judimehrens.com

Private label rights products are a big part of the internet marketing world. They are information products, books or articles, that are sold with full rights to change any part or all, put your own name on, and sell for all the profit. There is some good stuff, a lot of really bad stuff, and a ton of ebooks that have been around since the beginning of the internet.

If you’ve been investigating making money online for even a little while, you’ve probably come across a lot of this type of product. They’re particularly popular for inclusion in giveaways – you trade your email address to get the products for free.

When Amazon first began accepting material for Kindle, there was a rush to slap up copies of every single PLR book we all had on our hard drives, with no consideration for how many copies of the same book were being published. We didn’t really know a whole lot about the marketing part, figuring buyers would stumble over our listings and buy the book.

It worked okay for awhile, but as more and more publishers jumped on the Kindle bandwagon, the listings were clogged with 10s of copies of the same book, unchanged, with the same cover, and pretty much the same sales material. Finally Amazon said “ENOUGH,” and delisted the duplicates, warned publishers against using PLR, and even closed the accounts of some who weren’t quick enough or who didn’t believe the rules applied to them.

Some folks apparently had been making a few hundred dollars a month with this method, but I never generated over $40 or $50 dollars. I published a few original books that didn’t do much either, so I wasn’t paying that much attention to my Kindle account.

On the other hand, when Barnes and Noble developed their Nook marketplace, I jumped at publishing some of my PLR, after researching to be sure I’d be the first or second at most to publish the books. I don’t make a bunch from the books, but it’s better than Kindle and pays a couple of bills.

I also decided to invest a little of that income to buy private label products that were new and had limited distribution.

I bought a few packages from a marketer known to be a PLR expert, formatted them for both Kindle and Nook, and published them. Kindle declined to publish one of them, and that should have raised a flag. Instead I assumed someone else had purchased the same package and beaten me to publishing.

Than a couple of weeks ago, a full six months after the publication on Nook, I got an email from Barnes and Noble telling me they’d un-published that very same book. It seems they’d received communication from a writer who claimed this book was plagiarized. It was copied from a book this author had published on Kindle 3 years ago.

I finally did the checking I should have done in the first place and found the book I had was indeed copied.

I immediately emailed the author with my apologies and offer to pay them what I had made from the book, which turned out to be a little over $20. I also wrote to my vendor, explained the problem, and asked for a refund of the money I’d paid for the package.

So far I’m lucky. Other than a few emails back and forth and the time spent showing the accounting for the books sold, and of course the worry, it looks like it’s just going to cost me a little bit of time and not very much money. I haven’t heard anything from the writer since settling the account, so I’m desperately hoping I don’t hear from their lawyer.

Even though I bought the package from someone else, who paid a writer hired from a popular site, my liability is clear.

So the lesson here is to be very, very careful when you’re buying information products advertised as private label rights, especially if you’re planning to publish through Kindle or Barnes and Noble.

Better yet, don’t buy that stuff at all. Or if you do, buy it only as an idea and research tool

Start working on your own project. There are a number of courses out there to help you decide on which market you want to delve into, which kinds of books are profitable to publish. Here is one of the best:

Click here to take a look at the Kindling sales page.

Amazon is it’s own incredible research tool, with roughly a bajillion categories you can look through. Pick one you love or want to know more about or your cousin knows about.

Take a lesson learned from me. Don’t rely on someone else’s work. Just get started on your own stuff.

Publishing For Kindle Is The Latest Internet Marketing Rage

Cover via Amazon

If you’re involved in internet marketing and on any marketer’s list, you’ve seen the Kindle craze in action.

Internet marketing is very prone to trends, and this latest is a bunch of products telling us how to make bajillions publishing our books on Amazon’s Kindle marketplace.

Kindle publishing has been around for about 4 years, but for marketers it was primarily a place to correctly format all that old private label rights stuff on our hard drives, and slap it up for sale, no matter how many other copies there were already listed. I guess we hoped to somehow snag the occasional buyer if we got lucky.

All that changed a few months ago, when Amazon started de-publishing (if that’s a word) all the duplicate copies of those books. They even closed the accounts of publishers who didn’t comply quickly enough with the mandate to stop publishing plr crap.

Along came crafty marketers who produced those books on making it on Amazon after the slap.

There are some good products among the so-so and bad, but it’s hard to figure out which is which. And since most are offered as Warrior Special Offers and so generally inexpensive ($5 to $10), it’s been easy to collect a library full of products that have good points here and there. But it means reading through a lot of books to find the occasional gem.

