If you’re interested in any eBook reading device and the role it can play in your life, then you might also be interested in the way in which both the reader - and the eBooks they are designed to display - have evolved over time.
The Book’s Journey Into the Digital World
Books themselves are nothing new, with origins centuries back. However, they were something that most people did not have access to until the development of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. Since then publishing has gone from strength to strength, and the book made its first appearance in the digital world in 1971, with a digital version of the Declaration of Independence: Project Gutenberg was launched (which now houses many free books available to download right to your reader!)
The First Readers Available on the Market
As the popularity of the eBook started to grow, the first eBook reading device was developed in 1998, and websites first begun selling popular books in eBook format. Though the popularity of downloading and sharing eBooks on the internet caught on, the eBook reader itself wasn’t so quick to follow suit, until recently.
The Evolution of Today’s eReader
When it comes to the modern form of the eBook reading device, Sony led the way with its first release in 2006 - being the first to make use of e-Ink technology. It was 2007 when Amazon launched its Kindle in the US, and popularity of the device began to grow at a rapid speed.
Modern eBook readers make use of technology similar to that employed within a computer, with the main difference being the e-Ink screen: designed for the most pleasant reading experience possible. These screens mean that we don’t experience glare as we would with a traditional computer screen or other handheld device.
The Future of the eBook Reader
Readers continue to evolve, bringing bigger and better features to book lovers. These features include larger screens, as seen in the Kindle DX, and will also, in future, involve color screens and perhaps a larger amount of applications and software added onto the main function of reading eBooks.
eBook readers have received some criticism from those who are worried that the book will lose its purpose. However, the popularity of the eBook reading device shows no signs of slowing down, prompting major manufacturers to get in on the act and release their own models.
To see the full array of Ebook readers, or EReaders, visit:
http://jphvideoventures.com/ereaders/
Till we talk again,
The Beachmiser
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Article Marketing - Answering the Three Big Questions
We are continuing our series on Internet Marketing, with ..... Article Marketing.
The Internet is crying out for content. There are billions of web pages with millions more being created every day. And every single one of them needs to have something to say - some content to attract visitors.
Article marketing is a branch of Internet marketing that focuses entirely on providing that content. Many people make good money online simply by writing a few articles on a regular basis.
So what is article marketing for, is it as easy as they say and what kind of results can you expect?
Big questions, but I'll do my best to answer them as comprehensively as possible.
What Does Article Marketing Entail?
Article marketing can be as simple as writing a series of articles to put on your own blog or website. If you've ever written a blog post that ran to more than a few hundred words, you've done it already. That is fine, as far as it goes, but why go to all that effort of writing something to only use it once?
Article marketing is about leveraging the effort you've put into creating an article in the first place and getting as much benefit from it as possible.
You do that by syndicating your article for other people to use, with the condition that every time they publish it on their website, they also include a resource box that you specify. That resource box will usually include a link back to a website, or product offering of your choice.
Syndication of your work is easy: there are hundreds of article directories on the Internet who are happy for you to post your work. EzineArticles is perhaps the biggest and best known, but there are many, many more that you can use. The article directories serve two purposes for article marketers: they are a central source for website builders to go to to find content, and they are also quickly indexed by search engines so you'll get backlinks even if nobody else uses your work.
Is Article Marketing as Easy as They Say?
For some people, writing articles is very easy, but for others it can be a chore. Fortunately, like any other skill you need to learn in Internet marketing, the more you practice, the easier it gets.
The trick is to discover what kind of articles are the easiest for you.
The best articles for beginners to write are how-to and tips articles. Both formats start out by identifying a commonly asked question, such as 'how can I stop my dog barking?' or 'what's the best way to make money online?' and provides an answer.
The how-to format is very straightforward - the article would start with a paragraph that expands on the question, move on to four or five paragraphs that explains the solution and ends with a paragraph that sums up both question and answer.
To write a tips article, on the other hand, you would first research 3 or 5 solutions and then, instead of the 4-5 paragraphs in the middle of the how-to article that explains just one solution, you'd have a separate paragraph - perhaps as bullet points - for each tip. The intro and finishing paragraphs would be very similar to the how-to ones.
