My name is Connie Ragen Green and I teach people just like you how to build a profitable online business and use the basic technology needed to get started in this fun and lucrative field. The first year (2006) was difficult for me online, and I ended up spending about 10K and making almost no money. I vowed that my students would not have to struggle like I did.

I have now been making my full-time income online since 2007, and earn a comfortable high 5 figure monthly income, primarily from my own programs and courses, information products, and affiliate marketing. I teach new online entrepreneurs how to write short reports and articles, as well as how to set up your own blog, set up mini-sites, use Twitter and Facebook, create info products, and write your own web sales copy, which is copywriting for the Internet.

My motto is: “If I can do it, YOU can do it!”

I took one of my students, Helen Raptoplous, to 10K a month as part of the 10K Laser Coaching program, and now I am doing it again in 2012 with student Geoff Hoff. This will help you to do the same thing in your online business, so please join us.

Follow me on Twitter!

]]> http://connieragengreen.com/make-money-online/feed/ 39 http://connieragengreen.com/passive-income-from-ebooks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=passive-income-from-ebooks http://connieragengreen.com/passive-income-from-ebooks/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 11:41:40 +0000 Connie Ragen Green http://connieragengreen.com/?p=1886 Continue reading →]]>

Passive income from eBooks is an excellent way to earn a living online. Let’s take a closer look at this strategy.

There are three main categories of income that you can receive: active income, passive income and portfolio income. Active income is what you do on a day to day basis to earn money, and you have to be physically there in order to do it. For example, if you have a job, work as a freelancer or an independent contractor, or exchange your time for money in any way, the money you receive is all active income.

Portfolio income is money you receive as a result of investments, royalties, dividends, and capital gains, so we will not discuss that here.

Passive income is income you generate long after you have done the initial work. This is sometimes referred to as residual income, but the online community tends to not use that term. Instead of trading your time for an hourly wage, passive income allows you to create products that will sell for years to come. This process of working once and being paid over and over again is one that will make a huge difference in your life.

Passive income is a business that brings in money when you are on vacation, sleeping or in the hospital with your sick loved one. There are all kinds of passive income streams – but for this post I am going to be talking about how you can harness the power of the Internet and use it to make a good living, or a great living, depending on how much time you want to spend laying your foundation and setting up your businesses.

There are many different definitions for the term passive income, but here it is:
Building multiple online businesses that take advantage of automated systems that allow transactions, cash flow and growth to happen without requiring a real time presence.

Passive income does require quite a bit of work initially, but once you have everything set up it is more a matter of maintenance to keep the income flowing. Here are some of the passive income streams I have been involved with since coming online in 2006:

• Affiliate marketing – my favorite!
• Writing and marketing eBooks
• Online courses
• Blogging
• Writing reviews
• Niche sites (also known as mini-sites)
• Joint Ventures (JVs)
• Squidoo lenses
• AdSense
• Amazon

I recommend starting out with only two or three of those to see which ones work best for you. Writing and selling your own eBooks on topic you are familiar with is one of the best ways to get started. Everything you do online will require some writing on your part, so spend the time learning how to properly write an eBook and then you will have lots of content to repurpose for the other methods I have shared with you. This means that you will write once, and then be paid for it over and over and over again. That is pure passive online income at its best.

I continue to do this as I build my business on the Internet and love the idea of writing for a living. You can do the same thing if you are willing to spend the time learning and implementing on a regular basis. The best eBook writing and marketing training is from Jim Edwards, and

The most common question I am asked is about how to create a free giveaway. This is the information I share with my highest level mentees:

Are you creating irresistible free giveaways to build your list and grow your online business? We must always be prospecting for new people to add to our list. These people will join your list by finding you in one of a variety of ways and then deciding that they absolutely must have your free giveaway in exchange for their name and email address. Think about the last time you joined someone’s list. More than likely they were offering a free gift that you felt you just could not live without. This is the feeling you’ll want your prospects to have every time.

As online entrepreneurs, we are problem solvers. Start by making a list of the biggest problems and concerns of your target audience. What types of things might keep them awake at night and make them want to search for solutions first thing in the morning? For my niche, the biggest problems I am solving are around helping people to replace income lost after a job loss, health issue, or early retirement. You must know what it is for your niche, and if you are not sure, ask people on the social media sites to help you out.

