Creating An Ecover - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 12

This is the twelth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.

Creating an ecover is a critical step.  With the information overload on the Internet today and the flood of offers everyone receives, you need to make your product stand out to make it sell.  

You might have the best product in the world, but if it isn’t wrapped in a beautiful package your sales will suffer, period.

Any ecover is not necessarily a good ecover.  If your image looks unprofessional or sloppy, people will assume the same of your product.  

Take the time, or spend the money, on this step because it's a vital part of your success.  

If you want to make your own ecovers, you're probably aware that Adobe Photoshop is the choice of many marketers and designers. But we don't all have photoshop - or the cash to lay out.

There are dedicated softwares which generate covers and software boxes with a few clicks, all you have to do is supply the graphics.

However, I recently came across a free online ecover generator, which produces extremely high quality images that don't bear the website's watermark (often not the case).

My Ecover Maker offers a comprehensive range of covers, cds, dvd cases and software boxes to suit almost any project...

Selection of the 20 Available Templates

There's a good array of backgrounds to pick from, or you can upload your own images. Then add text, images and other effects...

Check out My Ecover Maker

Branding & Securing Your Product - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 11

This is the eleventh in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.

Another option you may want to consider when you complete your product is whether to add security features and/or branding.  

Security features include preventing people from cutting and pasting or copying any of the content.  You can even prevent readers from being able to print it if you like.  

Depending on the software you use to compile the product, the security features available to you will vary.  Generally, the more expensive the program, the better security features it will offer.  

But one thing to consider is the rights you are offering with the product. For example, if you are offering unrestricted private label rights to buyers, there is no point in securing the product because you need to provide an unsecured version they can edit anyway.

An alternative option to selling your product with private label rights, is to sell it as a brandable product. Branding allows you to offer resell rights to a product with simple tags placed in the document. 

When readers read your copy, they see the tags specific to you - your name, your company name, website etc. 

When someone is reselling it, they can rebrand it by opening a simple branding file and inputting their values for each tag - name, company name, website etc. 

Then, simply by clicking “brand” the software changes all tags in the document to their info to make reselling a snap.  It saves your customers hours of reading every word and deciding what they need to change.

Compiling Your Finished Product - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 10

This is the tenth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.

Once you’ve completed the content of your product, the next step is to compile it, or basically wrap it up in a nice looking package.  The most important consideration for any product is…

What format is MOST widely usable in the market?

In other words, you could create an ebook and sell your finished product as a Word perfect file, but that’s just not smart, because you’d be shutting out a huge portion of the market that don't own Word perfect.  Or worst case scenario: they go out and buy it, then realizing they can’t use it, flood you with support and refund requests.

In general, the most effective format for an ebook is .pdf.  The reason being, there are many free pdf readers available to everyone to download, for example Adobe Reader or Fox It Reader.

A pdf document will display anything created in that format exactly as you intended, in other words, it'll look the same to everyone - unlike web-based pages that display differently for each person, based on web browser, screen resolution, etc.

For audio files, the best format is .mp3 because the file size is small compared to other formats and .mp3s can be played on portable players like iPods as well as personal computers through Windows Media Player and other readily available software.  

You can supply your customers with links to appropriate free software on your download page, as a courtesy. People remember sellers who are prepared to go the extra mile.

Create A Rights Page - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 9

This is the ninth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.

Once you’ve created your product and made it look professional with images, clipart, screen captures, or whatever else the next step is to make a ‘rights’ page to let customers know in clear terms what they can and cannot do with the product.

In the online world, there is so much piracy and stealing of other people’s work it’s ridiculous.  But, in some part this theft takes place because of lack of clear details about what users and customers are allowed, or not allowed to do with products.

I have purchased $1,000s worth of Internet marketing ebooks, software, guides,and other tools and often  there is no mention of rights - or if there is, it’s at the initial purchase point, but there is no information included in the download or product delivery that spells it out. 

Avoid confusion, protect yourself, and help everyone understand what they’re getting by including a “rights page.”  Here is a sample, but you can create your own with whatever terms you like:

This Product Rights Statement Generator,  By Tom Brownsword, is a quick and simple way get your Product Rights Page put together - and it's free to use.

