In my recent post on the importance of having your own product to sell I was asked in comments by Todd for advice on choosing the best topic to create an ebook on.

Here are a few quick thoughts on some starting points for choosing a topic for an e-book – mainly for people who already have a blog:

Todd – Good question. For me it was partly just about blogging for a number of years in my niche and starting to just get a hunch for what would work. I guess in that time I began to see patterns in what was working and what was not working in my niche. I also began to get to know my readers more and saw the challenges and problems that they faced.

Of course saying ‘go with your hunches’ isn’t probably the answer you were after – so below I’ve identified a few steps to work through in choosing a topic for an E-book.

Step 1: Ask Some Questions about Your Readers and Their Needs

here are some questions I’d suggest you consider to help you identify and sort through those hunches.

• what questions do you keep getting asked repeatedly by readers (via email, in comments etc)?
• what are readers asking you to make recommendations on?
• what posts on your blog are getting the most visitors?
• what posts on your blog are getting most comments/discussion?
• what trends are emerging on your topic in your niche?
• what’s the biggest problem or challenge for people in your niche – particularly for beginners?
• what terms are people searching for to arrive on your blog?
• what words are people searching for on your blogs search tool?

Answering these types of questions should point you in the direction of some topics that could be suitable for an e-book.

Step 2: Ask Some some More Probing Questions to Narrow in on the Topic

Once you’ve identified some of these topics you will probably want to narrow the field a little by asking some of these questions:

• what topics have you written a lot about already that you could pull together as the basis for an e-book? (see a note on this below)
• what do you know enough about to write something useful? Do you have the authority and expertise to write it yourself or should you outsource the writing?
• are you interested in or passionate about the topic? I’m sure that not all authors are passionate about their topics but it sure helps because there is a lot of work involved!
• is the topic you’re thinking of writing about something that really needs more than a single post – can you write enough to justify it being an e-book and something people pay money for?
• are there many other resources already available on the topic – how will yours be different?
• is the topic you’re thinking about too wide or narrow? Sometimes topics are too big and could end up being a series of e-books. ON the other hand some topics are too narrow to really justify being an e-book and perhaps it’d be best to widen it and look at a larger topic.

Step 3: Test Your Topics

Once you’ve narrowed Your Field – test the topics that you’ve come up with. I’ve seen a number of bloggers come up with ideas for big projects that they think are great which in reality are not. If only they’d tested their ideas before investing significant time into them!

You might want to bounce them off a fellow blogger, perhaps test them with a small group of trusted readers, ask some questions on Twitter etc. If you’ve not covered the topic much on your blog before you might also want to test the idea on your blog with a post on the topic to gauge reader interest. Alternatively you might run some kind of poll to see if your suspicions about your readers needs are confirmed.

The key is to try to find out if the topics you’re thinking of writing about are the types of things people are REALLY interested in and willing to pay for. Note: This might be an ideal time for a survey.

Three last thoughts:

1. ‘How To’ Topics – My suspicion is that ‘teaching’ or ‘how to’ type e-books are going to be more attractive to potential buyers than other types. I’m sure there will be exceptions but most of the e-books that I’ve seen do well either lead people through a process, explain something, solve a problem or give them skills and understanding over a particular topic.

2. Start with a Problem – when it comes to selling an e-book you’ve got a lot better chance of convincing someone to buy it if you can tell them that it’ll solve a problem that they have. In my e-books I took the problems/challenges of ‘building a better blog’ and ‘taking better portraits’ and centered everything in the e-book around them. These problems were reflected both in the writing and the marketing of the books. Once you’ve identified a problem you’re on the right track.

3. Repurposing Old Posts – I mentioned above that you might like to consider what topics you’ve written about a lot already that you might be able to base an e-book on. All I’d want to qualify this with is that you’ll probably want to add some solid extra content to these types of e-books. I’ve proved (twice) that people are willing to pay for stuff you’ve published before but in each case I worked hard on adding extra material to make it more valuable.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

3 Steps to Help You Choose a Topic for an E-Book

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10 Steps to Successful Selling on eBay.

So you want to be a successful seller with your own eBay business, do you? Here’s a simple, ten-step path to eBay enlightenment.

Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn’t out of the items you’re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You’ll probably see the ’sweet spots’ quite quickly – those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.

Step 2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.

Step 3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are – don’t be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s, then you’re set.

Step 4: Start small: Don’t throw thousands at your idea straight away – get started slowly, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn as you go. Remember that it’s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!

Step 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don’t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche.

Step 6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you’ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.

Step 7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.

Step 8: Make it official: Once you’ve made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don’t worry, it’s not expensive or hard to do – a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.

Step 9: Automate: You’ll probably find that you’re writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.

Step 10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it’s all going wrong, don’t stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you’ll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.

One thing that has helped me build a rating of over 100 in a few months is selling information products on CD over and over. You can learn how to do this, as well as what it take to make a full time living at http://americanrublesdollarstore.com in the Money Making section with the Everything Ebook A Seller’s Guide

