The funny thing about the Internet is how many experts there are. Wherever you look there are self-proclaimed gurus ready to tell you how to run your business or your life - and we eat up their advice like candy. But, like candy, too much advice may be bad for you.
I'm no guru, and I hate to be called an expert, but as a marketer with 30 years under my belt I do look at some of the most frequently trotted-out 'pearls of wisdom' and shudder.
The most damaging bit of bad advice that I still see every single day is this: 'Create your website/ebook/product according to your passion.'
The theory is simple: if you write about what you know and care deeply about, you can position yourself as an expert and reap the benefits accordingly.
That single piece of bad advice kills so many Internet marketing careers before they've even begun.
The sad fact is that most of us are hard-pressed to find a subject that we feel that passionate about. And even if we can find one, we quickly discover that it has already been done to death by other enthusiasts.
And those who do struggle to create their ebook or website on the topic that most fascinates them more often than not find that there is no market for a book on 'Collecting 19th-century thimbles.'
The result is that most people who accept and try to follow that advice either end up doing nothing, or put massive amounts of their valuable time and energy into creating something that nobody is interested in except themselves.
Either way they sadly leave the Internet marketing arena believing that it is they who have failed.
The truth is that for every single person who is making money from their passion, there are a thousand - or even ten thousand - who never will. Sorry to disillusion you.
The more modern approach - and the one that is proving to be hugely successful for those who embrace it - is to find a hungry market first and then create a product to feed it - regardless of whether it is a subject you know anything about.
There are many ways that you can do this, but the easiest, and for me, the most profitable, is through private label ebooks and the membership sites that supply them.
These membership sites research hot niche markets - usually two or three each month - and pay ghost writers to create ebooks to service them. In addition, many of the private label ebook membership sites also supply private label articles for you to populate your websites with.
Private label, in case you are unfamiliar with the term means that the ebook or article is supplied to you as a txt file, or a Word doc so that you can add to it, change it, rewrite parts of it, or do anything you like to make it your own product. You can even change the title and add your own name as the author.
Effectively you get an ebook that can be sold by you as your own work, (keeping all the profits) without having to spend weeks or months researching and writing.
And from any one membership site costing (generally) less that $30 a month, you will get at least two and sometimes as many as six great ebooks to start selling immediately.
That is the power of private label - someone else does all the work and you get to make all the money.
Success online, in 2006 at least, isn't about following your passion. It is about finding markets that are desperately hungry and thirsty and providing websites and ebooks that satisfy that raging hunger and quench that aching thirst.
And more, to do that over and over again.
With private label ebooks it is easy to have a new product on sale. Once you have the know-how, turning a private label ebook from an anonymous text file into a unique professional ebook is the job of a few hours.
My ebook 'Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks' takes a step-by-step approach to teach everything you need to know to start profiting from this gold mine. In addition, it details eleven different ways that you can use the private label ebook contents that even most 'experts' have never done!
So forget about following your passion to create your ebook or website. Find out what passions other people have and follow them. they will be your hungry markets.
The only passion you need to have is a burning desire to be successful in Internet marketing and the passionate belief that private label ebooks are your key to that door.
About the author: Martin Avis is the author of the best-selling 'Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks' - a complete blueprint to private label rights success. Discover how easily you can profit from this goldmine at http://www.plrsecrets.com
