Hi everybody, My name is Roni and I'm the author/publisher of several travel-websites, specializing in destinations across the Far East and Australasia (To be more precise, my websites are like "online travel guides"). Lately, I have been thinking about a new line of business: Free nicely-designed Ebooks about the destinations I'm familiar with, that people can actually print and take with them when they travel. The Ebooks will contain small and large ads (just like a printed magazine/newspaper) that are linkable (which means they act both as a linkable banner and as an actual ad). I know similar publications do exist and I wanted to ask if anyone in this forum is familiar with this topic ? Do you know of any reputable advertising agency that deals with it ? Does any of you know how to approach this type of project ? Looking forward to hear from you, Cheers, Roni
I have actually never heard of this concept, it's very interesting. It would actually be a great way to advertise.
I've thought about a similar thing before and I think it's a great idea. The problem of course is getting the advertisement. What I did was ads of affiliates link. One ad was my own product, the main purpose of the ebook to make people aware of it. If they clicked the ads, the idea was that I could potentially get a commission or make a sale of my own product. Of course, if people print them, that sorts of defeats the purpose. No reason you couldn't have both ads and affiliate links. Here's an idea: push it as an ebook for mobile devices and cell phones. No need to print. If you could get advertisers from that country, that would be great. Imagine being in Paris and your book has an ad for a restaurant. The possibilities are endless. You just have to find advertisers. Doing it yourself is a big undertaking, hiring an agency would likely not be profitable or make it too expensive for the advertisers. Then, you have to advertise your ebooks. I had put $100 in PPC advertising for mine at less than ten cents a click so about 1000 people. Not all downloaded the free ebook (was hoping it to go viral too but information was time sensitive) and I think I sold one copy of my software product with this method so I did not make a profit.
Hi there, As you've just written: "The problem of course is getting the advertisement...". The whole idea behind this product is that people will print the ebooks and walk with them through the streets of Paris, Sydney or wherever... The benefit for the advertiser is immense, as he can get exactly what he gets for advertising in a printed travel-magazine, at a fatr lower cost (As I don't have to pass on to him expenses like printing, packing, distribution and so on...). The million dollar question is whether there are international agencies that specialize in such internet-marketing-activity (Similar to the way that Google specializes in PPC advertising or Comission-Junction specializes in affiliate-programs...) Obviously, trying to find advertisers in each and every one of the destinations I'm writing on will be as useless as banging my head against the wall.... Cheers, Roni