Alyice Stops In to Answer My Questions!

Alyice Edrich is taking a blog tour, and fortunately, my blog is on her itinerary! While she was here, she agreed to answer my marketing questions.

Alyice is the author of several work-from-home e-books, including Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-books — where parents earn hundreds of dollars selling information they already possess.

My three questions (just off the toppa my head, of course) were as follows:

Me: There is so much information out there about how to succeed making money on the Internet, with a lot of conflicting information. Is it better to focus and spend my time on one good niche (with content-rich website, e-zine or newsletter, e-books, etc.) or is this putting all of my eggs in one basket? Should I instead be creating as many sites and products in as many good niches as possible to improve my Internet presence and income possibilities, as recommended by many of the gurus?

Alyice: When people spread themselves too thin, they cannot successfully create an income to live off of or they spend all their time working that they simply do not have time to enjoy their lives. In my opinion, I think people should start one website at a time. Build that website up and when it generates a certain amount of income, steadily for a set period of time, then move onto another website or develop products and/or services to enhance your current website.

Having your eggs in more than one basket is vital these days, but that doesn’t mean that you need more than one website to do it. If you pick a theme that you are passionate about, you can develop several departments within that niche to build on.

Lets say that you love photography. You take photographs of families for a living, but you live in a small town with the nearest town 35 minutes away. You want to increase your income so you decide to go with what you know and develop a photography website. You start by building quality content: teaching your readers how to take professional quality photographs, pick the right camera and equipment, and eventually you add content on selling photographs to magazines.

But you realize that while this hobby has brought you name recognition, which has caused people in other towns to drive to you for their family photo shoots, it hasn’t generated the income you had hoped. You think about closing down the publication, but you love what you do so much you just don’t have the heart to do it.

That’s when it hits you! You can add advertising to your publication through affiliate programs. A quick search on http://cj.com helps you locate products that match every article in your publication. A month later, you begin to see an income and as time progresses your income increases and so do the private emails.

Because of reader feedback, you discover a need for certain products you cannot find through your affiliate programs, so you get a resale license and you buy wholesale. You then open up a shopping cart and begin selling those items through your publication and your income increases again.

Eventually, you realize you have a lot of wonderful photos sitting in your studio collecting dust so you decide to find a publisher to develop a few coffee table style books. With the left over photos, you open up a stock photo area in your shopping cart.

Now, you still have one website, but you’ve just created multiple streams of income. And you aren’t spreading yourself too thin, because you only have to promote one domain.

Me: I don't really understand the point of finding an e-book publisher. I thought that writing an e-book, converting to PDF (which anyone can do with free software), and marketing through a self-designed website, were the great advantages of selling an e-book. Other than the digital delivery service and PayPal fees, (and affiliate fees if you use affiliates), you stand to make a very nice profit from each sale. What are the advantages of using an e-book publisher?

Alyice: Personally, I don’t like the idea of signing a contract for exclusivity to an e-book publisher. But there are many people who just don’t want to deal with the whole entrepreneur side of things. When you sign a contract with an e-publisher, you get royalty checks and don’t need a business license (in most states).

Me: I have recently written a how-to e-book in a specific niche, establishing myself as an expert and featuring the e-book on my website. I have submitted articles to a few free e-zine content sites and have shared links with a few websites. I also send out a content-rich newsletter to a growing subscriber list. What else should I do to market my e-book and website? (Am I on the right track)?

Alyice: You are definitely on the right track. Many people think that because you have an e-book you cannot send out press releases to traditional media outlets. This isn’t true. While some media outlets still do not understand the concept of e-publishing, many do. Take your chances and contact radio stations, local news outlets, and cable talk shows to discuss the theme of your e-book. And don’t forget to advertise in print publications.

You can visit Alyice Edrich at Dabbling Mum Press to order a copy of her e-book, Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-books, today!

Catch up with Alyice by making another stop on her blog tour… Here.