Importance of Landing Pages & Automation

Good afternoon. Today was payday for my EbookoMatic authors, and
I decided to tell you about some of the new titles they have
published -- some are free downloads:

TOP SECRET BUSINESS HUMOR - The Immaculate Worthless Collection
by Thejendra Sreenivas
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1551

Growing Roses with Sherry 'n Margarita by V L Deighton & A M
Smith
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1550

THE CAVEMAN DIARIES - Some Raw Advice for Modern Executives by
Thejendra Sreenivas
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1549

TO HAVE MERCY, AND NOT SACRIFICE by Brenda Partington (Free
Download)
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1548

Secret Art of Japanese Stick Fighting by Gary Hinkle
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1545

Secret Buttons of the Hand by Gary Hinkle (Free Download)
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1544

Secret Buttons of the Hand by Gary Hinkle
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1543

Home Staging: 8 Things Every Home Seller Needs to Know Now by
Donald Tepper
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=1541

There are also a few titles that seem to be selling quite well
these days. With everyone losing their job or in fear of losing
their job, two titles have become very popular:

Fearless Networking by Ken Marsh
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=958

The WORLD'S FASTEST JOB SEARCH PLAN! by Paul Bowley
http://www.ebookomatic.com/publish/authorinfo.asp?EbookId=380

Paul has a number of other titles you may find helpful.

Some of you may notice that we raised the price of EbookoMatic
membership back up from $49.95 to $147.00. What's the result?
More memberships sold at the higher price than the lower price!
Kind of caught me by surprise. We also updated the home page to
make it more of a landing page and that seems to have increased
the number of weekly inquiries, to.

One thing you can learn from this ongoing experiment is the importance
of landing pages. When you have a deep site with lots of content,
products or services, it is easy for a visitor to get lost and never
even make a purchase. A landing page makes it easier for them to find
what they are looking for by limiting their paths through the site
and helping them to make some decisions. With our new landing page,
you can either Get Published, Learn More or Buy Ebooks. Simple, right?

I have another client who used to have a home page with over 40 links
on it. Then we sat down and redesigned the home page as a landing page.
Now you can find what you need and your choices are limited to Free
Trial and Buy Now. All pages are focused on making them choose a
well-directed path. Leads and sales have improved as a result.

Take a look at your site's home page. If you are wondering why you
are not selling more stuff, consider how many choices or paths your
visitor is forced to make. It may be time for you to simplify the
number of options they have. Give them 2-3 big buttons with clear
calls to action. Then move everything else into small textual navigation
at the bottom of the web page. It works.

If you don't know the story about EbookoMatic, then you might
find this very interesting. Back in 1999, ebook publishing was
becoming quite the craze. A firm in San Francisco called Fat
Brain was making a name for itself by helping the academic world
to create online versions of white papers, theses, dissertations,
and textbooks. They got acquired for $62 million.

The opposite side of the spectrum were comprised of mom and pop
sites that would edit your manuscript and create a PDF for you.
There was very little in the way of service and most looked
alike.

As a frustrated author, I saw a need for a turnkey service that
would enable anyone, anywhere, with either knowledge to share or
a story to tell, to publish and sell their work instantly. I drew
something out on a napkin and put it away ...

Then I started trying to promote a consulting service for
authors. It would be one stop shopping including editing, cover
design, site design, ecommerce, hosting, etc. But while many
authors contacted me, no one could afford my consulting rates.
Around that time a small software development and conversion firm
contacted me. They had visited my web site and asked if I ever
thought of automating the service. I took out my little napkin
drawing and sent it to them.

They told me they could have a prototype done in 3 weeks. When
they showed it to me, I was amazed. They had really improved on
my idea. At that point I made the commitment to start an online
business. We continued to add features for four years and then
stopped. Since then it has quietly been pumping out new titles --
over 1200 from authors from around the world -- over 550 authors.
I'm quite proud of the service because for some of these authors,
EbookoMatic is the only way they would ever be able to share
their work.

Of course, Ebookomatic will never make me wealthy, but I am
content with it serving a purpose, helping others, and generating
some passive revenue for me. One of the things I am truly proud
of is the fact that it is a 99% hands off business requiring
little to no human intervention. New members join, they publish
ebooks, people buy and download their ebooks, and the system
tracks everything. There's even a sophisticated back end system I
can log into from anywhere to address the occasional problem or
to generate productivity reports. I can tell you which author is
selling the most ebooks, which titles are the most popular and
even which genres sell better than others.

This is what true passive revenue is all about, but it's a
challenge to get the business model this well automated. If your
online business is not this automated, then you might be putting
forth a greater effort than is truly necessary. You may also be
eroding your profits. Something to think about.

If you need help with this type of development or the creation of
a killer landing page, we can most definitely help you.
We've been doing it a long, long time.

Feel free to reach to me anytime at info@schneiderman.net.

Until next time,

Steven

P.S.: Please pass this newsletter onto a friend who may be a
fellow writer or be looking for some online assistance.

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Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 South Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States