It's now official what a lot of people in Information Marketing have been suspecting this year: the explosion in the sales of eBooks. In fact, they are 3 times higher in the first 6 months of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011. The figures released from Publishers Association puts the figures at £64 million (104 million USD) compared with £24 million (37 million USD). This is an impressive statistic, you might agree with me.
So what is information marketing? In basic terms it is the packaging of knowledge or some creative work such as a story in a digital format: could be a book in a Portable Document Format (PDF) known as an eBook or some other work in a CD or DVD layout. This is the information side of the equation. The marketing side of the equation also falls on the authors lap: this may be a boon or bane for the originator. Information marketing is also known as self-publishing.
There is bit of a revolution happening in publishing at the moment. This self-publishing movement gives the author complete control of how, where and what price to sell his or her work: the greater the marketing effort, the greater the potential financial rewards.
I keep on coming back to the same point: in the current internet revolution which is growing rapidly but still has a long way to go, we all have the potential to sell something, since in this vast global market place you will find a willing buyer. In other words, the world is turning into a huge Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) place where anyone with access to an online computer can be a seller and at the same time a buyer too.
The internet is a great leveller: the purveyer and the consumers of information are engaging in a great exercise in democracy. It is now encouraged and easy to share your experiences and knowledge on the internet; equally, the consumers have the power to either love it or shun it. But the important thing is to get your information out there to as many people as possible. In other words, market your work well.
Producing and marketing digital products can be potentially a very lucrative proposition which has been proven with many successful marketers. So, the fact I am writing about information marketing in this article is to suggest that it can be an excellent source of online income.
There are in my opinion, mainly two types of people who delve in information marketing: so for those people involved with producing ebooks, they are either interested in telling a story well and those who are brilliant marketers. The latter have seen a great need to get out there and distribute the information in digital format and are reaping abundant rewards. A few are good at both, and they tend to end up there at the top of the MLM pile.
Why is there such a great thirst for information in a digital format? In my opinion because of three simple reasons which I will call the three Cs: Convenience, Cost and Completeness. Convenience because digital products are really easy to obtain by download; they are substantially cheaper because they do not normally involve any shipping; and completeness because the information has been put together to solve a particular problem. The third point is also important for this reason: due to the limitations in current search technology, it is not normal to find a solution to a problem you have by looking at a single search result; or perhaps even two or more. It is however, very likely that you will find the solution in an eBook that has been written on that topic. Furthermore, the author has also written about his or her real life experience with the problem you may be having and how it was overcome.
Furthermore, a digital product is never complete: it evolves with the feedback from consumers and developments, just like a piece of software requires regular updates.
Supplemental evidence of the popularity of eBooks is in the eBook reader sales: for instance very recently, Kindle, the ubiquitous eReader from Amazon got sold out-millions of them!
What to write about, how to go about writing it and most importantly how to sell your products, is what you should start thinking about if you wish to succeed in this lucrative market.
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