Once you know what your audience is concerned about, set about creating a short report or audio that helps them to begin to solve their problem. Your free giveaway will not completely solve their problem, because that specific information is more of what you would include in a product. Instead, think of your free giveaway as your opportunity to get people headed in the right direction so they will see that you are the right person to help them achieve their goals.

Now, back to the short report you will write. Typically I will write several articles and blog posts on my topic to get started. Then I will choose the very best and most relevant information from what I have written to include in a short report. I like to write about five pages, which comes out to about two thousand words or so. You will notice that I start repurposing my content right away, as I have now written blog posts, articles, and a short report from the same material. I write every word myself so that I know my new prospects will be learning directly from me.

People judge us on what we create, so now it’s time to make your report more attractive. I do this by adding a cover page, putting a colored  border around each page, including a footer with a link back to my blog or other site, and adding a couple of royalty-free images. Also, use a sans serif font that is easy to read, such as Tahoma, Verdana, or Arial. I usually make my sub-headlines about size 14 or 16 and the body of my report is size 12 for best results.

Once you have written your report, convert it to PDF. This is available as part of the newest Word programs, or at no cost from Open Office. This PDF is then uploaded to your server through your WordPress site or by using an FTP – file transfer protocol – program. This is simple enough to do, but you may choose to have a web person do it for you.

Audio recordings are also very desirable as free giveaways, so think about reading your report and including that as a download, along with your written report. This allows you to have an extended reach to people who primarily consume their information by listening instead of reading.

Set up your site so that a new prospect will opt in, be taken to a thank you page, and will then need to check their email for the download link. This will build your list quickly and get you off to an excellent start. Remember that the idea here is to offer your new prospects an irresistible free giveaway to bring them into your marketing funnel.

Creating your own information products and selling them on the Internet is an excellent way to earn both passive and residual income. My first year working online (2006) was a struggle because I did not do this, and once I did everything changed for me in a big way. Think about the topics you know something about, the market for products in that niche, and the way that you can establish your credibility so that people will think of you as one of the experts in this area. When you learn how to create information products your business will soar.

I was on a flight recently and began talking with the man sitting next to me. He was a businessman who flew each week to someplace in the United States. He was so intrigued when I told him what I did online that he said he’s like to create his own information product to sell. Then he said that he wasn’t an expert at anything, something that I hear on a regular basis. I told him I could prove otherwise if he was willing to spend a few minutes talking about it.

I asked him about the regular travel he did every week. He told me how much fun it was to meet new people and to visit new cities. Then I asked him what he disliked the most about his work. He said that the very worst part was the problem he used to have with his ears when he was in an airplane. He had terrible pain, and sometimes it would last for an entire day after he landed. It had caused all kinds of problems, such as not being able to hear someone talking to him, feeling nauseous, and embarrassing him in front of his clients.

Information product creation is all about solving problems for people. This was a perfect example of this, so we explored it further. He said that he used to have this problem, so I asked him what he had done to remedy the situation. For the next ten minutes he detailed the exact steps he took to eliminate this problem, and how it had been several months since it had recurred.

That was his expertise. He could help anyone to enjoy their flight and not have the ear pain and other issues associated with flying. By the end of our flight we had outlined the information that we would share with others on this topic. He was on his way to becoming an online entrepreneur after spending just a couple of hours talking it out.

What is your area of expertise? How can you help to solve a problem for others? Think about this and decide if this is information you would like to share with those who need it most and are willing to pay for a solution to their problem.

The training I recommend on this topic is from Kathleen Gage. Her training on how to create information products is hands-down the best program available. I am in this program and can tell you that the forum, course materials, and additional training have made this the best investment I have made in my future in a long, long time.

Making money on the Internet has a lot to do with the people you know. Who do you spend time with right now in your daily life? Did you know that the five people you spend the most time with will determine just how much money you will be able to make? As you change and grow as an online entrepreneur, you will start spending time with a different group of people, and that is part of the way that you will be able to increase your income significantly.

So, what happens to the people you now consider to be your closest friends? If they are not doing anything to change their own circumstances it won’t be long before you see that you do not have as much in common with them as you once did. I used to spend time with other teachers while I was a classroom teacher. We talked about the same things day in and day out, complained about the school system, and did very little to learn and grow in other areas of our lives. I also worked in real estate during this time, but there was always some jealousy around this so we never discussed what was going on in that industry. As I started building my Internet business in 2006 I began to stop spending time with this group of teachers. Slowly we lost contact, and today I am only friends with a few of them. These are people who are now retired from teaching, and we have more in common based on what we are doing currently in our lives than from the time when we were all classroom teachers.

