If
I had only known, I wouldn’t have made these
mistakes. But I did.
For
such a small word, “if” sure does
cause a lot of problems, doesn’t it?
“If
I had not turned off the alarm clock, I wouldn’t
have overslept.”
“If
I had paid attention to what my wife said, I would
have not shrunk my 100% cotton shirt three sizes
too small.”
“If
I would have taken the time to fuel up, my car
wouldn’t have run out of gas out here in
the middle of nowhere.”
“If
I had charged up the battery on my mobile phone,
then I would be able to call AAA to bring me some
gas out here in the middle of nowhere!”
See
what I mean?
“If”
is such a tiny word.
But
it’s like dynamite. It packs a lot of punch.
For
me, as I teach (and learn myself!) about viral
eBooks, the phrase is this:
“If
I had only known, I wouldn’t have made these
mistakes.”
You
see, I made MANY costly mistakes in my early viral
eBooks. Mistakes that are *literally* costing
me thousands of dollars in profits right now.
And
there is nothing I can do to change them.
Once
you set a viral eBook into motion, it’s
impossible to get it back and make corrections
to things ya screwed up on.
Man,
if I could go back into time and change some things.
I
have learned the hard way some things you DON’T
want to do with viral ebooks.
That’s
what we’re going to take a look at here.
I’ve
made ‘em all.
You
don’t have to.
Don’t
do this…
1.
Never use any link inside the content that you
can’t control.
I
learned the hard way that you should always use
redirect links from your own domain when putting
any kind of link inside your ebook.
For
example: most people insert their affiliate link
for an affiliate offer inside the ebook that they
have put together. The one that was given to them
by the affiliate program owner.
Instead,
you want to link to a page at your site that refreshes
and redirects the visitor to your assigned affiliate
link. Something like this... http://www.yourdomain.com/brainstorm.html
This is important so you can CHANGE the link anytime
you want to in the future.
For
example: If I decided to no longer use ClickBank
to handle my affiliate program and went with a
different affiliate tracking link, what happens
to the thousands of copies of your viral eBook
that are in place with that old affiliate link
in there?
They
become obsolete, unusable and unprofitable.
Or,
suppose you are linking to a dating service that
goes out of business? What now?
Your links are toast. They are worthless to you.
With
a redirect link you can easily adjust the target
page and send the traffic to a different dating
service, or to a page at your site. With a redirect
link the changes are made at YOUR SITE, which
you remain in control of regardless of what happens
with the products and services that you linked
to.
Even
if you change hosts or servers, you still remain
in control.
You
don't have to make changes to all of those eBooks
-- which would be impossible to do -- you simply
make a 2 minute change at your site.
I
can’t tell you how many dead links are in
some of my earlier ebooks that continue to give
me headaches as people email me saying, “Jimmy,
you’ve got a dead link here … can
you give the correct link?”
It
creates a lot of extra work in answering emails
and certainly is throwing away potential profit
for the countless people who never bother to ask
for an updated link.
So, never use any link inside the content that
you can’t control.
Always
use redirect links.
2.
Another thing is you want to avoid using dated
information by providing too specific details.
Affiliate
program A may not be offering that free 30 day
trial offer very much longer.
The
price for admission to that special site may not
always be $29.95.
That
site that was “just released last week”
may have become an all-time classic by the time
Bob reads your viral ebook two years after it
was released.
You
want to make certain that you stay away from information
that is too specific that can easily become irrelevant.
Again,
I get emails all the time griping about inconsistent
prices because I put a price for the Profits Vault
membership into one of my early viral ebooks and
that price is no longer valid.
Hasn’t
been for almost two years.
I’ve
even gotten ugly emails accusing me of fraud and
false advertising, with threats to turn me in
to the attorney general and all kinds of nonsense.
So,
be careful that you don’t date your viral
ebook if you can avoid it.
3.
Another no-no is to never put any information
into your ebook that you don’t want all
over the world.
These
things travel folks and they can be global in
a matter of days and certainly over time you can
easily have a worldwide audience.
I
made the mistake of putting my cell phone number
in one of my earlier ebooks because everyone claimed
that if I didn’t have my contact information
in there, no one would buy from me… which
is nonsense I might add.
Anyway,
I started getting all kinds of calls at all hours
of the day.
What
was 3:00 in the afternoon in the Philippines was
3:00 in the morning where I live.
So,
it was a nuisance.
Kind
of a funny story came out of it.
I
disconnected that number, of course, and got a
new one. That was almost 2 years ago.
Well,
about a month or so ago I had a lady email me
and she was hopping mad.
Apparently,
she had ordered a cellular phone and got my old
number… and folks were still calling!
She
told me that she was getting calls from England
and all over looking for me and they were running
her cellular bill up with charges.
She
wanted me to do something about it and all I could
do was tell her “I’m sorry, there’s
nothing I can do”
With
viral marketing, it’s pretty much unstoppable,
which is why it is so effective. It keeps spreading
and it’s hard to stop the growth once it
gets going.
So,
never put anything into your ebook that you don’t
want the world to know and use.
4.
Another thing is this … always have your
carriers do the branding.
You
want to automate the process as much as possible.
Again,
I learned the hard way.
Early
on, before there were all of these branding tools
available, I hand customized each ebook.
And
as they began to spread, the customization requests
grew to be way too much for me to handle. I was
spending most of my day putting together these
customized viral ebooks for each new person that
requested a copy.
That
had to change and so now I use branding tools
and branding instructions. I give them to anyone
who wants to customize the ebook and I let THEM
do the work.
Keeps
me out of the loop completely.
So, unless you have some specific reason to do
it yourself, place that responsibility onto the
ones who want to distribute the viral ebooks.
5.
One more thing I want to share. Always launch
new browser windows with your links in your ebooks.
Whenever
you link to a site within your viral eBook content,
always remember to code that link to launch a
new browser window when the reader clicks on it.
I learned this the hard way. There are many scripts
involved in the order-taking process at online
credit card processing sites.
And
many of those have caused glitches in the eBook
due to the software the eBook was created with
and it crashes the eBook, making it impossible
to order.
So,
what happens is this.
You
do your job well. The content is great. You've
got a hungry customer waiting to buy.
They click on a recommended product link. They
arrive at the site still inside your eBook window.
They click on the order link and the entire thing
shuts down. I mean completely shuts down the ebook
and website altogether.
And,
in some cases, it even crashes the computer. You
just lost a customer because two sets of code
didn't like each other.
That
has happened to me on MANY different occasions
in some of my early ebooks.
Now,
all of my links launch new browser windows OUTSIDE
of the ebook if you click on a link inside the
ebook. All you need to do is insert a simple line
of code into your links inside the eBook. The
code looks like this...
Target="Resource
Window"
Now
when someone clicks on your link, a new browser
window will launch outside of the eBook itself
before taking them to the website. Now, you're
safe. EVERY link in your eBook should have this
code. You can thank me later.
(NOTE:
IF you are using a PDF maker for your ebooks,
you should be fine with your links.)
Viral
eBooks are tremendous tools. But, there are also
some pitfalls associated with them.
I’ve
just shared five of the mistakes that I have made.
There
is just no way of measuring how much profit I
have lost over the years due to those errors.
There
wasn’t a manual available to tell me how
to do it. History hadn’t really been recorded
at that time to tell me what to stay away from
and what to make sure I did in order to protect
myself from problems.
So,
you’re getting something that I didn’t
have.
Aren’t
ya happy?
In
all seriousness, don’t make the mistakes
that I made.
History
doesn’t need to repeat itself on this one.
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