Website flipping is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing industries on the internet. However, it is also a fact that the industry is hyped to some extent, as there are not many web masters out there who confirm to have gained huge profits from the business of website flipping. So what differentiates a successful website flipper from a website flipper who is a failure or is not that successful? This article aims at helping all those website flippers who are considering website flipping as a serious profession and want to avoid all the reasons which can hinder their success. Please find some important facts below, which will give a clear understanding of the reason why many website flippers fail to make it big in the industry: 1) Lack of thorough research: Website flipping is definitely one of the most profitable jobs on the internet, and hence it does not come as a surprise when many skilled webmasters are tempted to jump into the vocation without researching the niches thoroughly. One fact which no webmaster can afford to ignore is the importance of a dynamic niche. Any website, however well-designed, is going to attract potential buyers only if it includes a topic which is of interest to many. 2) Determining on a niche which cannot be monetized: It is not only important to determine on a popular niche, but it is equally important to check the feasibility of the monetizing factor of the determined niche. One of the primary reason for the failure of many webmasters is that they do not give due importance to the monetizing factor. Websites with niches which are difficult to monetize are likely to fetch very low or no profits. 3) Neglect content: Quality content plays a very decisive role in determining the value of the website. Any website with a poor content is bound to be ignored by many buyers. Poor content is an indication that the website was dealt by an unprofessional, and hence is very unlikely to attract any high paying buyers. No doubt that, a website flipper who does not attach due importance to the content factor, is very unlikely to become a successful website flipper. 4) Outrageous pricing: Many webmasters do everything right with website; however demand such a high price for it that many potential buyers lose interest in such deals. However good a flipped website is, it should be reasonably priced, for the buyer to find it attractive and profitable. 5) Substandard appearance: The look of the website plays a major role in getting high paying customer as the look is the first thing which is going to bring the buyer closer to the deal. Any website flipper, who fails in beautifying his website, is very unlikely to make it big. If you are a website flipper who is diligent enough to avoid the above mentioned reasons for failure, you should not be surprised when success knocks your door next time!

Selecting the right niche is one of the most obvious secrets of a successful website flipping business. Most of the successful website flippers affirm the fact that the choice of a suitable niche can make or break the business. Most professional website flippers determine on a niche which is of universal interest and hence is more likely to attract a large number of potential buyers. Given below are some tips on determining on the right niches: 1) The first and the most important tip, as discussed above, is to select niches which are bound to be of interest to almost everyone. Of course, no topic can be of interest to everyone, but the approach should be to decide on a universal niche which is very general in nature and hence is bound to create great interest among potential buyers. Some examples of such universal topics are health, fitness, love, relationships, movies, fashion, home dcor, sports and entertainment. 2) If none of the above topics interest you or if you are one of those who believe in doing your own research, then you are advised to determine on a niche on the basis of its revenue potential. It is also advised to broaden the niche as much as possible, as broad niches are more likely to attract higher paying clients. 3) One’s research should include the thorough understanding of Sitepoint market places. One’s motto should be to find the types of websites which are sold or create interest among the buyers very frequently. One should also try to understand the underlying reason of the interest of the buyers in those websites. 4) Also look for websites which did not manage to create any interest in the buyers, and try to understand the drawbacks and the loopholes of such websites. The best way is to compare them with similar websites which had great selling potential. One’s aim should be to determine if one can improve the low potential website to a high potential one. 5) To come across niches which have high demand, but have very low or no competition, is any website flippers dream. One can find such interesting niches on applications like Google trends which gives one detailed data about the latest searches. Because of the low competition, it is more than a probability that with a bit of effort one can secure good ranks on search engines for such websites, which in turn result in high traffic and earning potential. Because of all these features, these websites have the potential for getting sold for a very high price. One can also study the marketplaces of networks like Clickbank, to have an understanding of products which sell easily and are high paying as well.

The simplest yet most powerful advice I could give to anyone is this: Pick a niche that is high on demand and is a profitable aspect for the prospect buyer. You see, we have to keep the future buyer in our mind and make this as value added package as we could. Here are some niche suggestions to start with: #Dating/ Love Life/ Relationships. #Loan/ Debt/ Mortgage. #Lifestyle/ Quit smoking/ Yoga etc. #Movies/ Celebrity gossip. #Games and Sports/ Cars/ Bikes.

Those were some flat out suggestions you may use to start. They are evergreen and always in demand. If anyone of the above interests you, go ahead. I can promise those are good niche and have good revenue potential.

If you want to go ahead with your own research, I’d encourage you to do so. Just keep in mind not to become way too much specific. The broader you go, more audience you target. Hence you increase chances of selling the website.

Here are a couple of ways you might want to use to pick the right niche for your upcoming flip.

Use the Sitepoint marketplace to perform two types of research:

1) The websites that sold and/ or sparked interest among buyers and find out the reasons Why.

2) The websites that did not sell, and find out the points where you might improve upon and list a similar kind of website that has more chances of selling at a better price.

For the first part, you just have to dig in through the Startup Section of Sitepoint marketplace. Find out which auctions got the most bids, highest bids, what the package had (in terms of value additions like PLR eBooks, free hosting or some traffic stats etc). Make a note of them for future reference.

For the second part, there are a lot of auctions which do not go through. Just take a quick look at them, and if you find something unique, take a note of it and reasons why it did not sell. Was the price a little too high? Was there a problem with the auction copy? Was the website not up to the mark? Keep in mind not to waste your time looking at same kind of junk websites put out by people who are not going to make a dime doing things the way they do.

Second method I follow is to use Google Trends and similar type of services which give a relative data of ongoing searches.

The benefits of using this particular method of research is that you can stumble upon niche that have no/ less competition and thus you’re able to easily beat whatever competition you have and rank better for the terms. Plus, since there is good traffic coming, you can convert a good percentage of them and make some money which can be shown in the revenue stats on the auction copy, thus generating more money.

Third one is to Search through marketplaces of Clickbank and similar networks and find out high paying products.

This way you can setup a blog and promote products. Each sale you refer adds to your revenue, and the overall value of the website as perceived at the flip.

You can also be very creative while choosing a niche. You may look through print magazines to find out something that’s new and do a quick analysis on traffic vs competition. If you find it to be profitable, just go for it.