Even people you meet and like in the Internet marketing space may not be the right ones for you to spend time with. I listen to what people are talking about to see if they are on track with what I know and believe in. For example, someone I have known for a couple of years now was telling me recently that gasoline prices in the Los Angeles area are a dollar higher than in the rest of the United States. This is not true, and this person has not traveled extensively or done any research in this area. It’s no wonder this person is still struggling financially and spending time with others who have very little going for themselves as well. To make statements out of ignorance is one way to keep people from wanting to spend time with you. Think about the statements you are making and the topics you discuss. Be open to learning new things and seeing a different perspective from those you meet. Make yourself desirable to those who are making money on the Internet and could be good friends and mentors to you.

Make it your goal to find some new people to spend time with. If you focus on this, within one year you will see a significant difference in your thinking and in your bottom line.

Starting a home based business is attractive to almost everyone these days. The world has changed significantly during the past few years, and starting a business in 2012 is a very different proposition than it was in years past. We have fully arrived at the intersection of a global economy and unlimited possibilities. The sky is the limit once you know how to begin. My experiences have been in the area of starting an online home-based business which is run exclusively on the Internet.

According to many publications and blogs written by those in the know, we are in the midst of a digital gold rush that has new online entrepreneurs running for riches. I don’t think of my own business in this way, but I do see why so many of us are opting for the lifestyle afforded by working from home, or from wherever you happen to be that has an Internet connection.

I’ve worked from my family’s summer cottage in Finland, an Internet Café in Amsterdam, on a blanket by the beach in Santa Barbara, many different airports around the world, and from my home office in Santa Clarita, California.

The decision to come online was one that I made after long and careful consideration. After working as a classroom teacher in Los Angeles for almost twenty years, as well as working as a real estate broker and residential appraiser, I knew that I was ready for a change. My criteria was simple; I wanted to be able to work from home and earn as much money as I was presently making working as a teacher and in real estate. I never realized that I would be able to more than double my income while working less than half as many hours each week.

You can do the same thing as I have done, or do it in the way that fits your personality and goals. I have students on six continents following in my footsteps, and each one of them began with just an idea and a dream.

First, make a list of everything you are interested in, whether or not you are actively involved in it at the present time. My list would include photography, tennis, small dogs, traveling by car, and more. I have a grandson who loves skateboarding and snowboarding, and this is the area he now specializes in online.

Next, do a search online to find out what people are buying in the area you have chosen. In the case of skateboards and snowboards people are purchasing books, videos, equipment, training information, clothing, travel packages, and more. You want to make sure there will be ways for you to monetize anything you set up, instead of just free information.

Now it’s time to set up a WordPress site for you to start writing about your topic. This is easier than ever these days. We no longer need to learn how to program or write code or even use programs like Dreamweaver or Front Page to build websites. It’s all just a few clicks of the mouse with WordPress. You’ll be setting up a blog where you can share your information and experiences with readers. Including pictures is also beneficial.

Finally, you need something to sell. I recommend becoming an affiliate for Amazon to begin with. Go over to Amazon.com and scroll down near the bottom of the page where it says ‘Make Money With Us – Become An Affiliate’ to sign up. They provide detailed information on how to do this.

Spend some time several times a week writing a few paragraphs about your topic and sharing your personal experiences. My sites are about starting a home-based business and I give examples of how this works for me. One of my students writes about customer service and shares her thoughts and experiences on this topic.

It’s all about visibility, credibility, and profitability, and that’s what you’ll be creating with your blog, your experience, and quality products to promote. It will take you about a month to get up to speed with what I am sharing here, and then you’ll be ready to take your home business to the next level. I’ll be here to answer your questions and provide you with valuable resources on how to do this for your topic.

Are you challenging yourself to productivity online? You can always increase your productivity in your online business, and challenges may be helpful. I believe that we can all benefit from a good challenge. In fact, challenging yourself to improve can make a huge difference in your business and in your personal life.

In 2007 I challenged myself to write 100 articles in 100 days. I was able to reach this goal in only 78 days, and I’ve gone on to write 1,655 articles since that time. As I got into the habit of writing every day my skills improved and my productivity naturally increased.

In 2009 I hosted the first ever 30 Day Blogging Challenge. This was a huge milestone, and now many people have gone on to host similar challenges. What started out as my way of helping others to increase their blogging output turned into a global endeavor that still pleases me to watch.

