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5 Critical Viral Ebook Mistakes That Are Costing YOU Major Profits

Since we’ve been talking about all the positive benefits of creating free viral marketing reports to spread your message effortlessly across the web, I felt that it was important to share some of my bad experiences too…

You see, I made MANY costly mistakes in the early viral eBooks I produced. Mistakes that are *literally* costing me thousands of dollars in profits right now.

There is nothing I can do to change them. Once you set a viral eBook in motion, it’s impossible to get it back and make corrections to things ya screwed up on.

I have since learned my lesson and am applying this new knowledge to my most recent viral releases, and that’s what we’re going to take a look at today.

So take a moment now and read over the mistakes I’ve made so you don’t make them yourself…

I’ve made ‘em all.

You don’t have to.

Viral Ebook Mistake #1: Never use any promo link inside the content that you can’t control

I learned the hard way that you should always use redirect links from your own domain when putting any kind of promotional link inside your ebook.

For example, most people insert their affiliate link for an affiliate offer they’re promoting directly inside the ebook that they have put together.

Instead, you want to link to a page at your site that refreshes and redirects the visitor to your assigned affiliate link. Something like this…

http://www.etoolcentral.com/viralpdfbrander/index.php

This is important so you can CHANGE the link anytime you want to in the future. So let’s say the affiliate program you’re promoting goes under… Rare, but it does happen. If you’re using your own link on your own domain then you can simply sign up for another similar program, change out your affiliate link within the redirect file, re-upload and poof – your links now redirect to the new program with no profits lost!

Can you imagine having thousands of copies of your eBook all over the web with your old affiliate links in them that don’t work anymore?

I can assure you first hand this will render your viral ebook obsolete, unusable and unprofitable.

Without using a redirect page your links are sittin’ ducks.

The exception to this rule is if you’re “branding” an ebook that’s been provided to you by the affiliate program operator (one you did not create yourself) or if YOU are creating a “brandable” ebook for others… If this is the case then you want to see your affiliate link inside the ebook and know it has been branded properly, so you wouldn’t use a redirect in this situation.

But remember when you’re simply creating a viral ebook with your links inside, always use a link hosted on your server that you will remain in control of. That way if something happens and you need to change links, you won’t have to make changes to all of those eBooks — which would be impossible to do anyway. You simply make a 2 minute change at your site and all the links change right along with it.

I can’t tell you how many dead links are in some of my earlier ebooks that continue to give me headaches as people email me saying, “You’ve got a dead link here … can you give the correct link?”

It creates a lot of extra work in answering emails and certainly is throwing away potential profit for the countless people who never bother to ask for an updated link.

So, again, never use any link inside the content that you can’t control.

Always use redirect links.

Viral Ebook Mistake #2: Avoid using information that could become outdated or obsolete

As you create your viral ebook, keep in mind you may not be offering the same ‘incentives’ and ’specials’ you’re offering now.

For instance, you may not be offering that free 30 day trial offer to your membership site much longer…

The deal you’re running on your new video course may not always be $29.95.

That site that was “just released last week” may have become an all-time classic by the time Bob reads your viral ebook two years after it was released.

You want to make certain that you stay away from information that is ‘too specific’ that can easily become irrelevant.

Again, I get emails all the time griping about inconsistent prices because I put the price for an affiliate membership into one of my early viral ebooks and that price is no longer valid.

Hasn’t been valid for a few years.

I’ve even gotten ugly emails accusing me of fraud and false advertising, with threats to turn me in to the attorney general and all kinds of nonsense.

Also be careful that you don’t date your viral ebook either, if you can avoid it.

Viral Ebook Mistake #3: Never put any information into your ebook that you don’t want all over the world

These things travel folks and they can be global in a matter of days and certainly over time you can easily have a worldwide audience.

I made the mistake of putting my cell phone number in one of my earlier ebooks because everyone claimed that if I didn’t have my contact information in there, no one would buy from me… which is nonsense I might add.

Anyway, I started getting all kinds of calls at all hours of the day. What was 3:00 in the afternoon in the Philippines was 3:00 in the morning where I live. =(

The cool thing with viral marketing, it’s pretty much unstoppable, which is why it is so effective. It keeps spreading and it’s hard to stop the ’snow-ball’ growth once it gets going – which equates to potentially thousands upon thousands of people that could be reading what you wrote, even years down the road.

So, never put anything into your ebook that you don’t want the world to know about and use.

Viral Ebook Mistake #4: Always automate your branding tasks

When it comes to viral ebook marketing you want to automate the process as much as possible.

Again, I learned the hard way.

Early on, before I knew about all of these branding tools available, I hand customized each ebook.

And as they began to spread, the customization requests grew to be way too much for me to handle. I was spending most of my day putting together these customized viral ebooks for each new person that requested a copy.

That had to change and so now I use branding tools and branding instructions. I give them to anyone who wants to customize the ebook and I let THEM do the work.

Keeps me out of the loop completely.

So, unless you have some specific reason to do it yourself, place that responsibility onto the ones who want to distribute the viral ebooks.

Viral Ebook Mistake #5: Always launch new browser windows with the links in your ebooks

Whenever you link to a site within your viral eBook content, always remember to code that link to launch a new browser window when the reader clicks on it.

I learned this the hard way.

There are many scripts involved in the order-taking process at online credit card processing sites.

And many of those have caused glitches in the eBook due to the software the eBook was created with and it crashes the eBook, making it impossible to order.

So, what happens is this.

You do your job well.

The content is great.

You’ve got a hungry customer waiting to buy.

They click on a recommended product link.

They arrive at the site still inside your eBook window.

They click on the order link and the entire thing shuts down.

I mean completely shuts down the ebook and website altogether.

And, in some cases, it even crashes the computer.

You just lost a customer because two sets of code didn’t like each other.

That has happened to me on MANY different occasions in some of my early ebooks.

Now, all of my links launch new browser windows OUTSIDE of the ebook if you click on a link from inside the ebook.

Most ebook compilers will allow you the option to make the window ‘blank’ (meaning open the page in a new window) when creating your links for your ebook.

Now when someone clicks on your link, a new browser window will launch outside of the eBook itself before taking them to the website.

Now, you’re safe.

EVERY link in your eBook should have this.

You can thank me later.

To get started creating your own viral report like this one, you can begin reading my free 3-part series here:

Click Here To Read ‘Free Reports Exposed Part 1 of 3′

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