Experimenting With Private Label Rights

I recently joined a PLR site for $97 per month. It was supposed to be amazing.

It had ebooks, videos, podcasts, sales letters, graphics, webs sites, everything.

Sorry that annoys you ;-) but it sounded like a great TIME saver that I could dip in, customise and go…

But I quickly got a refund after it sunk in they “only” had 1800 members (1 8 0 0 !!) and worst of all, you had to pay extra to get the back catalogue.

So I either had to use the exact same 2 “his months niches” and content as everyone else that month, or pay even more to get old stuff that had already been milked to death (but was at lest new to me and maybe my new born audience).

Like you, my main problem was that they were deciding the 2 niches every month, and I just wasn’t interested in their market choices. There’s a funny story behind that, but never mind, my name’s not Ed. Oh look an Echinada! Oh no it’s alright it’s a piece of old toast… watch out, it will get ya! Oh no hang on, it’s a piece of toast!

So IMHO PLR seems to be a license to re-print old cr*p.

I am however dismayed that you think $15 is “expensive for content.

As a writer yourself, this is chicken and egg.

You can either write once and sell to many for a little, or write once and sell once for a lot.

But if you want more exclusive content, what do you expect?

AFAIC one can either buy (!) and read (!) a book, or search google yourself (!) and string it together, or if one wants a crafted article from an expert, which you have to pay for.

Ed’s mentioned the “slave” labour writers, and most people dismiss their actual output as penguin English. (Yep not even pigeon.) But I wouldn’t feel good about that sweat labour either!

I think the sums are easy!
A “good” writer, needs to make $30ph.
To research (be up to date with a topic) and pull it together and craft it, could easily take several hours.
Now how many people can you sell it too?
Divide the answer and add a margin for error in case you can’t fill that many license seats.

Do you still think 15 bucks is a lot for pseudo exclusive source material?

Similar reaction to poor young Ewan who offered his professional writing services, which he also does as a day job.

I am also a professional writer. I have no problem writing, but I am short of time, especially between my software programing and marketing duties.
So I’d happily pay $30 per hour, because (as Ed would say) I seriously expect to earn more than that from it!.

You might be annoyed at people being given things on a plate. I eat TV dinners (I have to) so I see the need for that. What annoys me, is people who want every d*mn thing for free, or on the ultra cheap.

I think we agree that even niche marketing shouldn’t be run as an instant gratification exercise. But this is part of the problem. People with no genuine interest in their topics are going to want an easy fix, and on the d*mn cheap!

No wonder the IM market is in the state it is.

Case in point, I was recently offered a $500 software package that makes article variations for you (intelligently), so you can fill your several niche platforms with original (variation) material.
People apparently can’t even restructure sentences and paragraphs any more either!

I for one, won’t be paying $49 for any pigeon English report any time soon.
And yes that was a badly constructed sentence ;-)

JM0CW
But I’d much rather charge ;-)

Peter.

@Peter, it’s not what the membership sites offer that annoys me, it’s the way they market it. I am perfectly happy to put in the hard work to get these niches up and running and I’d join a membership site if I thought it could give me genuine value but when the sales letter just goes on and on about how it can give me my instant business in a box I can no longer see the true value in their offer and that’s the part that I find annoying.

It would just be nice if instead of these hyped up sales letters we could have ordinary sales pages that say “this is what you get, this is what it costs, click here to buy, job done”

The $15 was for single article. I intend to post around 20+ articles for each niche – that would work out at $300 for that niche and I’m building three niches. If that was for a proven market that was going to generate $100 a day that would be fine, but remember I have not made a single dollar yet so I need to be conservative.

Oh and that small matter of having just said goodbye to my day job and the income that came with it does influence my purchasing ability somewhat!

Plus for these particular sites, I’m just creating pages on external platforms to drive search engine traffic. I don’t care about exclusive content – that can come later if and when I decide to launch my own content site.

At this stage in the project, all I intend to do is test the market- see if it gets traffic and see if that traffic converts. If it doesn’t then I move on. I might blow through a dozen niches before I find one that’s profitable so at this stage yes I do want the cheapest solution possible.

I dont quite get it yet. If the content is already published then what difference or advantage is there over a Creative Commons Licence?

Can I promote my own site? :D I have a small (but growing rapidly) PLR article pack site. I sell packs of 10 articles for $20 and only to 25 people . . . no marketing gimmick, it just makes sense not to sell too many.

