Giving Away Free Ebooks To Build A List
Giving away free ebooks to build a list is probably the most common and successful strategy for building an online business. Ecommerce stores will often give out free samples, but for affiliate marketers and course providers the ebook is usually the way to go.
For new marketers this can be an off-putting proposition. No ebook, no particular writing skills, no expertise in any particular subject, no desire to expend the effort nor any desire to build a list an no appreciation of the value in buildlng one.
It’s true that many new affiliate marketers are most comfortable copying and posting links on various social media platforms. While this could be effective in the early days of social media popularity, it’s usefulness leaves much to be desired in day competitive environment.
Most newbies give up in frustration. The more persistent ones will adapt, build a blog, start a group, learn about video creation and continue to learn from the successful marketers that have gone before them.
They will also learn that building a list by giving away free ebooks is not as complicated as originally supposed.
Giving Away Free Ebooks For Beginners
You have nothing to say and don’t know where to begin? You should know at the outset that you don’t have to write your own ebook, and stealing one is not only unethical – it’s stupid.
There is, of course, the option of writing the ebook yourself or, if you have the resources, you can outsource the work to a professional freelance copywriter.
But for most of us an inexpensive, ready-made product is the practical method. In fact, affiliate marketers can access an editable ebook, including ebook cover art, at a PLR site where you can get a copy for free or for a few dollars. All the most popular niches are covered. Affiliate Marketing is one, of course, but ebooks on Parenting, Cooking, Self-Help, Dating, Finance, etc., are also included.
There are various rights for each ebook. Some can be given away for free (your lead magnet) while others can only be promoted for a price. There is PLR Subscription Club you can check out but my day-to-day go-to PLR store is IDPLR and they will show the various permissions.
And here are the options available
- [YES]Can be sold
- [YES]Can be used for personal use
- [YES]Can be packaged with other products
- [YES]Can modify/change the sales letter
- [YES]Can modify/change the main product
- [YES]Can modify/change the graphics and ecover
- [YES]Can be added into paid membership websites
- [YES]Can put your name on the sales letter
- [YES]Can be offered as a bonus
- [YES]Can be used to build a list
- [YES]Can print/publish offline
- [YES]Can convey and sell Personal Use Rights
- [YES]Can convey and sell Resale Rights
- [YES]Can convey and sell Master Resale Rights
Keep in mind this list is part of the IDPLR ecosystem where there is a one-time fee for access to their entire collection of ebooks, software, graphics, etc. You can purchase individual ebooks with rights at other PLR stores. They usually run $5 – $12 per ebook.
With the list above, the key options for giving away free ebooks is the notation that it can be offered as a bonus and that it can be used to build a list. Most packages come with a PDF file as well as a document version. This particular ebook also come with a free landing page that you can use if you don’t have your own website or landing page builder. Neat! See it here...
In my experience, giving away free ebooks would not live up to its potential if you were only promoting one product, course or membership site. Open the text version of the ebook. Then, without diminishing the main topic of the text and its information, you would do well to ad a few advertisements with your affiliate links interspersed in some of the blank sections you might find between chapters or sections.
Most affiliate programs offer banners for your links but, if not, you can always use the Windows snipping tool to slice out a good banner like this:
or this:
You can try these out if you want to see how it works, but the main idea is to realize that you can edit your ebook and add promotional material. You can edit your text version of the ebook with the free version of Windows Word, Google Docs or Open Office and then export the file to the traditional PDF format. With Open Office, at least, you can also password protect the document.
Giving away free ebooks to build a list is not on every new marketer’s agenda and you can certainly join the competetive fray without that particular strategy. In particular, there’s a lot of resistence to building a list when you’re new and inexperienced and many get buy on befriending possible customers on the various social media platforms.
As one who was dragged kicking and screaming into building an email list, I can certainly identify. But the time may come when you’ll be able to see the value of putting your product promotions before a relatively interested group of subscribers on a regular basis.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
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