Most authors spend a lot of time obsessing about protecting their work. They are worried about other people “stealing” it without receiving payment. Whenever I do a seminar I always use the line: “Expect people to be dishonest . . . you’ll never be disappointed.”
No matter how hard you try to protect your writing, it’s going to be pirated and stolen. Any and every content protection mechanism can and will be hacked. Given that is the case, the question is then: how to capitalize on this fact.
If you understand the concept of bouncebacks, you can actually make MORE money when people STEAL your work. The system I’m about to lay out presumes that you understand the need to create ancillary products and services that relate to the topic of your book or other writing.
A “bounceback” is anything that you do in your book (or any other “product”) to get people to go somewhere else that you direct them to after they read your book or other writing. In the internet age, you’ll be directing them to a website.
A large percentage of authors never do anything more than write books. If you choose to go this route, you’ll be leaving a LOT of money on the table. When someone buys your book and likes it, they will want MORE from you. Will you give them more?
Imagine a person who buys your book and gets super excited about what you have to say. When they finish reading they’ll be sufficiently motivated to see WHAT ELSE you have to sell them. They’ll go to your website. They search around. In most cases, they find NOTHING else to buy.
BUT, they do find a notice that tells them that your next book will be coming out 18 months hence. GREAT. They will wait patiently in their homes until the release of your next book. NOT gonna happen!
With the attention span of a gnat, that person will immediately go looking for more information about the topic that you presented to them in your book. If you don’t have anything more to sell them, they will find it somewhere else.
The smart author makes sure that they have other things to sell related to the topic they present in their books. This same author also understands that in this digital age that their book may have been LIFTED from another source. Knowing this fact, the intelligent author has imbedded multiple bounceback offers in their original work.
In the course of describing or discussing something in their book the smart writer will make reference to other websites that will help and augment someone’s learning who is reading the book. Naturally, many of the sites they mention will benefit the writer either directly or indirectly.
Whenever I write a book I get it printed in physical form, but I also produce the ebook version of every book I do. I will make the ebook version available for FREE in most cases.
Why give it away? Because the book is almost always one of the LEAST expensive products that I offer. I’d rather have everyone and their brother “steal” my book. Then I’ll bounce them back to a number of other websites and get them to BUY my more expensive products and services.
Make sure that the sites you send them to are at least tangentially related to your book’s topic. If you send them to a site that is completely unrelated, not only will they NOT buy, they will be annoyed at your for sending them somewhere that makes no sense.
So, don’t spend your time worrying about protecting your content. It WILL be stolen. Spend your time figuring out how you will get those who stole it to eventually buy something from you.
Fred Gleeck is an information marketer. He has authored close to 20 books and has created over 1,000 information products for himself and his clients. To get 5 or his best books for free, visit http://www.FredGleeck.com/ebooks
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There is certainly some wisdom here. You have to give to get. However, there are also bad grammar and several typos. That combination undermines your authority with serious professionals. Your scheme will work for certain products, but not for others. Not couching the advice in such a context is irresponsible, undermining work many do to preserve the significant value of copyright.