Also, I´m open to niche ideas, I´ll happily write a new pack based on anyone´s niche, all that info is on the site. Feel free to check it out.

http://www.PLRArticlePacks.com

@Andy
AYSK all material is copyright and you need permission to use it.
As you say a CCL gives you rights to use it under certain conditions (often just a credit).

The PLR companies “license” you to use their content.
In fact many, REMOVE your license as soon as you stop paying the monthly fee. So really you are renting it, more like a DVD movie. That’s another major thing to watch out for!

As Caroline said, the rights vary. Sometimes you aren’t allowed to edit (as with most Ezine sites), while other times you can even resell it to third parties with the same rights you have (resale rights).

AYPK the problem when you launch a niche site is you need content, but copyright law says you need some sort of license to use someone elses (published or unpublished) work.

The PLR companies offer an easy way to get such a license, but as we’ve discussed, the problem is it isn’t unique, by a few thousand other licensors of it.

So if you offer the same site as others, what value do you bring?
Also as far as search engines are concerned, they may regard it as duplicate content, and only credit who they “think” owns it. AKA there is no added value in them directing traffic to you as you add nothing.

Caroline correctly wants the license to base articles on (on topics she isn’t to speed on), and then to expand it and add her own style.
But as she points out, the cost soon adds up, even at sweat shop rates ;-)

@Caroline.
OK I’m with you now.
But without money, I don’t think there’s any alternative but to do it yourself.
As Andy points out, there are probably oodles of openware source material outlets you can use, such as WikiPedia, Hub Lenses, About.com, and specialist sites on your subjects. Even your (cough) competition.

AYK you will have to re-write the material from scratch, but that’s nothing for someone with your talents. (That’s a compliment obviously.)

As you mentioned, all you need is a shortcut to the salient points and then you are entitled to re-tell that story in your own way.Which is probably where your Ebay bargains come in ;-)

Furony.com of course, is those Ebay ebooks are probably from a PLR deal, just you managed to pay less for them, because they couldn’t sell them for the supposed PLR club value. (SFX Italian accent “I say nothing…”)

Oh and another restriction on some PLR sites, is sometimes there is a MINIMUM fee you can sell their ebook for. I guess they’re trying to protect the market. Although in the UK, retail price maintenance is actually illegal.

Peter.

@Peter, Yeah in general I am writing all my own content where possible, this is just my first taster into the idea of using somebody else’s content.

Thanks for all the input.

@Genesis, yes please do go ahead and promote it. That is in fact exactly what I am looking for as I can see exactly what I would be getting from the purchase.

Caroline, I’m also of the opinion that I think you’re better off writing your own content. Yes it’s time consuming – but in the end it pays off.

Hi caroline,

I don’t even remember how I ended up with your ebook, even though I got it only a few days ago. I am now sharing it with visitors to my site. Thats the power of viral marketing.

I wanted to let you know how much I like it, and that I put the ideas you offered into motion right away. It was so easy to read, and I don’t know why I hadn’t found the information you offered elsewhere sooner. Better late than never.

I changed the links on my blog so instead of url’s with number, my posts url’s are now named after my posts. Much better for the search engines. I broke a bunch of links when i did this, but at least I found out before I promoted those links in a big way. I suspect I will be rating higher in the search engines very soon.

I also used the wordpress theme you recommended. Its awesome, I love it.

Thank you so much for the free information you provided. I recommend “making money by building niche sites using wordpress” to anyone using the wp blogging platform. Read this ebook, and do what it says before you make another post. You will be glad you did.

@Robert, thanks Robert, I’m glad you have found the book useful!

I have bought and used several packages from Niche Content. The writing is some of the best I’ve seen and the graphics are excellent. I felt it was worth the price.

I have to agree that eBay is a great source for PLR articles and content. I am planning on starting a few niche sites of my own and will populate them with content that I have created by modifying PLR articles with my own knowledge and correcting them as I feel is needed.

The question remains as to whether articles, ebooks etc that are being sold truly are in the public domain. Some sellers assure you the information is on file, but how concrete is the proof? I have also found that some of them are quite poorly written and it seems that they were created largely for the purpose of keyword optimization or just populating a site with quick and easy content, regardless of the quality or accuracy of the information.

Still, with some effort these ebooks can provide a foundation for compiling an article that is easy to read, informative and a quality product. And I think that is how it should be. Personally I will feel much better knowing my sites are populated with articles that provide the type of information *I* feel would be valuable and are provided with the genuine intention of giving meaningful information to the reader.

I really appreciate the content on your site and your attitude towards internet marketing and business. Your honesty and insight is refreshing.

Thanks!

Steve