Right now I’m part of a team to lose weight and improve my health in a Fitness Challenge. I work at this every single day and love seeing the results. Being a part of a team keeps everyone motivated and committed to success.

There is currently a List Building Challenge that will show you how to get more qualified people on
your list. You can join in and increase your numbers quickly.

I’m also currently on Day 6 of my own 21 Day Productivity Challenge. Join us and see just how much your productivity online will improve over the course of just a few weeks.

Challenges definitely make you stronger, so I encourage you to make them a part of your daily life to see what you can accomplish.

You can avoid making affiliate marketing mistakes by learning how to set up your marketing campaign for optimal results.

So maybe you’ve found a good affiliate program, one that pays you recurring commissions on a high-quality product or service. Now you’re just imagining all the money you’re going to make. But then something happens…

Or to state it more accurately, nothing happens. You can’t get traffic. And the little trickle of traffic you do get doesn’t seem to convert very well. And so all your dreams about raking in tons of recurring commissions get crushed.

So what’s the problem?

It could be a number of things, but here are the three biggest mistakes that affiliates make:

Mistake #1: Sending untargeted traffic.

If you’re using “home page swaps” to sell dog training, that’s untargeted traffic. If you’re using a vague pay-per-click keyword like “dog training” to sell a dog agility course, that’s untargeted traffic. Or if you’re sending weight loss offers to your online marketing list, then you’re tapping into an untargeted traffic source.

Point is, you’ll get a much higher browser-to-buyer conversion rate if you send laser-targeted traffic.

Example: So if you’re trying to sell memberships to a weight-loss site that’s designed for women, then find women who need to lose weight (brides-to-be, new moms, those who’ve experienced the “Freshman 15” or middle-aged spread, etc).

Mistake #2: Neglecting to presell the offer. You can’t just throw your affiliate link in front of your prospects and expect them to jump all over the offer. Instead, you need to tell them why they should buy it.

Once your prospects are “warmed up” and interested in the offer, then you can send them to the sales page to close the sale.

Mistake #3: Not building a relationship with prospects. Let me ask you something: Whose advice do you trust more, your friend’s or that of a stranger you just met on the street?

Naturally, you trust your friends more. And so do your prospects. That’s why you’ll get more sales if you build relationships with your prospects before you start selling to them. You can do this by publishing a blog or newsletter and interacting with your readers.

Now you know the mistakes. So let’s talk about the RIGHT way to send traffic to your affiliate offers…

Step #1: Create a Mailing List. For this step you’ll need:

• An autoresponder, such as through Aweber.

• A freebie to entice people to join your list, such as an ecourse, report or video. This freebie should be directly related to the affiliate offer you’re promoting.

• A squeeze page. This is a mini sales letter that gives your prospects all the reasons they should join your list.

Now your goal is send traffic to your squeeze page to build your list (rather than sending traffic directly to your affiliate offer).

You can do this in a variety of ways, including:

• Forum marketing (using signature files).

• Writing and submitting articles to article directories, like IdeaMarketers.com and Submit Your Article.

• Guest blogging (getting your articles published on other people’s blogs).

• Using social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

• Leveraging other peoples’ resources through joint ventures.

Step #2: Build Relationships With Your Subscribers. Now that you have your prospects on your list, you need to start building trust.

The best way to do this is to send them useful content. In other words, solve at least part of their problems… for free.

Step #3: Give Your Subscribers a Reason to Buy. The last step is for you to start telling your subscribers about the affiliate product or service you’re promoting. At a minimum, you need to tell them WHY they should buy. That is, what are the benefits of this product or service?

You can also sweeten the deal by tossing in your own bonus for those who purchase the offer through your link.

Example: If you’re selling memberships into a weight loss site, then offer a free low-calorie cookbook to everyone who joins.

And there you have it: The top three affiliate mistakes and the three easy steps to earning more money with recurring commission products.

Your next step is easy – get promoting!

Your marketing funnel is a part of doing business online. Creating and repurposing your content will help you to set this up in record time. I use a simple but effective five part process that I will explain in greater detail here.

You may already know that eBooks continue to grow in popularity on every niche topic imaginable. This is true around the world, where sales of eBooks and books for the Kindle and Nook have long since overtaken those of traditional books in paperback and hardcover. So, how can this help you to set up a marketing funnel that will build a profitable online business?

