eBooks – What were they, anyway?

A few years ago something tragic happened to internet marketing: someone figured out that they could sell “get rich quick” eBooks.  These eBooks, which range in both quality and price, have sold like hot-cakes.  In fact, many entrepreneurs have made their living selling these eBooks- it has become a very lucrative market for both the authors as well as their affiliates. 

These eBooks were both a scam and a life-changing experience, depending on how you looked at them.  For someone looking to make easy money, they never were able to fulfill their promises (after all, making money online isn’t a cakewalk).  However, for someone who needed a motivational kick in the pants to get their own online marketing started, it was just the jump start they needed.  Many people, such as myself, found their true calling after purchasing one of these eBooks- online marketing has never been the same.

Content?

The major flaw that these eBooks had was that the content within them, the very material that people had paid upwards of $50 for, was usually short and accessible freely elsewhere.  This resulted in a very dramatic shift in attitude by their customers: what was once an ignorant or hopeful client was now a dissatisfied, angry individual.  After all, paying $50 for a shell of an eBook can be a very frustrating experience.  Often, the authors themselves had written the book in a poor or inconsistent manner, resulting in a product that was both unprofessional and frustrating to read.  The result was a myriad of half-informed “affiliates” that would scour the internet, purchasing eBook after eBook, hoping to find something that would offer valuable information. In essence, an entirely new economy was created- one that was both lucrative and incestuous.

The Results

The massive success of these eBooks resulted in many people (the ones that were cashing in on the sales) proclaiming themselves to be online marketing “gurus” declaring their expertise and experience in the field. The reality is that web marketing is still in its infancy, and no one person could ever claim to have a complete grasp on everything- there’s just too much to know and too much to learn.  These guru’s all share a relatively similar client base: people that are looking for the easy way to make money online.  What these people don’t realize is that these eBook authors put hundreds of hours into their creation, but not on the actual product.  Instead, all of the time is dedicated to building and hyping the product, creating a website that is optimized for sales, as well as developing an extensive newsletter list that will provide multiple sales in the future. So the reality then sinks in: these eBook authors were not scam artists, but rather purveyors of a rather expensive lesson.  Think outside the box, and think outside the eBook.

Last summer I lost $2500 due to these ‘ebooks’.  Some of them are good, but most of them are scams. In my opinion!