Once you've written your article (allow anywhere from one to two hours for each one until you get more proficient) your main job is then to get it onto as many article directories as possible. Although you can do this by hand, it takes a lot of time so I would strongly recommend using one of the many article submission services who will do the job for you.
What Kind of Results Can Article Marketers Expect?
The answer to this question depends on how much work you are prepared to put into it.
Frankly, if all you do is write one article a month and submit it to just one or two directories, your results will be very poor.
Professional article marketers write a lot of articles and build up a big online presence for their body of work over time. That can bring them a huge number of backlinks to websites of their choice, a constant flow of traffic to their money sites and, most importantly, a stream of income that once started, is almost impossible to turn off.
In summary, article marketing is a very effective branch of online marketing that can bring excellent results for those who have the writing skills and the determination to build a big body of work online. It is unlikely that any individual article will make very much impact on its own, but 200 or more scattered over the Internet can bring many long term rewards.
To learn more about Article Marketing, especially as Netrepreneurs see it, read the Entrepreneurs Guide to Article Marketing!
To help you with your article writing and get over writer's block, use the Instant Article Creator for Article Marketing.
And last but not least, here's a simple step-by-step system that will show you how to break the money code and build a massive list with article marketing. Curiously enough, it's called the Article Marketing Money Code.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Affiliate Marketing - Making Money Online Doesn't Get Much Easier
This is the start of a series of articles about the different facets of Internet Marketing. We start off with .......
AFFILIATE MARKETING
The idea of one person selling products on behalf of someone else, and receiving a commission in return is nothing new. As a marketing method it has been around for probably thousands of years. The idea of affiliate marketing took a little longer to make it onto the Internet though.
The World Wide Web as we know it came into existence in 1990, but it was not until 1994 that the first company applied affiliate marketing methods to its sales strategy. That company was in the adult industry, which often seems to be at the forefront of marketing innovation. However, soon after that the online music store CDNow began to operate what is generally considered to be the first non-adult affiliate program.
A couple of years later, in 1996, Amazon launched their Associates Program and affiliate marketing really took off.
Affiliate marketing is an alluringly simple idea: you show an offer from a third party company to your website visitors or newsletter readers and if they click through and buy, you get an agreed commission. Those commissions can be anywhere from a few percent, right up to 100% of the products' sales price.
Yes, some vendors will give affiliates the full value of the sale because they know that the lifetime value of a new customer is worth far more to them in the long term.
Affiliate marketing can go under many different names: associate marketing, partners programs, joint ventures and revenue sharing. Some affiliate programs are open to anyone while others insist on pre-approving applicants. Still others are only available to people who have bought the product.
It is very possible to become an affiliate for an individual company or product vendor as many run their own affiliate programs. However, the majority are run through affiliate management companies. Possibly the best known of these for online marketers are ClickBank, who specialize in digitally downloadable products and Commission Junction who represent thousands of companies under one roof.
All affiliate programs have their pros and cons. ClickBank, for example, are blissfully simple to use. You pick a product from their marketplace and they instantly give you an affiliate link to use. You need to sign up with them to become a member, but that takes only a few moments and is free. Commissions are generally between 50% and 75%. The downside is that ClickBank make it almost too easy for customers to get refunds and there is always a question-mark over how efficient their link tracking mechanism is.
Despite the potential problems, many Internet marketers make a lot of money from selling ClickBank products.
Here's an example of a Clickbank affiliate link:
http://c13a0ru6vexnuia-lihgr88uf5.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BLOG
Pretty ugly, no? That's why we recommend Cloaking your affiliate links.
(That which is underlined is a direct link to the article).
I also made a short video on the same subject: http://dickhale.com/videos/linkcloaker
Commission Junction is great for marketers who don't want to be part of the Internet marketing niche and prefer to sell real products from real world niches. The choice is huge at CJ, but you do have to apply to be an affiliate for each company individually.
As you also have to apply to be a member of CJ initially, the reapplication every time you find something you want to promote can be annoying, and very often the companies concerned will reject your application without giving any reason.
Commission levels at Commission Junction are usually much lower - a few percent of the price, but as the products are often in high demand, you can make up for the lower commissions by volume.
