The Clickbank Affiliate ProgramWhere Magic COULD Happen!The Clickbank affiliate program - immediate traffic potential
Here's the most remarkable thing about Clickbank for self publishers: Clickbank's affiliate program allows self publishers to break all the rules I write about on this site. Look around. I'm always saying that you can't sell books online without getting traffic, and that you can't get traffic without creating a website about a subject that's larger than your book. The Clickbank affiliate program is the exception that proves the rule. Post the right book on Clickbank - with the right pitch page to promote it - and it's possible for the traffic to come to you. You're familiar with affiliate marketing, aren't you? (If so, skip this affiliate marketing section. If not, keep reading.) Affiliate programs were one of the first ways webmasters used to "monetize" their sites, and they're still one of the main ways. Pioneered by a number of companies and mastered by Amazon, here's how affiliate programs work: Let's say you have a website. A company has a product to sell. Visitors to your website are excellent prospects for the company's product. If you send visitors to the company's website, and those visitors buy one of their products, the company pays you a commission! Clickbank provides self publishers an affiliate network Imagine that! You've got a book to sell? By posting it to the Clickbank Marketplace (click "Marketplace" on the landing page) webmasters from around the world can choose to help you sell it, because the Clickbank affiliate program enables you to share the revenue with them. What are those webmasters looking for?
1. A good product You will have a better chance of selling a book that fills a need than you will of selling fiction. Also, your product needs to deliver on its promise. Why? Well, for one thing, who needs bad karma? But for another, the Clickbank affiliate program offers purchasers a 60 day window to request a full refund. If your book is a major disappointment, all people have to do is ask for their money back! 2. A product that YOU do a good job of selling The key to using the Clickbank affiliate program (and using it effectively) is creating a great "pitch page." A pitch page is the single page that convinces people to buy your book(s). (Want to see a pitch page? Here's my children's book writing package.) The pitch page is the page that your brand new affiliate network will link to. 3. A chance to make a nice profit How much money your affiliates can make depends on
If you set your price at $3.00 (Clickbank's minimum) and share only 10% of your profits (Clickbank does take a cut!), there certainly isn't much left for your affiliates, and I wouldn't expect many of them to sign on. I share 50% with my affiliates, so they're incentivized to make a nice chunk of change when they make a sale with me. Remember, these are ebooks, so there is no real incremental cost except for Clickbank's take. That means that with the Clickbank affiliate program, every affiliate sale is more profit for you. You couldn't sell at a loss if you tried! Clickbank affiliate program FAQ's
Notice that your potential affiliates are confronted with a lot of data about how well your package performs for other affiliates! The better your book performs, the more affiliates are going to want to represent it. A well-planned Clickbank package has the potential to snowball! In the last month (I write this in April, 2010), thirty-one Clickbank vendors are sending traffic to my pitch page. How's that for a sales force multiplier! Clickbank lives by the affiliate marketing model. (They even apply it to their own services. If you follow my Clickbank links on this page and end up marketing your book with their unique services, I stand to make a few dollars. Affiliate marketing: everyone's a winner!) Clickbank's Vendor Checklist As I said earlier, setting up with Clickbank isn't easy, but they do a much better job of explaining the tech than any company I can think of. I relied on Clickbank's helpful "Vendor Checklist" to get me through the process. You will too! Best sales practices After visiting a lot of Clickbank affiliates' sales pages, I made a decision to expand what I was offering for sale on my site. Pitch pages read like infomercials, pure and simple. And just like with infomercials, the best pitch pages offer lots of extras, in addition to the main book. My pitch page offers 4 products all as part of one package. That helps me justify the price I wanted to ask for my work. (After sampling a lot of Clickbank offers, my impression is that the "sweet spot" for pricing is $25-$30.) I may some day add a fifth product. You should consider what easy to create add-ons might help you add value to your book. Clickbank Affiliate Program summary Clickbank offers the only realistic opportunity I know of to generate real and substantial traffic on the web without either
That means it's a self publisher's one shot at hitting it big without doing the hard work - or incurring the real expense - of driving traffic to your site. However... You have to create one heck of an offering! Not only does your self published book need to be a terrific piece of writing that no one would ever regret purchasing, but your pitch has to be a highly persuasive piece of writing as well. Also... Your package has to be priced properly and offer a real profit opportunity for potential Clickbank affiliates. If you're prepared to put all those pieces of the puzzle in place, the Clickbank affiliate program is the place for you! More on ebooks self publishing. The Shared Self Publishing Experience home. |
SEARCH THE SITE
SHARE!
The fast track to YOUR book on Amazon...
From free to full-service, CreateSpace offers book publishing options to meet your needs and budget. Sign up free now.
Our Top Self Publishing Posts: