Making Money With Ebooks, Courses & Membership Sites - Which is Best?

I just came back to your site after not viewing it for a while. I’m glad I did. I’m glad to hear someone else working through product launches and things of that nature. I’m releasing a video product soon with hopes after building a base to sell a membership site. I look forward to the content and in my field think I can get a lot of other people involved in the creation to keep quality content up indefinitely.

And I like the point you make about “Even if you have a low priced site at say $20 a month, and you only find 50 members you have a regular income of $1,000 a month.” Unfortunately that is a much better goal than trying to make a living off of $15 ebooks.

Hi Caroline, I got your wordpress eBook, and it was excellent. You mention in your article the 2 ways to make money from eBooks.. the give away version that has affiliate links in, and the straight forward buy now method…

You have not mentioned the another main way… the funnel approach. yes give away a free ebook… yes perhaps add some affilate links, but you should have also captured theie email address. You are now looking to promote you, your products, your workshops,your courses etc… to these people… you have created a lifetime value for that customer, which if nurtured correctly, will bring in far more than over a longer time….

I got your ebook, but since then I have not head from you about anything… you have not tried to tell me any info, promote your skills, promote your consultancy, promote other products, upsell me anything…. the list goes on….

Best

Mark

Mark Shaws last blog post..Mark Shaw left a comment for Kathryn Palfrey

Caroline, what’s the best way to marketing an eBook?
I read your previous posts so I have all the backgrounds needed. Just now, several month later you have more data, what is the most effective way to get an eBook to interested users?
My best luck now is free-ebooks.net but I am sure there should
be other ways?

I think the answer is all the above. eBooks are easy to sell — membership sites are hard to sell because they are hard to describe. So, to sell membership sites, what you need is trust. You can build trust by selling less expensive info products that result in creation of a list of satisfied customers.

Mark Masons last blog post..First Product Launch Coming June 30

No doubt - a membership site (product or service) idea with a recurring billing option is the key to a long-term business which generates long-term profits.

The best part is that it generates residual income, money on autopilot like these so-called Gurus like to call it.

The hard part is that’s not that EASY to set-up a site like this, nor to come up with a great idea. At least not for a newbie.

eBooks are things in the past. I rarely pack info in PDF for selling. Now I’m more into video tutorials.

Yes, content for membership sites is certainly an issue! I love all three approaches you refer to, and will eventually be adopting/integrating them all - perhaps into a/multiple membership sites - although this may be a tad ambitious!

But yes, an ebook.
Certainly, ecourses.
And certainly, my membership site will integrate ‘virtual learning environments’-ecourses within them to add ongoing value. In this way, I can keep adding value.

I also have a ‘wholesaler’, other sites, where I can get an ongoing source of content to add to my planned membership site, in addition to my original content - hopefully coming soon, but it needs a lot of work! Membership sites are where we can really provide ongoing value and focus to our subscribers - the incentive is certainly there and it helps to have a passion in the area

(although I do know of several membership sites, when Mike F Butterfly Marketing package was launched, which have a membership area, for only one product, an ebook!! Yes, many are great value, but some, hmmm…?! Its just created as a ‘membership’ area to get that ‘army of viral affiliates’!! hmmm, value? at least its free, and one can upgrade, but I often don’t!

Great article as usual Caroline and I really look forward to more on the topic, especially what you think about membership sites - and if you have any thoughts on integrating your original ecourses/ebooks within membership sites, if they are relatively broad in nature (I guess it depends also on how ‘broad’ or niche-like one’s membership site is too!)

Kind Regards
Meg :-)

Megan McCarthys last blog post..Are you having a bad day? Free Audio

I’d have to agree with a few others here and say that all three should be considered when creating products from content.

I think eBooks can serve several different functions, from bringing in a small amount of passive income from its sale (and maybe a large amount if it catches on), to affiliate income, to directing prospects to other products, to building name recognition.

The other two options would be for more dedicated customers. A course might be for someone new to our products while membership may come once our customers know and trust us to provide what they want and need.

The most important consideration is to know your strategy in creating every product form. What we do is not generally a stand-alone one-time effort - it’s usually designed to build in a series of steps into a long-term business. (Unless the format is clusters of minisites, which may end up being the same design repeated.)

Kirk

Ellis Kirks last blog post..The Secret of Internet Business Structure

Hi Caroline

I liked the idea behind Yaro’s site because he managed to keep you as a member for 6 months..where a lot of membership sites lose their members after 3-4 months..Yaro managed to extract an extra 2-3 months out of you where he could have sold other materials to you.

I do believe that the ease of making videos and mp4s has announced the decline if not the death of e-books (apart from Kindle owners!) thus a combination of courses and membership sites has to be the future of Internet marketing.

Dom

Caroline,

Thanks for the great post. I run a membership site at http://www.banjoexpert.com. It is going very well but you just gave me some great new ideas (possibly raising the price). Can’t wait for the next post!

An interesting Discussion you have started here Caroline. I am looking at developing products that would sell through a membership site of a different model. This as based on what I have learned from Michael. he has a free membership, 3 levels of paid membership, one which includes a monthly teleclass and an annual fee, rather than monthly.

I like James maths- appealing
Lots of food for thought

Suzie Cheels last blog post..Guest Writing: Beach Notes at Successful Blog

Impressive Caroline. You really managed to break them down simply, yet informatively…not an easy combo to master ;)

Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition

Caroline,

Do you think it’s viable to offer a course that doesn’t necessarily follow a sequence? Some subjects demand that you complete each “module” before starting the next, eg learning a language. Others however can be followed randomly, learning what you want as you need it, eg a cooking course where it helps to learn the fundamentals, but you can jump ahead to learn about making a specific dish.

So you set up your course with enough material to keep someone occupied for about three months, based roughly on 12 modules of one week each. You charge a set fee that gives access to the entire course for three months. Most people will clearly not renew after three months, unless they didn’t properly use the material and want continued access to it.

Unlike a genuine membership site, you’ll have to keep recruiting customers (as Yaro presumably does) but, provided your subject-matter doesn’t date quickly, the content can remain pretty much unchanged, possibly for years - ie virtually maintenance-free after the initial set up.

Some people might perceive a course as offering greater value where they’re promised a new lesson each week. Others however could feel daunted at having to keep up and might prefer the “work at your own pace” option.

Any opinions on the pros and cons of this type of course (ie set fee for access to course material for set period) would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Scotch

Caroline, how do you promote your (wordpress) ebook?

Hosting Reviews last blog post..webhostingpad.com

@James, welcome back :-)

@Mark Shaw, the funnel approach does not make money directly from the ebook itself but from the follow-on sales. Whilst that is an excellent strategy, what I am trying to discuss in this post is how best to package up a specific amount of content, rather than overall strategies in general.

@Huyoangao, I can’t claim to know the ‘best’ way to market an ebook, I can only discuss the ways that I tried myself. As I was going through the marketing process I documented all of the strategies that I used in the project page and you can see all of these posts here:

http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/ebook-project/

@Mark Mason, yeah that is an excellent point and that is exactly what I am doing. I started with a totally free ebook, my first paid project is a more in-depth course and I hope to build a membership site at some point in the future. I am hoping that each project will build upon the last.

@Codrut, I think ebooks still have their place, but it might not be for direct-revenue. Yes it is hard to come up with ideas, but look out for my post next week where I’ll be discussing at least seven such ideas!

@Megan, yeah I have seen lots of so called membership sites that are really no more than just a discussion forum for existing customers of a previously released product. Unless the owner of the product continues to provide value to that group of people, I think this is scraping the barrel a bit!

@Ellis, I agree that ebooks can be useful for more than just revenue. Many people criticised my decision to not charge for it or ask for an email but my main goal was to get the book out to as many people as possible to get some exposure for the blog and to establish myself as more than just a blogger. In that respect, it worked.

@Dom, hmm in my opinion a GOOD membership site will keep a member for years, not just for a few months. If you have to find new members every few months then you don’t really have a proper recurring income. It’s better than selling a product to new buyers every single day but there’s still lots of room for improvement. I would rather have paid $472 up front for Blog Mastermind and worked through it at my own pace in 2-3 months than have been forced to wait for the weekly lessons.

@Ryan, a banjo site! Interesting, may I ask how well you do with that? I notice that you have a lifetime membership option that works out at about 5 months worth - is that because you struggle to keep members long term?

@Scotch, I would say that depends entirely on the subject matter. Taking the cooking example, I would say that it would work well initially as a sequence-based course where you teach people HOW to cook. However, once they have reached a certain level of expertise you could then launch a membership site off the back of that giving them new dishes to try each week or whatever. Then you could continue to charge for as long as you had new dishes. I don’t actually think this would work well for the cooking niche due to the sheer number of totally free cooking sites but it could work well for other niches where you are teaching something more difficult such as flower arranging, or learning a music instrument, or DIY and so on. Teach the skills as a course then give people projects to implement in a membership site.

@Hosting Review, I no longer actively promote it as it has become out of date since the release of WP 2.5 but if you scroll up I have posted the project page that shows all the promotion that I did when I first released it.

