eBook Profit Spiral

Creating eBooks with PLR articles seems like a tailor-made way to create work-free content, but is not. Some eBook Webmasters and some eBook Marketers try to use Private Label Right (PLR) articles to create eBooks for sale. (PLR rights allow you to reuse the content in any way that you like.)

The idea is to collect a lot of articles about a topic, and convert these into chapters.

This would be a great idea if the articles…

• Fit together
• Were the same top quality
• Were written with the same style, vocabulary and flair

The idea to put together an eBook in this way comes when Webmasters and eBook marketers are just getting started in business. They want to get something created. They want to be earning money.

This strategy is also used by Affiliate Marketers who only want to have free or low-cost products that lure visitors to their Website. Once visitors stream to the Website, they can be sold the affiliate products.

The problem is that a collection of articles is just that, and few people will pay for such an eBook.

Worse, while this technique will not build your eBook business, it could actually do harm to your online presence.

Here are a few reasons why this strategy may be detrimental to your business.

Problem #1 - Search Engines

Search engines assign low ratings to Websites that post duplicate content. If your eBook is a collection of other people’s work (OPW), Google knows.

Let me repeat, “Google Knows!”

You can prove this to yourself by examining a page or two of Google search results.

You will notice that listings often have two statements:

One is a link to “Similar pages.” What this means is that if your page is similar, it is basically not listed until searchers take an extra step to find you.

The other item to notice is the statement,

“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

Again, if your copied eBook or articles look like “fluff” to Google, then your content ends up in the “omitted results.” To get to this, the searcher has to get to the last page of the search listings, then select this statement, and then go through the list again.

Your chance of being found in this way, “Slightly South of Zero!”

So, the more copies of these content that the PLR owners sell, the less chance that the search engines will consider your copy to the most relevant. (Some folks speculate that Google credits the site that published the content first with the highest ranking.

So, if your site has the exact same (duplicated content) that other sites have, and the more that other sites post this content; the less chance that your site will achieve good search engine rankings.

And, positive search engine rankings are essential for delivering visitors to your site that you don’t have to pay for. Without visitors, your marketing efforts tend to bring in zero dollars.

So, posting fresh content to your site (so that you rank high enough to attract visitors is a priority.

Problem #2 - Getting visitors to click

The percentage of visitors who “click” on your offer is known as the conversion rate.

This is what really counts with your eBook business.

Having lots of visitors is a first step, but only part of the story. What you also need is for those visitors to “go for” your offer.

You need to convince those visitors to select your offer, type in their E-mail address, or purchase from the developer that you refer as an affiliate.

If those visitors see the same content that they saw on another site, they either purchased already; or they are not going to .

If your visitors see the same content on other sites, they decrease their willingness to take your offer. This is because people want to buy things from people that they trust…from experts.

If you have a bunch of copied content, you fail the expert test; and your reputation is shot.

If your content is just duplicated from other sources, you will look like someone who is not an expert. Your recommendations will not carry the weight that is needed to get visitors to accept your offer.

Problem #3 - Author Bylines

Some free eBook content is available if you keep the author’s Byline, and if you keep the links inside the eBook intact.

This is good for the author because the other person is perceived as the expert, and because the other person gets the benefit of affiliate links inside the eBook.

Of course, you want both of these, and groan and despair because the author benefits more from your marketing and promotional work than you do.

And, you never want to take another author’s work and place your Byline on it. You can be caught by anyone willing to pay five cents to have their content searched.

CopyScape

Another problem with the links in some one else’s content is that those links take your visitor away from your site and to someone else’s site. Bummer!

Problem #4 - Article Scrapers

There is software that collects articles and rewrites them. This provides a new version of the article, and therefore is not duplicate content.

While this worked in the old days for sites that wanted people to notice that the content was inferior and to click on one of the ads that was embedded in the page. this no longer works because the search engines figured out the ploy.

However, the quality of the scrapped content is low, and your readers know at once that you didn’t write the content.

So, after your efforts to get them to your site, they leave in a flash.

Summary:

When you add the effect of these four problem areas together, you can see that just slapping together a bunch of articles to create an eBook is detrimental to a real eBook business. If your budget won’t support hiring a ghostwriter, you will have to write your own eBook.

Your best option is to write the eBook yourself.

Your worst option, however, is creating eBooks with PLR Articles. The content is free, but the results from your work is not what you want.