One of the largest portals that are currently online for businesses, experts and those that want to make money on the side is the ability to use free ebooks. Writing an ebook is one that can bring in residual income on a continuous basis, while providing more opportunities to provide a wealth of knowledge to others. However, if you don't have the ability to write your own ebook, then understanding the different ways to make money off others’ words can help you to achieve your goals for ebooks.

Whether you are not able to write an ebook because you don't have the time or don't have the expertise as a writer, there is still a way to make money off free ebooks. Most that are browsing through the Internet aren't looking only for an expert. They are looking from guidance to those who understand the most about the craft. For instance, if you know someone who has a professional service, you don't want to know the books that are available, but would rather have guidance on what literature can enhance your own life.

Taking this same approach with free ebooks is a way to move you into reading ebooks, then guiding others to the best on the Internet. Instead of going through the process of research, writing, editing, distribution and promotion, you can simply read other's free ebooks and write reviews on them. Using micro-blogging platforms as one of the main tools and becoming an expert in what is good and what isn't will provide you with a new portal of guidance for others.

By talking about the best and worst of free ebooks available, others on the Internet will be able to see you as an authority of the online literature. By using a micro-blogging platform or social media networks, you will be able to gain a level of expertise and followers online. Doing this will allow you to build followers that look to your advice against specific ebooks that don't have the correct information or that has an outdated perspective.

The next step to take with the free ebooks that are available is to begin to link them to your personalized favorites. For instance, once you have built your set of followers for reviews, then you can begin to review affiliate programs. Since you are now a trusted and reliable source, many that are following you will turn to the same advice for promotions of products that you find valuable. Doing this will help you to gain not only a level of expertise with your understanding of different ebooks and products, but will also start to bring new levels of income.

If you have an interest in information, as well as free ebooks online, then beginning to build a secondary income by reviewing what is available can then help you to become a reliable and trusted source for the Internet. By doing this, you have the ability to guide others within your personal expertise of reviews, while building into a secondary income.

by Jonnthan Travis jonytrav[at]gmail[dot]com

Here at Software Marketing Resource we're committed to bringing you new ways to sell your software, so we're thrilled to announce the launch of our newest software discount website
BoomerApp.


So, what makes BoomerApp unlike all the other software websites out there? We think a lot. Firstly we can offer software deals that are up to 100% off of the regular retail prices.


It all works with mail-in rebates. You pay the retail price up-front, and then print out the special rebate form. After you've posted it to one of our worldwide locations we'll send you your payment within two business days.



What's more, after you've made your purchase, you may be offered another software application which you can choose to get for free instead of redeeming your rebate, the choice is yours.


We're excited to feature some great software vendors to bring you some really excellent software, at prices lower than we've ever been able to get on our coupon software discount website BitsDuJour. The rebate deals only last one week so you'll need to act fast to make the most of them.


We couldn't put together BoomerApp on our own, so we've partnered with the best in the industry. FastSpring handles all the payments, and provides a next-generation e-commerce payment processing, merchandising, and fulfillment solution. Our partner Rebate Delivery handles all of our rebate processing, bridging the gap between online sales and traditional mail-in rebates.


The rebate deals go live today, so stop by BoomerApp.com or follow BoomerApp on Twitter

The most perfectly crafted web copy will not do much for us if we do not take the time to do some Search Engine Optimization on the final design and layout of our webcopy.

Most of us, after spending some time working on writing copy, become myopic, and loose the ability to be objective about our work. I mean really, we spend a day or two writing and editing the perfect sales pitch. We run it by some family members and friends who tell us it is the coolest thing since sliced bread. We are convinced the copy writing effort will pay off. In the back of our mind, we wonder if it might even be Award winning copy. And it very well may be. In fact, we assume the copy cannot get any better, so we turn it over to the engineering staff to be put up on the website....Hooray!

But now, guess what? It is time to brace ourselves. Do we know what is coming? Our baby....the work we gave all our mental energy to, is about to be picked at, teased apart, added too, modified with new key words, optimized, with new paragraph headings added, and perhaps even a new title. Our masterpiece is coming under the SEO spotlight. The thing we did not realize is that the quickest way to cripple our advertising message on the internet is to forgo the search engine optimization of our content. What is the key phrase density? Do the meta tags meet the goals of the SEO team? What is in the top line of text? Will it need to be changed? At this point, we find ourselves compromising. Why? Because web copy and search engine optimization are two critical partners in our future profitability and success. We cannot do one without the other and expect our website to generate real profit.

If we write an article or web page that has a Key Phrase focus, it will sound odd, forced, and not quite right in the readers mind. The compelling and urgent copy that will cause the reader to move to a “Call to Action” will not be there. It is best to write a compelling, heart felt article that helps the reader, by providing information, solving a problem, or taking them to our shopping cart. After the copy is done, let the SEO experts review, suggest, and improve the copy, to reach the goals of the copy that were set out in the first place.

The perfect copy writing is producing copy that is compelling and leads readers to a call to action, and also makes use of all the SEO tools available. This is where discipline and experience come into play, Those new to the business fail to realize the importance of combining expert copy writing with expert SEO to create the perfect blend.

Expectations, that is what it is really about; we need to have the proper expectations that no matter how good of a writer we are, the SEO review will make the copy better. Even if we complete both steps ourselves, we need to know when we have on a copywriter's hat and when we have on an SEO hat.