Amazon, as mentioned earlier, run their own affiliate, or as they call it, Associates Program. It is free to join and pays a sliding scale of commissions depending on the volume of sales you make. Expect to start out at around 4 or 5%.
The great beauty of Amazon is that once you've sent them a customer for a specific product, Amazon are experts at building up the value of the sale by offering all kinds of other products ('customers who bought this, also like that'). As you get commission on the entire value of the shopping basket, you can often end up with a lot more than you expected.
Many affiliate programs now offer recurring income products and services, so you could make a sale for, for example, a membership site, and receive a monthly commission payment for as long as your referral remains a member. These residual income streams, as they are known, can quickly mount up and provide you with a regular paycheck for months or even years to come.
If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, a blog with a regular readership or have built up a mailing list with whom you've established a trusting relationship, affiliate marketing can be very easy money. You hold no stock. write no sales letters, deal with no customer service issues and generally avoid all the hassles that product owners and vendors have to face.
Making money online doesn't get much easier than affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers simply make recommendations, or put up a few banner ads on their sites, and then sit back and take their cut. There need be no overheads to start and you could be earning commissions in minutes.
As a follow-up to all this, I have an article about how to take advantage of your Clickbank affiliate code called "Saving on Clickbank." You need to read that as well.
AFFILIATE MARKETING
The idea of one person selling products on behalf of someone else, and receiving a commission in return is nothing new. As a marketing method it has been around for probably thousands of years. The idea of affiliate marketing took a little longer to make it onto the Internet though.
The World Wide Web as we know it came into existence in 1990, but it was not until 1994 that the first company applied affiliate marketing methods to its sales strategy. That company was in the adult industry, which often seems to be at the forefront of marketing innovation. However, soon after that the online music store CDNow began to operate what is generally considered to be the first non-adult affiliate program.
A couple of years later, in 1996, Amazon launched their Associates Program and affiliate marketing really took off.
Affiliate marketing is an alluringly simple idea: you show an offer from a third party company to your website visitors or newsletter readers and if they click through and buy, you get an agreed commission. Those commissions can be anywhere from a few percent, right up to 100% of the products' sales price.
Yes, some vendors will give affiliates the full value of the sale because they know that the lifetime value of a new customer is worth far more to them in the long term.
Affiliate marketing can go under many different names: associate marketing, partners programs, joint ventures and revenue sharing. Some affiliate programs are open to anyone while others insist on pre-approving applicants. Still others are only available to people who have bought the product.
It is very possible to become an affiliate for an individual company or product vendor as many run their own affiliate programs. However, the majority are run through affiliate management companies. Possibly the best known of these for online marketers are ClickBank, who specialize in digitally downloadable products and Commission Junction who represent thousands of companies under one roof.
All affiliate programs have their pros and cons. ClickBank, for example, are blissfully simple to use. You pick a product from their marketplace and they instantly give you an affiliate link to use. You need to sign up with them to become a member, but that takes only a few moments and is free. Commissions are generally between 50% and 75%. The downside is that ClickBank make it almost too easy for customers to get refunds and there is always a question-mark over how efficient their link tracking mechanism is.
Despite the potential problems, many Internet marketers make a lot of money from selling ClickBank products.
Here's an example of a Clickbank affiliate link:
http://c13a0ru6vexnuia-lihgr88uf5.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BLOG
Pretty ugly, no? That's why we recommend Cloaking your affiliate links.
(That which is underlined is a direct link to the article).
I also made a short video on the same subject: http://dickhale.com/videos/linkcloaker
Commission Junction is great for marketers who don't want to be part of the Internet marketing niche and prefer to sell real products from real world niches. The choice is huge at CJ, but you do have to apply to be an affiliate for each company individually.
As you also have to apply to be a member of CJ initially, the reapplication every time you find something you want to promote can be annoying, and very often the companies concerned will reject your application without giving any reason.
Commission levels at Commission Junction are usually much lower - a few percent of the price, but as the products are often in high demand, you can make up for the lower commissions by volume.
