Let’s say I buy a product on how to start and run a home business and inside, the first thing the author does is talk about how he worked at Sears and was laid off and yada, yada, yada. That is fluff. Nobody cares that the guy worked at Sears. It is of no importance to me and it doesn’t help me start and run my home business. If the information is of no use and doesn’t give me knowledge that can enhance my education, it is fluff…plain and simple.

Now, in that same guide, the author includes screen prints showing how to FTP files. Now, maybe he actually explained the process somewhere in the book and maybe even clear enough so that most people should be able to understand it. However, by having a screen print of the actual process, it makes it more clear. After all, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. This is not fluff but what I call useful filler. Could the person have left it out? Probably. But it enhances the product and thus, in my opinion, is not fluff.

Okay, the question then becomes, when do you and when do you NOT put in useful filler? This is a tough call to make and I admit it. Your idea of an easy process may not be so easy to somebody with no experience at all. So for them, having that screen print or additional information (maybe a case study) can be quite beneficial to them while for somebody else, that information is totally irrelevant. You are NOT going to please everybody so don’t try. Go with your gut and include or don’t include what you think is or isn’t going to add value to the product.

For a mindset product, where you’re trying to motivate people, that story about losing your job at Sears and finally building a successful business might actually be useful…if that’s the focus of the product. But if it’s just to teach people how to start and run a home business, then it’s simply not important.

Anyway, these are just a few things to keep in mind when you’re creating YOUR next product.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Just recently, I released my first big product in about three years. The main part of the product, which customers got upon delivery, was a six volume PDF set. However, there was more to the product than just the PDFs. There are a series of videos that are going to be released over the course of the next six months. This was actually the main selling point of the product as many of the videos will be custom made to the customers’ requests.

Okay, there are pros and cons to this kind of product creation model and I will go over them both here. You need to be aware of these before you jump into this kind of product creation model. Yes, there is a downside that many people don’t think about. They only concentrate on the positives. This can be a recipe for disaster.

The pros are obvious as the day is long. By releasing a product where you have weeks or even months to complete it before final delivery, or in the case of my product, staggered delivery, you can take your time with the product. You don’t have to kill yourself to get it done. This actually makes it so that you can concentrate on making the best product possible because of the fact that you don’t have to rush through it.

However, there is a major downside to this…something most people don’t want to think about. What if something, God forbid, happens to you and you can’t complete the product? Your customers have already paid for it and are going to be more than just a little upset that they’re not going to get complete delivery, if they got any delivery at all depending upon how much of the product you initially got done. In the back of my mind, I know I have to keep myself alive and well for at least the next six months. Now, while I’m no old man at 53, let’s face it…stuff happens. I could get hit by a truck tomorrow.

So before you consider creating a delayed product release, please keep this in mind that the people who paid for it are going to expect full delivery at some point in time.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Okay, the way I see it, we have several problems with the ebook industry, especially when it comes to how to make money ebooks. Problem number one is cost of entry. Unlike the real world where it actually costs money to create a book, ebooks can be made for virtually nothing. And each unit sold adds nothing to the overall cost. There is no shipping and handling, no printing, no nothing. It’s free and clear folks. So anybody and their grandmother can churn out these things. That’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that there is no regulation in this industry. Anybody can write just about anything that they want and there’s nobody to actually look over the material to certify that it’s at least semi accurate. When you have no regulation, you end up with a lot of information being fed to customers that may be incomplete at best and dangerous at worst. I’ve read some ebooks that could bring nations to their knees. Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but you get the point.

Finally, and this may be the most important part of all, you have people getting into this industry because the big name gurus tell them that they can make a lot of money by selling these “how to make money” ebooks. So these people, without having a clue, start creating tons of virtual garbage without any concern that MAYBE they might be leading somebody down a path of destruction. And the worst offenders are the ones who tell OTHER people to do just what they were told…create a “how to make money” ebook. And the cycle goes on and on and on.

So what’s the answer? Well, I don’t have a solution other than the question posed in this article. Should the selling of these books be made illegal UNLESS you’re certified by some kind of agency that you actually know what you’re talking about? Whether you believe that or not, you know it’s never going to happen.

So for now, it’s the old “let the buyer beware” phrase that we’re going to have to live with.

Heaven help us all.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Let me start off by saying that there are definite pros and cons to putting affiliate links in your ebooks. I know you’re probably scratching your head wondering what could be bad about putting a link in an ebook that helps make us money. Well, consider this.

Your ebook is passing yourself off as an authority on a certain subject. That is, after all, why you wrote it. You know the subject better than anybody. So doesn’t it seem a little odd that inside this book, one that’s supposed to answer all the customer’s questions, has got a link to somebody else’s product? If you’re the expert, why isn’t the link going to one of YOUR products? Don’t you have something similar that is just as good, if not better than whatever that affiliate link is pointing to? Think about it.

Okay, let’s move on to what’s good about affiliate links in ebooks. They provide us an income off of a product that WE don’t have to support. The product creator supports that sale. So this is pretty much found money for us without much effort. However, if you’re going to splash affiliate links throughout your ebook, there are some things you’re going to want to do.

