Archive for June, 2009

Finding Time For Your Home Based Business

If you run a part or full time home based business you probably struggle with finding the time to work your business. If you do you are not alone! Almost everyone I know has at one point said “I just don’t have time!” So here are a few helpful hints to help you find little pockets of time to work your business in the midst of your ultra busy life.

One thing that has been extremely helpful with me and my business has been to write down how I spend all of my time during the week. Now I don’t just mean “home” or “at work” but every single thing that you do during the day. For instance I found that during a certain day of the week I was watching 3 hours of TV and on another night I was just surfing the internet for a couple hours not really accomplishing anything. I promise you that even if you have the busiest of schedules if you do this exercise you’ll find a ton of time you never even knew you had!
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Create Your Own Informational Products and Make Money

Informational products are very hot on the web at the moment. If you are genuinely looking for a way to make money at home from your laptop it is well worth considering creating your own informational product. You may think that you have no specific knowledge or interests to share with the world, but you’d be surprised. There are some great products out there spanning an enormous range of topics, making their authors anywhere from a little to a lot of cash.

The first thing to do is think about what you’re good at, and what you enjoy doing. For example, a person who loves to cook would likely do well with their own cookbook. Or, let’s say you enjoy antiques. You could create an ebook that tells readers how and where to find the best antiques at a bargain price. Maybe you’re skilled at a particular sport or game. You could make an informational product filled with tips and strategies. The possibilities truly are unlimited!

After you come up with a list of potential topics, do some research on each one. By learning more about the subjects that interest you, you can decide whether or not you can come up with enough material for an informational product. The length of your product can range anywhere from a few pages to hundreds of them. It all depends on what you have to say. After you’ve researched your topics of interest a bit more, you will likely be able to choose the one that you feel is best. Your informational product doesn’t have to be excessively long, but it should be lengthly enough to entice potential buyers.

Now that you have a topic, it’s time to write your first draft. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, or even that good. The most important thing is that you get all the information you have down on paper. Many writers get caught up with trying to edit the first draft as they go along, which can lead to delay. Just put fingers to keyboard and don’t stop to edit until the first draft is finished. Once it is, you can go back and change things. During the editing process, you can fix spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes and modify anything you don’t like. To package your product, you’ll either want a .PDF writer or an ebook creation program which converts your document to .EXE format.

Once you’ve completed your informational product, it’s time to sell it. One fantastic way to do so is via ClickBank. For a one-time fee, you can submit your product to ClickBank. Then, you can recruit affiliates to promote your product for you. The more affiliates you have, the more sales you’re likely to get. Your affiliates get whatever percentage of the sale price you designate. The higher the percentage, the more affiliates you’re likely to attract. Other ways to sell an informational product include via your own website or even Ebay. Many people make a very good living selling information, and with a little hard work and practice, you can be one of them!

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How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

How does affiliate marketing work? A cracking question which I will do my best to answer.

There is a lot of talk on the internet about affiliate marketing and how you can make money (if not a career) out of becoming an affiliate marketer (or should that be marketeer?!). Affiliate marketing in it’s simplest form is selling goods or services for a company or individual for a commision. The beauty of the internet is that you can now do this from the comfort of your own living room.

So how does affiliate marketing work in todays internet based world? The idea is that you will signup as an affiliate to a company, lets call that company Amazon (for the sake of convenience). You will get an affiliate id assigned to you and (depending on what it was you wanted to sell) a specific URL/web address with your affiliate id embedded into it. If anybody goes into Amazon through your affiliate id and actually buys something you will get a commision! Easy really…. of course, getting people to click on your affiliate link is based on your ability to drive people to it but that is another story for another day.

There are many great affiliate programs out there. Many of the ‘biggies’ such as Amazon and eBay run their own. Other smaller retailers signup to a specialist affiliate marketing service the biggest of which probably Commision Junction which has many retailers under it’s wing from all round the world.

It is also worth mentioning that the biggest affiliate commisions are in digital products – downloable eBooks, audios and videos. Checkout Clickbank.com as a great example of this, have a look through and let me know what you think – I will be talking more ‘how does affiliate marketing work’ in later posts .

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5 Great Ideas for a Home Based Business

Heres a selection of great ideas for a home business along with resources which are worth checking out to get you started. Hopefully there will be one just right for you, if not the suggestions may set of a train of thought ! Remember, working from home can be so rewarding but it is hard work and does require some investment both in time and money… would be interested in any comments

Start a child daycare

Start a cake decorating business

Ebook powerseller business

Your own quilt shop

Jewellery Party Business

More great ideas for a home business will be posted soon!

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Write Books!

Most people read books – few write books. A common phrase which you will often hear is that “everyone has a book inside them” and it is true be it fiction or non-fiction, autobiographical or fantasy, you may be more create and capable than you think. If you have ever wanted to write books, or just one, all you have to do is start writing! Sounds too simple, you say. Surely there’s more to it than that. Well, yes and no.

If you have the desire to write books, you’re halfway there. Passion is required. Then you need your subject, then you need patience and tenacity and the ability to ’stick with it’! Over the span of your lifetime, there are surely several subjects which have fascinated you and about which you’ve gained some knowledge which could be the inspiration to write books. For instance, if you were brought up with lots of family pets, learning how to care for them could be the subject of a fact based book, or the adventures you had with your dog may be the basis for a fiction book. You may not know it, but there are a lot of people out there who would love to learn from you and listen to what you have to say and there’s a good reason to write books!

Hobbies that span a lifetime are often good non-fiction candidates. If you grew up in the country, going on annual mushroom hunts with your family, you had hands-on experience, learning every little thing about recognizing the edible from the poisonous, environments of different mushrooms and where that secret place can be found, abundant with mushrooms every fall. There you go. Another excuse to write books.

Many parents are talented storytellers, enchanting generations of children with their original tales which keep the kids on the edge of their seats at every telling. If this is you, you should write books for children. Children’s books are a huge market in publishing. Sure, you say, I’d love to write books, but I have no talent with words. If you have the knowledge, there are many ways to attain your goal – to write books. There are talented editors who can help you organize your material and edit your work. You can also hire a ghostwriter, who can put your thoughts to words, in your “voice”. You may even know someone who does write and would volunteer their services to get you going. If you have passion and a subject, you can find a way to get it done. Writing is a satisfying, therapeutic occupation. If you want to write books, all you need to do is start writing. Work every day and before you know it, you’ll have a completed book. Good Luck to you in your venture to write books