Adding Visuals & Effects - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 8

This is the eighth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.


After you have your content created, you can add a ton of perceived value and professionalism by adding images and graphics to your product.
 
 'When you are adding photos, images, clipart, or other graphics, just make sure you use them sparingly and appropriately.  Nothing looks worse for a product than a 'filler' graphic obviously thrown in to take up space that adds no value to the product.

If the visuals you are going to use don’t make sense, don’t use them.

Avoid loading up the product with so many images that it detracts from the content and the value.

Look at a magazine with articles for examples - you won’t find articles that are 90% images because readers would feel cheated at a of lack of value.

The articles will contain a lot of good information with images placed in areas where they help explain the story - if facts and figures are used visuals charts or tables can create a clearer picture.  If you are explaining a complex or multi-step process, images or visuals can help make the point much easier when used to support your copy.

One of the biggest dangers with images is copyright laws.  Products are floating around everywhere with images you can simply right click and save and then re-use, and people do that all the time.

WARNING: Many of these images are protected by copyright laws and you cannot use them unless you have permission or have purchased rights.  So be careful when you decide to use anything you 'find' online.

This creates a big challenge because buying rights to images can be so expensive that they will eat up into your profits.

By using only trusted sources of stock images, where your rights of use for each image is clear, you can avoid copyright issues. Sign up is usually free and many offer 1,000's of quality images, clipart, animations and flash animations free. Most sites also offer more exclusive images and/or rights for a small fee.

Check out StockXchange, MorgueFile and Fotolia - to get you started.

Another fantastic way to add professional looks and also give clear examples is with screen captures.  They are exactly as they sound - screens or web pages that you would see on your computer captured and saved as an image file. 

It’s a great way of demonstrating exactly what you mean when explaining aspects of web sites or anything online.

Probably the best freeware programs I've come across for screen capturing is MWSnap.  It allows you to capture almost anything and add effects, arrows, borders and text to create a very professional looking page.

Copy Writing & Content Creation - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 7

This is the seventh in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.  

There are a few points to keep in mind when writing the copy or creating the main content for your product...

Write or speak in simple, clear language – you need to keep in mind when composing your product that unless you are marketing a book on astrophysics you need to convey your ideas in a way most people will understand.

You’ll probably have a wide audience from a variety of backgrounds and you want to make sure everyone who wants the info can understand and benefit from it.

Use an informative or humorous tone – when you’re speaking or writing, pay attention to 'how it sounds' to the reader.  You do not want to come across as talking down to readers or sounding angry.

Your product should be enjoyable for others to go through, so read through it to see how it sounds or better yet ask someone else to read it for you.

Use fonts and colors easy on the eyes or audio easy on the ears – again you want your product to be enjoyable, fun, and informative for your customers.

Inverse fonts with white text on dark backgrounds or funky fonts that may look interesting,  are usually hard to read and may annoy your readers.   For audio, avoid loud music or volume changes that may be jarring to the ears.

Keep it simple.

Write and speak in small 'chunks'.

Another good point to keep in mind is to think, write, and speak in 3-4 sentence chunks and include breaks in between.  Visually, it's much more manageable and easy to read and for audio it allows listeners to absorb and understand what you’re saying before jumping into the next topic. 

Next: Adding Visuals and Effects

Choosing A Format - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 6

This is the sixth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own private label rights (plr) products.

One important consideration is what format to use in delivering your product.  While ebooks are certainly the most popular, depending upon the subject matter, content, and length of the product you may want to consider a few different types including ebooks, audio files/.mp3s, video files, or some combination.

Not only can a variety mix things up, but some topics are more easily delivered in different formats.  Here’s a more complete explanation: 

1.    The written word (e-books): This type of informational product is by far the easiest and least expensive to produce. This medium lends itself well to many topics and can even be used for some ‘how-to’ informational products and motivational products.

