Andrew,
All of the above posters are completely correct on this. A common theme here, though, is to take action. While we are writing responses to this, it takes away from our IM activities, however, the simple fact is that if you READ what we are all writing, then you will see something very interesting about YOUR behavior.
See, by reading our replies, we are in fact building trust. It is this type of trust-building activity that will go a long way to making you a successful marketer. Have you ever sat at a restaurant with others, taken a bite of something, and said "mmm, you gotta try this!" Sure, most of us have. In front of complete strangers, people would be quite reluctant to sample food right off your plate. If these people 'know' you or have some sort of general connection, then this would be much easier to get someone to try a bite of your food. On to IM and eBook marketing...
Competition is the toughest aspect of successful eBook marketing. The ones who are really successful are using affiliates to sell their products for them. Many of the successful affiliates have been on board with the publisher for long periods of time and are often given information to create a campaign long before the product or eBook launches. If you don't have successful products yet, then you will have a difficult time attracting these 'super' affiliates to make you big money.
So, the proper way to go about doing this would be to separate yourself from the competition. Don't try and produce information on 'how to make $ in IM' or anything so saturated. Instead, write about topics and niches that you are somewhat familiar with. Become somewhat of an authority with a number of links to sites and informational pages or blogs that you created on the subject. Once you gain this momentum in a niche, you will have better ability to attract affiliates to sell your products for you. Target your audience by capturing e-mails and sending short surveys to them about what information they would like to receive. Then, deliver...give this targeted audience some FREE automated articles in your 'report' that are simply just spun past posts already located on your niche blog or website.
If you can brand yourself or be the first to launch a product or eBook in a certain niche, then you will at least stay ahead of some of your competition. Rinse and repeat to stay fresh or just apply this to other niches before the one you're in starts to slow down.
Another think to think about...
Instead of creating just Clickbank eBook products, research other growing markets such as Kindle eBooks. With the explosion of the Kindle market and projected growth in this industry over the next several years, you might be able to find that competition in certain niches is lighter. There are lots of avenues to go with eBooks and digital products. Just find one approach and test, test, test.
Good Luck on your path!