I have found one very comprehensive course. It’s called Kindling, from a fellow named Geoff Shaw, and it has all the information you need – and a lot you didn’t know you needed but that adds to your skills. There’s everything from how you find an idea/market, how to write, both fiction and non-fiction, how to list your book, and how to market it. It’s an amazingly comprehensive course; I wish it had been available from the get-go. I wouldn’t have wasted my money and time on the 30 or so books before it.

Click here to take a look at the Kindling sales page.

That is an affiliate link, meaning if you buy the course I will get a commission.

You most likely don’t know this about me yet, but I won’t suggest you invest in anything I haven’t already purchased and reviewed for myself.

And along that vein, after Amazon’s purge, I was left with a few books of my own that were listed, but not so many sales. In the last couple of months, however, that’s changed. I’ve added two new books and started promoting them with what I’m learning. I’m nowhere near big money, but my sales for the new books as well as the older listings are growing each week.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to buy a mansion with my Kindle sales, but at least now I have some hope!

There are two bills in front of Congress that, as usual, go way overboard to take care of a perceived problem. The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House. This is bad, bad legislation, and if you have any interest in or already are into online marketing, you need to pay attention.

The bill goes too far in attempting to enhance the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and Constitutional experts say there are serious free speech infringement issues and other unintended consequences.

Please read the article below. If you have questions, simply google “sopa” for millions of articles. You can check Wikipedia.org, but not until tomorrow. They’re blacked out for the day to raise SOPA and PIPA awareness.

Note: Please feel free to forward this newsletter to any Internet marketers you know as the contents herein are vital to our industry’s future as well as ours! Actually, I encourage and urge you to forward it and ask those people you know to carefully review it and take action. Let’s be heard. Today. Thank you!

Hello Fellow Marketer,

This is the single-most important newsletter you will have received from me to date, and undoubtedly, one of the most important emails you will ever receive. Why? Not because it is from me, but rather, because of the URL below I encourage every one of my subscribers, including you, to visit, carefully read and take action against SOPA and PIPA, two proposed U.S. laws that threaten the income and business of every single Internet marketer, including you and I, and the livelihood of literally millions of other people and their businesses around the world.

Since many sites are shut down today in protest of SOPA and/or PIPA, including the Warrior Forum, I ask that you visit http://americancensorship.org/ now, carefully scrolling down the entire site to find out what you can do to join in today’s protest, such as, at a bare minimum, emailing* Congress from within this site if you are a U.S. Citizen or, if you are not a U.S. Citizen, electronically sign an online petition that is being sent to the U.S. Department of State.

*Comment – If your email Congress from within this site, I advise you to write your email in your own words as by doing so, your email will most likely have a stronger effect than simply sending a form email.

As Internet marketers, I believe we all share a responsibility to take a few minutes to do our part in opposing these stifling laws that would create a wide-ranging chilling effect on Internet marketing and YOU. This site, http://americancensorship.org/, allows each of us to do that small part regardless if you are from the United States or not.

Last, but certainly not least, when contacting Congress, there is nothing more powerful than a member of Congress receiving a written letter from their constituent that is sent via U.S. Postal Service; it shows how much you care about your cause and makes your Congressional member take notice, especially if receiving hundreds or (hopefully) thousands of letters in the mail.

To send a letter to your Congressional member, simply go to the following site to look up your Senators and Representative’s respective contact information:

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

As I stated when writing an email to Congress, I again advise you to write your letter in your own words; again, this will give your letter more power and not just be another cut-and-paste form letter that will not have nearly the effect as a personal letter has the potential to do.

If you thought today was scary not being able to access the Warrior Forum as well as many other sites you may visit regularly, just think if the Warrior Forum was gone “just like that…poof” forever?! What about YOUR sites?! Please do not think it is not possible because it is, which is why it is so very important that you take action today by doing your small, but vital, role.

One voice may not be heard, but thousands upon thousands of voices cannot be ignored!

Thank you for your time and consideration in reading this newsletter.

Let’s make this a great day!

To Your Internet Marketing Future,

Anthony W. Devine
www.anthonywdevine.com

I’m not sure how I found this, but this fellow Matt Carter has some great informaton for affiliate marketing. It is well worth your time to look at his blog:

Matt’s Marketing Blog

If you do or are thinking about doing any sort of affiliate marketing, this is worth taking the time to read.

I got myself turned around while moving my blog from one server from another and lost my 4 years’ worth of postings. Kinda discouraging.

I’m still working on building my internet empire and fortune, and I may finally be on the right track. I’ll let you know.