A well written e-book filled with relevant information sells well on the Internet. E-books can be sold at a much smaller price to the consumer than other kinds of products because there are no direct production costs….the investment is usually entirely the time of the author.

The only tools required to produce an e-book are a word processor, like MS Word and a Pdf converter, such as Pdf forge's pdf creator. Alternatively, eWriterPro is a word processor and pdf creator all built in to one software - you can pick up a copy for less than ten dollars. 

2.    The audio product: The audio informational product requires all of the same research as an e-book, but then it also requires production and distribution investment, as well.

The good news is that with today’s computers and the software available, recording audio is a fairly simple thing to do and the quality is as good, or almost as good as recordings made in sound studios.

Audio informational products are generally used for producing such informational products as those produced for motivation purposes, marketing, finance, and business.

Production, shipping and handling can be supplied by a fulfillment center.  Alternatively, there are many desktop products now for use on your computer that can automatically generate audio files for you to offer as a digital download.

3.    The video informational product: This is the most difficult and usually the most expensive to produce information product on the market today. It;s also the most effective for many topics.

Unless you have the capability to make the video yourself, you will have to hire a videographer or at the very least you will have to buy or rent video equipment.

However, there are some informational topics that just cannot be created in any other way, i.e. action oriented themes like sports, dancing, learning to play a musical instrument, etc.

A fulfillment center can be hired in order to mass produce a DVD and distribute it. Of course, you can offer video products as digital downloads, which eliminates the need for a fulfillment center.

Again, as with audio, there are many products available for use on your PC that will create videos for you in a few mouse clicks. 

Next: Copy Writing

Choosing A Title & Subheading - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.

You might be asking - why wait until this step to create my headline and subheading?  The answer is simple - you need the outline before the title so you know what your product really covers.

For example, if you want to write an ebook on email marketing and you think up the title “Profit Pumping Emails” and a subheading “email templates that will have your list subscribers opening their wallets” and then you create an outline and decide the best content you can create is a 6-step formula for how to capture subscribers and then follow up with email, the original title and subject don’t fit the content.

By making the outline first, you crystallize what you are providing for value, and then you can choose a title that fits.

Another important point about your headline is to make sure you take the time to write it so it sounds persuasive and creates interest and/or curiosity.

The title “How to write follow up emails” just doesn’t inspire people to grab for their credit card.  On the other hand, “Creating follow up emails that suck up cash like a vacuum” just has a lot more power in it.

Use action words and words that create an image in the reader’s mind.  Create a slightly longer subheading that explains your product in greater detail.  For more help, browse Clickbank's top sellers and what their title’s look like.



Next: Deciding on Format

Creating Your Outline - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.


Perhaps the most important step in the process of creating PLR info products is to develop a simple outline of exactly what your product will include.

This is key because it forces you to think through the entire product and make sure you have enough content, that it flows logically and will make sense to users, and that you have structure to follow when putting it together.  Here’s an example...

Outline for Instant PLR Author:

I.    Intro: Why Create PLR Products
      a.    Huge demand = big profits

II.    PLR Product Creation as a Process
        a.    The system is key to maximizing profits

III.    PLR Product Creation Steps   
        a.    Steps of the process
              1.    Decide topic
              2.    Create outline
              3.    Choose title & subhead
              4.    Decide format
              5.    Write copy
              6.    Add visuals
              7.    Create rights page
              8.    Compile finished product
              9.    Brand/secure product
            10.    Create eCover
            11.    Write sales page       

IV.    Tools for Creating PLR Products
         a.    image sources
         b.    compilers
         c.    ecover creators
        d.    audio/video creators       

V.    Marketing & Promotion
        a.    Ways to promote your product
        b.    Different sales strategies
        c.    Adding backend

VI.    Other Resources
         a. tools & products to help

So you can see the power of an outline.  It is very clear what topics to cover to create a complete product.  I know when it’s complete it will provide value to readers and it follows a logical pattern.  I also know what areas I need to research and what areas I already know.




Next: Choosing A Title and A Subtitle

Pick Your Topic and Your Angle - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 3

This is the third in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products. 