At the top of the list is what I call subtlety. You don’t want to hit prospects over the head with these links. You don’t want large neon signs pointing to each one. You want to mention these links in passing mixed in with the actual content you’ve written. If that method doesn’t work for you, you can simply list some resources in the appendix with your affiliate links sprinkled throughout. Whatever you do, you want to be subtle. Remember, you’ve already sold these people YOUR ebook. You don’t want to come off as selling again.

Beyond subtlety, you don’t want to have so many affiliate links in your ebook that it looks like a classified ad section. A few links throughout is fine. Again, you’ve already sold these people. You don’t want to make it look like you’re trying to soak every last dime out of them.

There is no question that affiliate links in ebooks can bring you a significant income. Just make sure that you use them wisely.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Let me start off by saying that there are definite pros and cons to putting affiliate links in your ebooks. I know you’re probably scratching your head wondering what could be bad about putting a link in an ebook that helps make us money. Well, consider this.

Your ebook is passing yourself off as an authority on a certain subject. That is, after all, why you wrote it. You know the subject better than anybody. So doesn’t it seem a little odd that inside this book, one that’s supposed to answer all the customer’s questions, has got a link to somebody else’s product? If you’re the expert, why isn’t the link going to one of YOUR products? Don’t you have something similar that is just as good, if not better than whatever that affiliate link is pointing to? Think about it.

Okay, let’s move on to what’s good about affiliate links in ebooks. They provide us an income off of a product that WE don’t have to support. The product creator supports that sale. So this is pretty much found money for us without much effort. However, if you’re going to splash affiliate links throughout your ebook, there are some things you’re going to want to do.

At the top of the list is what I call subtlety. You don’t want to hit prospects over the head with these links. You don’t want large neon signs pointing to each one. You want to mention these links in passing mixed in with the actual content you’ve written. If that method doesn’t work for you, you can simply list some resources in the appendix with your affiliate links sprinkled throughout. Whatever you do, you want to be subtle. Remember, you’ve already sold these people YOUR ebook. You don’t want to come off as selling again.

Beyond subtlety, you don’t want to have so many affiliate links in your ebook that it looks like a classified ad section. A few links throughout is fine. Again, you’ve already sold these people. You don’t want to make it look like you’re trying to soak every last dime out of them.

There is no question that affiliate links in ebooks can bring you a significant income. Just make sure that you use them wisely.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

First of all, the problem with most products begins with the sales letter. The sales letter has to paint the product in the best possible light. For example, with make money online products, this usually translates into telling the prospect how easy that is to do by just following the simple steps in the product itself. The prospect is lead to believe that it’s as easy as one, two, three and you’re done. Then they get the product and reality sets in…usually followed by a refund UNLESS the customer realizes that this is what they have to do.

That’s where the “give them what they want and slip in what they need” comes in. See, what you need to do is, inside the product itself, explain how easy the solution really is when you take it apart and show them WHY it’s so easy. Point out that each individual step, when taken by itself, isn’t really all that difficult and that how the whole thing, when it comes together, forms a near autopilot solution…if that’s what you’re selling.

For example, if you’re selling a book on Adwords, essentially, once the campaign is setup, it runs by itself and truly is autopilot with the exception of some watching over it from time to time. Yes, the actually setup itself DOES take time. But the key is not to focus on that. The key is to focus on how once the campaign IS setup, it’s virtually set and forget…giving them what they want. The slipping in what they need part comes from the actual instruction of HOW to setup the campaign.

It’s a balancing act for sure. Not everybody can pull it off. In my case, I seldom try. I usually tell people right off the bat that this is going to take work. I make fewer sales than some of the big boys, but my refunds are virtually non existent because people know what they’re getting up front.

But if you want to play the “give them what they want and slip in what they need” game, this is how to do it. Some people are VERY good at it.

I prefer to just give them what they need.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Let me start off by saying this. There are absolutely some product creators out there who pad their products with useless garbage just to increase the page count. I’m talking about information that can’t possibly be of any interest or use to anybody. You know the products I’m talking about. So okay, I’m not referring to them. I’m talking about something completely different.

For example. Somebody comes out with a product on AdWords and it’s supposed to be all these killer advanced tactics for creating ads and spying on your competition. You then open up the product and start reading and you find that it begins with three chapters on how to open an AdWords account, use their keyword tool and do geographical targeting. This is basic 101 stuff and probably has no business being in an advanced book…let alone taking up three chapters to do it.

Okay, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and explain why maybe this isn’t such a bad idea. True, the book is supposed to be an advanced book, which assumes that you’ve got a basic book lying around somewhere or at least learned some basic stuff from forums, search engines or wherever. But look at it this way. There just might be somebody brand new to the Internet who was told by a friend that they should use AdWords to promote their business and that THIS book was the one to get.