We MUST understand the painstaking hours of labor and incredible attention to detail that go into coordinating an entire website marketing campaign. And that's what most new marketers completely miss when they're just starting out trying to drive traffic and business to their sites.

Killer Copywriting + SEO = Higher Sales Conversions!

Pat Holman is the CEO of iXod Conversion Marketing, an Internet Marketing firm.
Pat Holman

The Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) has launched a new blog. The first post, "What would you do differently if you had to start your software story again" is the first in many from the wide reaching shareware community that make up the ASP's membership. Ive been a long time ASP member, and recently an ASP board member, and have found it invaluable for the professional software developer. Read the ASP Blog here

Dr Andy Williams is offering a free Affiliate Site Blueprint.
This course includes an 180 page manual and 15 videos and it's free!

The following videos are part of the Affiliate Site Blueprint Course that you can download or read online.

Video 1: Getting Niche Ideas
This video explores a number of ways to find ideas for your niche sites.



Video 2: Merchant Reconnaissance
This video shows you how to check up on merchants in your niche. Are there any, and are they any good?



Video 3: Is there a demand?
There’s no point creating an affiliate site if there is no demand for the products in the niche. This video shows you how to check the demand of a product (and niche) before you do all of the hard work.



Video 4: Keyword Research
How do you know what people are searching for? This tutorial shows you how to use the power of Wordtracker to find exactly that.



Video 5: Deciding on main pages
This video looks at how to choose main pages for your website.



Video 6: Creating a Site Blueprint
This video looks at setting up a site blueprint, so that your site can be mapped out before you start the hard work of adding the content.
Being organized in site development will speed up development time.



Video 7: Finding Low Competition phrases
This video shows how you can easily find the low competition phrases in your keyword research database. These low competition phrases make excellent starting points in building a site as it is possible to rank highly for them relatively quickly.



Video 8: Question Phrases
One of the best ways of ensuring your content is valuable and informative is to answer real questions asked by real searchers. This video shows how to find those phrases.



Video 9: Sources of real questions
This video shows you a number of sources of real questions people ask in your niche.



Video 10: Finding theme words in your keyword research
Proof that themeing your content is coming in a later video, but for now, how do you find the best words to use to theme your content? Well this video shows you one method that uses your existing keyword research.



Video 11: Mining Top Ranking pages for theme words
In the last video I showed you how to find theme words in your keyword research database. In this video, I show you how to mine the top ranking pages in Google for a much more comprehensive list of highly targeted and relevant theme words.



Video 12: Exporting a Site Blueprint
This video shows you how to export a site blueprint from KRA Pro so that you can do something useful with the blueprint – create the content.



Video 13: Proof that themeing works
This video shows real data from my own sites highlighting the effectiveness of themeing in getting targeted traffic to your web content.



Video 14: One Large site? No problem.
Do you want to build one large site in your niche? This video shows you how to select the main categories for your site.



Video 15: Smaller Niche Sites?
If you want to build smaller niche sites, that’s easy too. Just specialize in a small part of the niche – this video shows an example.



Get the Affiliate Site Blueprint

When summer rolls around again it always means two things, one bad and one good. The "bad" is that most software vendors experience a dip in sales over summer as our potential customers, at least those in the northern hemisphere, get out of the office and work on their suntans. The "good" is that it's convention time, a chance to catch up with people you only know from exchanging emails and forum posts.

Last month was the Software Industry Conference (SIC) in Boston, which is the must-go conference for independent software vendors. Mark your calendars now for SIC 2010 in Texas and you might just catch a presentation on software promotions by yours truly!

If you didn't make it and want to get a feel for what it was like then check out these presentations that our friends from Avangate have shared:

• Online Reputation Management for Software Authors by Adriana Iordan
• Social Media Marketing For Software Authors by Adriana Iordan
• Best Cure For 2009 New Revenue Streams by Casey Potenzone

This month we were in our home town of New York for the Affiliate Summit. If you haven't been before the Summit, held twice yearly, is a large conference with a low entry price, and draws from all sectors of retail who sell online. Sunday kicks off the conference with the Affiliate Meet Market, which is a hectic free-for-all networking event, exhausting, but worth it. Many e-commerce vendors and affiliate network programs made a showing this year, but special thanks go to Denise and Rick from Digital River for throwing their exclusive cocktail party just for us software people to get together. The rest of the conference was the traditional booths and seminars.

The Affiliate Summit publishes their own survey of over four-hundred and fifty affiliates after the event. The report features dozens of charts of data, based on the responses from the participating affiliates. Also included, an uncensored view into the opinions of affiliates on a variety of other subjects. Affiliates were asked to share any complaints, ideas, suggestions or opinions they have regarding affiliate marketing. Plus there are some great resources for affiliate marketers: a glossary to explain industry terms, as well as lists of suggested message boards, blogs, and Twitter accounts that you should know about.

You can download the report or visit the affiliate survey website.

If you're just starting out as a software developer and wondering if you can justify the costs of travelling and going to a conference, then I'd say that almost all of them have been worth it for me. Putting a face to a name really cements a relationship and I always take away something unexpected and new.

This year's 2009 Software Industry Conference was no disappointment. With some great speakers and great company it was an excellent chance to put some faces to names that we knew only by email and newsgroup postings.

This year we spent a lot of time talking in the hospitality suites, here's who was on hand:

• Association of Shareware Professionals
  
• Avangate
  
• cleverbridge
  
• Digital River
  
• Shareware Promotions Ltd.
  
• Softonic
  
• Tucows