By following this same process every time you want to create a new private label rights product, you can crank out winners every time that will line your pockets with cash!

The first step may seem obvious, but don’t be fooled.  If you’ve seen any products about ebook creation, no doubt that choosing a topic is not a new idea to you.  But there is more to it than that. 

To pick your topic, there are 2 main points to keep in mind:

1)    Pick something you are familiar with or are willing to research.  No matter how eager people are to buy a product, you cannot create one that contains any real value if you lack in depth information or inside knowledge about it.  If you don’t know, you can always research but keep in mind that will involve many additional hours. 

2)    Pick a topic that others are motivated to pay to learn more about.  It’s not enough that people are interested in your topic.  I’m sure an ebook about the different uses of Lima beans would be an interesting read, but it’s doubtful people will actually pull out their wallets to pay for it.

For the first point, you only know what you know.  So it might make sense to start by determining which topics are hottest (and most profitable!).  There is a trick you can use to find this out in just minutes...

Follow this link to download my secret keyword research weapon (it's free). Enter any search word or phrase to see how many searches are being done on a monthly basis and the competition you're facing - this is a great way to see how much demand and interest there is in a topic.

So, if you wanted to create a PLR product about say, fitness, a quick search shows that the search term “lifetime fitness” is twice as popular as “fitness training”.  The most important aspect is the total number of searches - if a topic is only searched a few thousand times per month there is probably not enough demand to make it worth writing.  On the other hand, 100,000 searches per month means you’ve got a hot topic. 

Of course, this step only helps you determine how popular a keyword or term is - it still doesn’t mean that particular topic will sell.  But start by finding a highly searched term then look into its selling power in a few ways:

1)    Do a general Internet search for the topic and see what the top websites are.  Are they selling information?  What type?  For how much?  In what format?  Are there plenty of paying advertisers?  In this case, the more you find the better - marketers won't put up site after site for topics that don’t make them money and similarly, they won't spend hard cash on advertising.

2)    Search on Clickbank and PayDotCom for your topic to see what information is being sold and in what formats.

Once you are sure there is a market and people will pay for your product, search to find as many information products on the subject you can, to see how they are presented and what angle each product takes.

It is very important NOT to just create a 'me too' product with exactly the same information - make the product your own by having a unique spin.  You can add personal experience to the product to give it a unique touch, or combine multiple resources to create a more complete product than anything that is currently offered, or you can take a different approach in explaining it.

The bottom line is, you MUST offer some unique value if you want to author a winner and big time money maker!

Next: Creating your Outline

The PLR Process Map - Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation: Part 2

This is the second in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products.


The first step in creating PLR products you can cash in on is to understand that product generation is a process - a process that can be followed again and again to crank out big time profitable products. 

If you just sit down and start to write an ebook or record some audio, you will have a much tougher time creating something valuable and you may need to spend more time editing and re-editing to make it marketable.  Further, when you’re ready to create your next product, you’ll always be starting over from scratch each time.

When you look at it like a process and you follow certain steps every time, you have a formula that can be used over and over to churn out profitable products that are very high quality.

Here’s an overview of the process and in the next article we’ll take each step in greater detail:

The PLR Process Map

Next:  Pick Your Topic and Your Angle

An Introduction to Private Label Rights (PLR) Product Creation - Part 1

This is the first in a series of articles discussing ways in which to profit from creating your own  private label rights (plr) products. 

You’ve no doubt seen all manner of products with varying rights attached to them.  Often these products and the rights they include can be confusing.  But it’s important to know the difference because they are NOT the same and you can get into serious trouble by violating copyright laws if you’re not careful.

Your understanding of the various ‘rights’ terms is equally important when it comes to creating and distributing your own products - you don’t give away more than you intend to by mistake, or experience weak sales because you didn’t use the right language when explaining your offer.

The basic rights you’ll most commonly come across, in general terms, are as follows. They each have variations, but this will give you an idea:

Unrestricted Private Label Rights – the most flexible of all rights and therefore most valuable.  You can do nearly anything with these products including renaming, branding and selling as your own, editing, and bundling with other products in a package.  You can also give them away, and you can sell or giveaway rights for others to resell, master resell, or private label.  The danger with giving these rights is nothing prevents buyers from turning a product around and selling it the same day at ½ the price and stealing your sales.