Now imagine that they got the book and all that basic info wasn’t in there. How lost do you think this person would be? All the advanced stuff in the world isn’t going to mean a hill of beans to him if he doesn’t know how to open an account, do basic keyword research and essentially setup a basic campaign without all the common mistakes that most new people make. This person would now how to go out and buy another book just to teach him the basics.

There is a fine line between fluff and useful information. And true fluff (useless trivia) is not as common as you might think. Ultimately, however, when you create a product, you have to decide who your audience is and what information they need and don’t need. Sometimes there is a balancing act that needs to be performed. Do you include that section on how to use FTP if you’ve just written a book on web design? After all, they need to know how to upload their pages after they’re done.

That is why the art of product creation is such a delicate one. One man’s fluff is another man’s saving grace.

If we remember that, we might not be so critical of other people’s products.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Probably the best way to describe this process is with an example. Let’s say that you’re writing a book on affiliate marketing where you outline a complete process for affiliate marketing. Let’s say that part of the process involves writing a review for the product that you’re promoting and slapping that review up on your blog. Now, on first glance, this info would seem quite straight forward and not something you could really expand on. But that’s where you’d be wrong.

Let’s take the blog itself. Most people really don’t know how to properly setup a blog so that it’s as optimized a possible. So right there you have a product idea. You could put together an entire ebook on WordPress that walks people through installation and every single part of a WordPress blog. You might want to go over plugins and which ones are the most important for SEO and monetization purposes. You can easily make a separate product from this information.

What about the review itself? Do you think everybody knows how to properly review a product? Of course not. This requires some sharp writing skills and some specifics about how to write a review. This could be the focus of some kind of a writing product. Certainly there is enough material for a short report that you could sell for a nominal amount.

Most comprehensive products, and this is the key, contain so much information in them that it’s literally impossible to go over each piece of information in detail. Where you have to be brief, this is where you can then create another product based on the information left out of the comprehensive product.

The key to making this all work is to start big, with an overall plan and outline, and then work your way down to the minute details. When you hit a sub topic where there is enough information to put in a book by itself, do it. Create that sub product. It won’t be something that you’ll sell at a high price tag, but it can be an entry level product for your freebie list to see who the buyers are.

Give it a try sometime. You might be surprised at the results.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Today, I got a PM from somebody at the Warrior Forum. They wanted me to look over their report and offer a testimonial. I agree to look at the report but told them that I would only provide a testimonial if the report met with my very high standards. Well, I read the report…all nine pages of it. Now granted, report length means very little. But when I read the report, it made no difference as to the length. The report was so basic that a first year marketer would have probably refunded it. Things that SHOULD have been in it were left out and what WAS in it was so worthless without the needed info that was omitted that the report itself was worthless.

I don’t think the person who wrote the report and sent it to me for review appreciated my comments. I’ve yet to hear back from them as of this writing.

Okay, so the report was crap. Great. But how can you tell if you’re the writer and what can you do to fix the problem? There is only one way. What you need to do is get a hold of a similar product, one that has gotten some glowing reviews, and see what’s in it. Does yours stack up? Is it as in depth? Is it as well written? Is the price that you’re charging for it comparable? Even if your report is good, if you’re charging 10 times what the competition is charging, you’re not going to make many sales.

Product creation requires researching the competition, plain and simple. You can’t create things in a vacuum. For one thing, how can you possibly have any idea of how good your product is if you have NO idea what the rest of the world is producing in YOUR niche? Just because YOU think something is great (all our children are great, right?) doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is going to agree. You have to learn to be objective about your work.

I hope the person who sent me their report to look at learned something from my rather blunt comments. I’d rather hurt somebody’s feelings than have them make a fool of themselves in the marketplace.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Okay, are you ready? Yes, giveaways as we know them are pretty much dead. Pull the sheet over its head and bury it with a chorus or two of “Danny Boy.” All kidding aside, the world we live in has undergone a lot of changes. People are more discriminating and skeptical than ever. Blame it on the scammers, the dot com bust or anything you want. Point is, folks just don’t buy into things as easily as they used to. At least not the “make money online” niche.

But it’s not the giveaway itself that’s dead. It’s giving away stuff that has no real value. You can’t just slap a 7 page report together on some obscure topic and call it a giveaway. Well, you could. But it’s really more of a throwaway as that’s all it’s really good for. Sure, people may opt in to your list to get it. But do you really think that after they read that piece of crap that they’re ever going to buy anything from you? I know I wouldn’t.

So what we need is a mindset shift. Instead of giving junk away in the hopes that we get somebody to buy our worthwhile product, why not give away the worthwhile product and get people to buy a more expensive worthwhile product? What, you only have one worthwhile product in you? Then maybe you’re in the wrong niche. I can think of dozens of products I could create for a multitude of niches. All you need to do is sit down and think about all the different problems in that niche. Trust me, you’ll come up with something.

There is no question that it is getting harder to reach your target market as far as offering them a freebie in the hopes that they’ll become a subscriber to your list. That doesn’t mean that the giveaway is dead by any stretch of the imagination.

It means YOU have to change the way you think about doing them.

That’s the ONLY way to bring them back to life.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.