I recommend creating five pieces of content as your basic marketing funnel. These could include a short report, which I refer to as a Special Report; an e-course, broken up into five parts; an eBook on your specific niche topic; a book written for the Kindle and Nook; and a multiple lesson online course where you explain in greater detail how someone can benefit from what you know. I have done this in several areas over the past few years, earning a great income along the way and increasing my visibility and reputation as an expert in my field.

Start by making some notes about the information you wish to share with your target audience. This will give you some clarity about how you wish to present yourself to the world. Remember that you can become an expert in just about any area you are willing to take on and learn about extensively, so give this enough thought that you can feel good about what you will be doing for the next few years. You can always change your goals, but I recommend choosing an area where you will be comfortable for at least the next one to two years.

Write a few articles on your topic and submit them to the article directories. This enables you to receive almost immediate feedback on whether this topic is of interest to the marketplace. You can tell by how many times it has been viewed and how many times someone has clicked on the link in your resource box.

You will then want to expand those articles and include them in one document that will become your short report. Give it a title, add a border around each page, and include a call to action at the end so that your reader will know what to do next.

Now you can pull out five key points from this report and turn that into an e-course. Remember that each lesson need only be two or three paragraphs, and that you may include a link to one of your products, or to an affiliate product, at the end of each lesson.

The next step is to put together an eBook that encompasses all of your knowledge on your specific topic. Use your articles and short report as the foundation of this writing, and then expand upon each section until you have more content. Jim Edwards has a new training that will help you to write your eBook quickly. You can then publish your eBook on Amazon for the Kindle and on Barnes & Noble for the Nook.

The final part of your marketing funnel is a multiple part course that you can teach live. I do this several times each year, and each time I do I am able to reach a new audience of people who are interested in what I am doing. I also recruit affiliates to help me get the word out about what I am doing. These live courses then become home study trainings that can be sold for years to come.

This method of product creation gives you a funnel with a variety of price points. You start with free e-courses and short reports, move on to eBooks and books for Kindle and Nook, and then move up to online courses that can sell for hundreds of dollars. You can see how having an eBook just makes sense when it comes to creating niche-specific content to build a marketing funnel for your business.

You can learn more about affiliate marketing from ‘Super Affiliate’ Rosalind Gardner than from any other individual online today. Starting out in the late 1990s, Rosalind took her interest in online dating and turned it quickly into a half million dollar a year business she can run from home. Earning this type of income made it possible for her to travel the world, so now she runs this same business from wherever she happens to be that has a high-speed Internet connection.

All of her income is derived from affiliate marketing. That’s right, the only product she has, after more than ten years of working online, is the eBook she has written on How To Become A Super Affiliate. I recommend going through this 209 page eBook page by page to learn exactly how you can get started in a similar way. That’s what I did and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

Rosalind worked for years as an air traffic controller. Even though this is an excellent career, there are strict regulations on when you must retire. Also, it involves nights and weekends, and Rosalind made the decision to change careers while she was still in her thirties.

She started her dating blog, and then joined the affiliate programs from several online dating sites. Each time she mentioned one of them in a post, or included a banner on her site, she had the opportunity to earn income as an affiliate. This can really add up over time. Soon she was recommending other products and services, including clothing, jewelry, travel, and much more.

These affiliate programs enable entrepreneurs to create a business promoting other people’s businesses and bypass the entire product development and product testing phases. This is huge in that you can literally start earning money on the first day if you are willing to set up a blog and provide helpful information to those who are interested in your topic.

She would write a review of the various dating services so her visitors could quickly understand the main benefits, pitfalls, special features, and other information to see if the service met their needs. If it did, and they clicked through her affiliate link to sign up, Gardner made a commission.

She also recommends not spending much on website design. I have always followed this thinking as well, and use free or inexpensive themes to get my sites up and running quickly.

Gardner also offers a newsletter from her dating website in order to update her visitors when new dating services and products come available. People look forward to receiving her information because they are so passionate about the topic. She is building trust with her readers so they are more likely to make a purchase using her affiliate links.  Instead of just referring them over to the merchant’s site and losing them forever, Gardner captures them and makes them her customer first… and then hands them off to the merchant.This make much more sense.

So, what can you learn from Rosalind Gardner’s business model?

~ Keep it simple
~ You do not need your own product in order to get started
~ Affiliate marketing is profitable

I encourage you to read Rosalind’s Super Affiliate Handbook and get started today.