Private Label Rights – similar to unrestricted in that you can rewrite, edit, and call products your own.  But usually they have some limitations like only sell above a certain price and cannot give for free.

Master Resell Rights – Resell Rights, vs. Private Label Rights allow you to resell products but not edit them in any way.  You cannot call them your own, you cannot add or edit the content.  With Master Resell Rights, you can also give away the resell rights to others, and often you can give away the Master Resell Rights, allowing others to resell the resell rights.

Resell Rights – these are the weakest of all rights and therefore least valuable.  You can only resell the product.  You cannot change it in any way and you cannot giveaway or sell resell rights.

Why Create Private Label Rights Products?

I’m sure you’ve at least heard the buzz about Private Label Rights products, if you’re not already selling them for profit.  There is a very good reason these products are so popular and sell like wildfire…

The #1 Challenge for Internet Marketers is to consistently generate new products and new content to promote and sell.

And why is it the #1 challenge?  Because it is very time consuming and costly - you need the subject matter, knowledge, ability to organize your thoughts and write well, creativity to design graphics and ecovers, and the tools to put it all together.  And, even with all that, it can take 20 full hours or more to create a top quality product.

So the reason is simple - if you can systematically create high quality ebooks and info products packed with useful information that look professional, you can cash in because marketers will literally beat a path to your door and beg you to sell it to them!

In the next article we'll take a look at how you can do it…

Creative Web Design: What's It All About & Where Do You Start?

The importance of creativity when designing web sites, is central not only in the engagement of your visitors, but also in keeping them interested in your products or services and compelling them to come back for more.

First impressions are also the last impressions. Your target audience’s first impression is the front page of your website

Here’s a few tips on creating creative websites…

An overall impression of Professionalism with ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ Pages
About Us: Tell your visitors a little about yourself and your business – When was your business established? What country do you operate from? How has your business grown and what is your vision for future growth?  Who are you - the brains and creativity behind the scenes?

You're proud of your business, right? So let the world know! A photograph will help promote confidence. Include an email address where you can be contacted, or a link to a Contact Form.

Contact Us: In addition to an email address or contact form, include your snail mail address and any other way you’re customers and prospective customers can get hold of you. 

This could include a telephone number, Skype handle or another instant messenger, Twitter or Facebook, but email and snail mail at the very least.

Ask your visitors for feedback and make it easy for them to contact you and tell you what they love and hate about your site.

All pages on your website should contain links to each other and to your home page.

Make Your Website Attractive
Select your colours carefully, if you’re unsure stick to web safe colours. Avoid cluttering your web pages with too much information – you could put visitors off with too many choices. 

Try to present your website with actions that flow from page to page in a natural order. At first sight you need to pique your visitors’ interest to continue further.

Comprehensive, but compact for quick loading
Optimize your images (discussed earlier in more detail), for faster page loading and keep background images to a minimum. Fancy background images make your pages more difficult to view, read and load distracting from the main focus of the website.

Content
Text should be clear and concise and neither too large or too small. As a general rule of thumb, dark text on a light background is usually easier on the eye.  Fancy fonts may look nice, but aren’t necessarily available on  every visitors computer and may be less legible than more traditional type.

Capitalizing text is effective to DRAW THE ATTENTION, but capitalization of every sentence is much harder to read. The same is true of bold and italicized text – don’t over do it.

ALWAYS check your content for spelling and grammar mistakes. Nothing says ‘unprofessional’ quite as readily as poor sentence structure.

Framing
The use of frames is a controversial subject. While frames have their uses, they can also make your website less attractive.

Of course, if web design isn’t your forte, there are thousands of free website templates kicking around the Internet. 

These are three of our fave free template sources…

Open Web Design
Open Source Web Design
Free Web Site Templates

Something to say or know of an additional free web template source? Leave a comment below.