Amazon, as mentioned earlier, run their own affiliate, or as they call it, Associates Program. It is free to join and pays a sliding scale of commissions depending on the volume of sales you make. Expect to start out at around 4 or 5%.
The great beauty of Amazon is that once you've sent them a customer for a specific product, Amazon are experts at building up the value of the sale by offering all kinds of other products ('customers who bought this, also like that'). As you get commission on the entire value of the shopping basket, you can often end up with a lot more than you expected.
Many affiliate programs now offer recurring income products and services, so you could make a sale for, for example, a membership site, and receive a monthly commission payment for as long as your referral remains a member. These residual income streams, as they are known, can quickly mount up and provide you with a regular paycheck for months or even years to come.
If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, a blog with a regular readership or have built up a mailing list with whom you've established a trusting relationship, affiliate marketing can be very easy money. You hold no stock. write no sales letters, deal with no customer service issues and generally avoid all the hassles that product owners and vendors have to face.
Making money online doesn't get much easier than affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers simply make recommendations, or put up a few banner ads on their sites, and then sit back and take their cut. There need be no overheads to start and you could be earning commissions in minutes.
As a follow-up to all this, I have an article about how to take advantage of your Clickbank affiliate code called "Saving on Clickbank." You need to read that as well.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Beach is HOT, and so is this free List Builder.
Before we talk about the beach, there's something I really must talk to you about. It's all about automating your list building efforts.
Can A Listbuilding System Be TOTALLY Automated? The answer is totally - YES.
I know we're all a bit sick and tired of promises of "automated software" that will make us rich before dinner.
And I'm always the first to be skeptical of these kinds of outrageous claims.
But today I may have to actually eat my words.
Because I just picked up a listbuildilng system that really is incredibly fast...,
And the traffic actually does keeps flow in on auto-pilot.
It's a pretty new tactic on the scene that I've heard of.
But I never really knew how to implement it.
Then I found this:
Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System
At that link 7 figure marketer Bill McRea is GIVING AWAY this listbuilding system totally free...
It's his way of getting some buzz going for his upcoming product launch (apparently he's go another system up his sleeve that's even better than this)
In any case..
I went and got this myself and it's totally legit.
There's nothing scammy about it all.
It's just a way to instantly create a win-win offer that potential JV partners can't refuse.
Bill hands you EVERYTHING you need to make it work. And I mean EVERYTHING.
So if you know the power of having a mailing list..
Do yourself a favor and go get this.
Do it now: Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System
I mean...you can't beat the price, right?
P.S. There is one catch to this...you'll have to help spread the word. But that's easy for me because I've seen this strategy in action and know that it works.
You should get Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System now!
OK - enough about that. The beach right now is HOT - I mean really HOT. So I'm going to delay our latest adventures till next time because it's too damn hot.
Can A Listbuilding System Be TOTALLY Automated? The answer is totally - YES.
I know we're all a bit sick and tired of promises of "automated software" that will make us rich before dinner.
And I'm always the first to be skeptical of these kinds of outrageous claims.
But today I may have to actually eat my words.
Because I just picked up a listbuildilng system that really is incredibly fast...,
And the traffic actually does keeps flow in on auto-pilot.
It's a pretty new tactic on the scene that I've heard of.
But I never really knew how to implement it.
Then I found this:
Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System
At that link 7 figure marketer Bill McRea is GIVING AWAY this listbuilding system totally free...
It's his way of getting some buzz going for his upcoming product launch (apparently he's go another system up his sleeve that's even better than this)
In any case..
I went and got this myself and it's totally legit.
There's nothing scammy about it all.
It's just a way to instantly create a win-win offer that potential JV partners can't refuse.
Bill hands you EVERYTHING you need to make it work. And I mean EVERYTHING.
So if you know the power of having a mailing list..
Do yourself a favor and go get this.
Do it now: Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System
I mean...you can't beat the price, right?
P.S. There is one catch to this...you'll have to help spread the word. But that's easy for me because I've seen this strategy in action and know that it works.
You should get Free Plug N Play Listbuilding System now!
OK - enough about that. The beach right now is HOT - I mean really HOT. So I'm going to delay our latest adventures till next time because it's too damn hot.
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