A few weeks ago, Jonathan Leger released an ebook called $7 Secrets. I opted to hold off on buying it — until a well respected marketer referred me to it and I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
(If you’re curious, I’ve already written my thoughts and a synopsis of the ebook, so I won’t rehash it here. Also, don’t purchase $7 Secrets — get Write That Report instead, it comes with the $7 Secrets as a bonus.)
The report sparked a lot of creative ideas for me, and while preparing a short report to sell on one of my existing blogs, I realized that you may also be able to benefit from this idea as well.
One of the downsides of the $7 method is that you need to create content (or outsource it), but if you’ve been blogging for some time, you’re sitting on a wealth of information. The fact is, most people don’t start reading your blog from the very beginning, others may miss entries along the way, and none of them probably have the time (or desire) to comb through every page of your blog’s archives. So, instead of letting your blog’s archive go to waste, do the dirty work for them.
Depending on the average length of your blog entries, sift through your blog’s archives and select 20-40 of your best posts, polish them and update them if necessary, then edit them into a short report (ideally under 35 pages). Once the report has been compiled, you can begin to offer it for sale on your blog. Create a sales page by creating a new page in WordPress and explain why a visitor would want to buy the ebook, why it would be of value, and if you’ve made any significant improvements to the posts, note that also.
If you already own Jonathan’s ebook, you can use the included scripts to recruit affiliates by approaching other bloggers and webmasters in your niche and asking them to help promote your new ebook — 100% commission paid directly to their PayPal account without having to do the writing/compiling is a hard offer to resist. You’ll also be able to list the ebook on Jonathan’s website set up specifically for his script users, called $7 Offers.
Now, if you’re feeling truly ambitious, and you have that much content in your archives, you can spend a little extra time and create a longer book — I’d say, at least, 100 pages — and offer it as a soft cover book that will be shipped to the customer, then have it printed on demand with LuLu. Some people just like being able to hold a tangible book in their hands and it could also increase the perceived value.
Once you’ve finished, you’ll effectively add another income stream to your blog.



Thank you.
Things happen for a reason. I have not seen your newsletter for some time so I opened your email and saw the article on using your archives as another income source. And low and behold you mentioned LuLu. I had completely lost track of that website do to a failure of Firefox bookmarks to carry over to the new version. I couldn’t even remember the name of the site.
Thank You , Thank You , Thank You.
Have a Beautiful Summer Morning,
Nick Grimshawe
Joy in the Moment
# February 21st, 2007
Hi Nick,
You’re welcome.
I agree, things happen for a reason and I’m very glad that I could help.
~ Teli
# February 22nd, 2007
Sound like a good idea to make money online. But some investment and experience are needed to set up the sale page and marketing the report.
Alan Liew
# June 19th, 2007
Hi Alan,
Thanks for popping in an commenting.
Depending on how one went about getting the report created and the sales page set up, it could involve an investment — however, it would most likely be a small one; about $50 or less. If someone wanted to go all out, then yes, it could get fairly costly fairly quickly, but it doesn’t need to be.
In some cases, the initial investment can actually be zero. For instance, using PayPal as a payment processor is free — fees are only taken out if a transaction is processed. And there are a number of freely available, fully functional PayPal IPN scripts that can handle payment processing and order management.
Plus, there are more than a handful of ways to market the book for free — the main one being your blog audience if you already have one.
~ Teli
# June 19th, 2007
[...] If you have a well established blog in your niche, then it’s possible to compile your blog into a book and sell it. Or, if you can consider setting up a private membership blog. [...]
# July 20th, 2007
Hmm. I don’t really get why people would buy an ebook containing old blog posts?
# December 30th, 2007
This is an older comment, but just saw that I didn’t address it. People would buy an ebook containing old blog posts because it would mean that wouldn’t need to manually comb through a blog’s archives to find the best entries, and then try to put them together cohesively.
It would have already been done by the blog’s author–each post chosen selectively from the archives, then edited, and placed in a comprehensible order. And as an added bonus, the blog author could just as soon add bonus section or expound on those previous blog entries.
In essence, the person getting the ebook would be getting an actual book as opposed to stale blog archives.
~ Teli
# May 26th, 2008