreading the word about a specific method will render it useless the more people adopt it, but -again- also in this case it's not THAT simple to guess in advance if you don't have some consistent hints about its specific blueprint...

you know 90% of the ebooks suck but why did you not take her money like a good Blackhatter I think what you did with ethical and with reason I'm not sure you deserve to be in the BHW club though, LOL.
Jason and sometimes Amanda

I have few hobbies in my sleeve i should try out to make few clickbank books. 50$ for publishing in CB is NOTHING.

I remember when I made my first ebook years ago. It was weight loss related, (I don't sell it anymore). I had put fake reviews, fake testimonials and I had the crappiest customer's service. People had to wait about a day to get the ebook. However the conversion rates were not bad, and no one of my customers asked for refund. Why? Because the ebook was actually good. What I mean is, you can lie your clients about yourself and your product as long as it really works and they will be satisfied of it.
So out of your 5 reasons, I think 2 are just crucial - product quality and target groups (I agree 100% with these 2), but the rest can be faked. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but it will make you money.

ludlight said:

I remember when I made my first ebook years ago. It was weight loss related, (I don't sell it anymore). I had put fake reviews, fake testimonials and I had the crappiest customer's service. People had to wait about a day to get the ebook. However the conversion rates were not bad, and no one of my customers asked for refund. Why? Because the ebook was actually good. What I mean is, you can lie your clients about yourself and your product as long as it really works and they will be satisfied of it.
So out of your 5 reasons, I think 2 are just crucial - product quality and target groups (I agree 100% with these 2), but the rest can be faked. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but it will make you money.

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Agreed.

Although it's so damn easy to find quality reviewers / get quality testimonials that I wouldn't ever imagine having to come up with fake ones.

That's of course if the product is actually any good

Not to derail the thread but I'm working on rebranding and launching a PLR product in the IM niche.

This is my first product launch and I know it's a bit ironic and even a little unethical, being a noob and telling other people how to make money, but I'm at my wits end both financially and mentally and need some quick cash to breathe or I'll have to move back in with my parents. =/

That being said, the product is a package of 8 useful PLR softwares and an e-book that gives a basic but solid understanding of Internet Marketing. I would have paid money for it if I hadn't found BHW.

I'm a bit nervous about covering my ass and doing it right. I'm using a fake name, fake pics of "Me with my nice cars and house and whatever else" and photoshopped clickbank earnings.

I know I need a solid disclaimer about earnings examples, but what's the legality of using someone's personal pics and how can I protect myself?

@Greywolf, I've re-done the e-book since we talked in IRC and I'm completely redoing the landing page.

If any of you experienced guys have a sec, i'd appreciate a critique of the landing page and will PM the url on request.


Thanks

That being said, the product is a package of 8 useful PLR softwares and an e-book that gives a basic but solid understanding of Internet Marketing. I would have paid money for it if I hadn't found BHW.

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Any chance of the link to the download on BHW please mate?

ash1ey said:

Any chance of the link to the download on BHW please mate?

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What he meant was the he found BHW. Not that he found some sort of a product *from* BHW.

The only thing you need to do is surf around on the forum and you'll find a lot more useful information than most ebooks can give you.

I would have paid money for it if I hadn't found BHW.

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Well that doesn't make sense then.

If he would have paid for it before he found BHW doesn't he mean that he found it here?

Anyways I tried searching for any PLR software on the forums but nothing came up.

Good points. People should always research into their field of work before doing certain things and causing them to look like a goof.

Just out of curiosity, what was her e-book about?