So you’ve sat down at the kitchen table, wrote some ideasfor an ebook down on ... one you liked and thought “Where do I go from here?” The answer is simple, visitthe forums that relate to your
So you’ve sat down at the kitchen table, wrote some ideas
for an ebook down on paper,
found one you liked and thought “Where do I go from here?”
The answer is simple, visit
the forums that relate to your subject. Now don’t get all
excited yet young grass hopper,
there’s proper protocol you must follow! You can’t just go
into a forum and copy and
paste the information from other peoples post and call it
your ebook. That’s a big no, no.
“Well than how do I go about it you ask?” How do I get the
information for my ebook
that I need if I can’t just use other peoples knowledge?
The answer is you can use other
peoples knowledge, but only with permission. When you visit
the forum get a feel for
how everyone posts and the “hot topics”. Read and pay
attention to the hot topics and
note the major complaints of posters (there’s always people
complaining). Approach the
moderator(s) of the forum and ask them for permission to use
their forum to gather the
information needed for your ebook. All they can do is say
no, when you approach them
tell them the idea for your ebook, your real name, address,
and telephone number. The
majority of operators will appreciate your honesty and will
give you permission and may
be willing to help you out even more. Once you get their
blessings, you have a lot of
information that you will be privy too and that you can
actually use. Just talking about
this technique makes me drool and you should be drooling
too. Can’t you feel the
excitement? Close your eyes and think about the huge
opportunites that could open up
for you. Not only will you have more than enough
information to create your original
info product but you should be able to create your backend
product as well. If you have
the information available to you why not get the consumer
from both ends? Your helping
them and their filling your bank account, what more could
you ask? I used this approach
recently with an ebook that I’m creating. Let me explain,
the moderator appreciated my
honesty (I even told him and all the other members of the
forum that I would be charging
for the ebook.) But before I did this I made one key
mistake, one that I learned from.
The key is to not just sign up for a forum, ask for
information and explain that you would
be charging for the ebook using only your screen name and
nothing about yourself. I did
this, call it paranoia or whatever. I did not know who I was
dealing with, but neither did
the moderator or the members. I completely understood where
they were coming from.
The internet is so much different than the offline world, I
find people to be much more
trusting in the offline world. Gaining trust on the
internet is liking asking your dentist not
to cause you any pain, difficult to do unless he puts you
under. Anyways, my first
approach flopped big time. One forum member even replied
“Oh great, another one who
wants to profit from our hardwork.” The forum moderator
contacted me by email and
explained that they “may” be willing to help me if I gave a
little more information about
myself such as where I was from etc. God...I felt like such
a bonehead. I couldn’t fault
him for that though, I explained to him that I was vague on
my posting of personal
information because you never know who’s looking over your
shoulder on the net...such
as hackers. In the end I told him my real name, address,
and phone number. He emailed
me back and said thank-you, he stated he felt much more
comfortable in dealing with me
and gave me permission to use his forum to gather the
information I needed. After
receiving that email from him, I went back to the forum and
felt I needed to defend
myself a little with the one sceptic. I explained very
diplomatically to the poster that he
was entitled to his opinion, but at least I was being honest
about charging for the ebook.
So the moral of the story is honesty is key to using forums
(I was being honest, just
vague...duh!!), introduce yourself properly...not like I did
the first time. From that
mistake I made I learned another valuable lesson when it
comes to using forums, instead
of just emailing the moderator I will now take it one step
further...I will call the
moderator via telephone if possible. When I do complete the
ebook all contributing
members will get a free copy of the e-book and will be
credited with any info they give
me in the book. And the one member that had a problem with
my first post apologized
for his comment and actually is one of the major
contributors of information for the
ebook...go figure eh?
Learn from my mistake, good luck in all of your upcoming
projects.
Brian.