I really like the model of writing informative ebooks and distributing them to hungry readers and using this to drive traffic to your site and build an email list. This has worked for well for me with my “Nick’s Traffic Tricks” ebook.

Nick Stewarts last blog post..Day 9: PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

Caroline,

Totally tangent sidenote: Just about every time I see your name, the track “Roses” by “Outkast” starts playing in my “internal Mp3 player.” /amusement

This is an excellent breakdown of the main content delivery systems available for monetization.

Question: You mention your WP e-book only generating $5,000 - what has it generated in traffic, exposure, and fans? For what you intended it to be - do you ultimately feel you got out of it what you wanted?

Thanks,

Meg Meyer

Meg Meyers last blog post..Internet Marketer Fires Back at “Journalists”

Will you be updating the book for 2.5? Although 2.6 is supposedly due out this summer sometime.

Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition

@Meg, that’s a good question. It’s generated a lot of traffic, a lot of links, and I know that many people found the book helpful so it’s been good for me in many ways. Even the negative publicity that it attracted has gone on to help me.

@Dennis, unlikely. The way I wrote the book was to go through the process of building a site live, and take screen captures all the way through. To update the book would require doing the process all over again which is not worth the time for me. Plus, it would be much better in video form I believe. Hmm, maybe I should do a video version…

There ya go ;)

The current one is still good for those like myself who have no plans to upgrade any time soon :-) and there are many of us around.

Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition

“Which is best?” That’s a great question, Caroline. The answer depends first on your target audience and their circumstances, wants and needs. Once you get the “who” and the “why” figured out, the “what” and the “how” become much simpler.

One thing we should never do is build a tower for its own sake. Always gotta count the cost first. Always gotta determine if there’s a better thing to build.

Easton Ellsworths last blog post..How to Overcome Fear: A Guide for Blogging Professionals

E-book may not be as effective now, if you are in the moneymaking niche…

Membership site great, but as with other products, it also has a “shelf life.” Just look at the PLR membership sites.

The product funnel still works though. Small reports still sell well for $7 a pop, and it is great to create customers. Focusing on one model and forgetting the rest is a big mistake, in my opinion.

Hendry Lees last blog post..Blog Title — Do You Write It First?

@Easton, good point about the tower. Many people say they want LOTS of money but don’t really say what for. But the more you have the more you have to manage it so there’s always a cost as you say.

@Hendy, yeah in this industry there are ebooks on just about every sub topic imaginable but I think they could still do well in niche markets that are relatively untapped.

I like the home study idea. I made some decent money using this strategy a few years ago, I think you can tap into the right areas and still do well.

portland search marketings last blog post..JetskiRentalsCalifornia.com For Sale

Hi!

Caroline, can we predict the future based on the past?

Ebooks - OK now but bleak future
========================
If we compare ebooks and softwares, it is obvious softwares is much more difficult to create and duplicate. However, if we look at what happen to softwares now, almost all of them are freely available on the net. The only software that can be sold at a hefty price tag are those that specialize in very complex and difficult task like CAD for aeroplanes, calculating trajectory to the orbit etc.. Generic software like web browser, notepad, pacman game could not be sold anymore. They need a different revenue model.

Membership sites - ok now but uncertain future
===================================
I would like to compare this to the early days of the internet. Most major newspapers (esp with financial and business niche) tried to sell membership for their online version of the paper. However, as the web matured now, we are seeing more and more membership-only newspaper started to open access to the public. They now have different revenue model as well.

Courses - if done correctly - maybe bright future.
====================================
I would like to compare this to Universities. Even though there are thousands of free info & courses online, people are still willing to go to Univ and pay a huge amount of time and money to get education there. This is because they not only looking for the courses, but most importantly, they want the degree which can be used as a weapon in searching for a job. If your course can provide this kind of values, then IMHO it is a viable long term business model.

@badralnazar, I think it’s dangerous to use the past as an indication of future trends. I’m fond of the quote by Tony Robbins “The past does not equal the future”. Especially in this very fast-moving technology, as you point out, things are changing all the time. Yes once upon a time newspapers could charge for online access but not any more. These days you constantly need to evolve and adapt.

I don’t really think of home study courses as similar to Universities though. 99% of what I learned at Uni I could have got out of the books in the library. The benefit to University is the interaction with lecturers, the ability to ask questions, feedback on homework and interaction with other students. You don’t get any of that stuff out of a home study course, well not my one anyway!

I say use the ebook as a lead in product to sell the course with the goal of getting a membership client. Membership sites are solid because they usually just grow in revenue which makes them more profitable than the average website.