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Never Stop Being a Student
By Tiffany | December 16, 2007
Something I learned from my great friend and mentor, Craig Desorcy of We Help Newbies recently - you have to continue your own education. There’s never a true stopping point. This fact actually frustrated me a bit when I heard it.
I want there to be a stopping point - a date in time when I’m a bona fide, 100% born and bred know-it-all. But the rough reality is, that’s not how this industry works. I learned a VERY hard lesson recently. Sales of my Building an eBook Empire dried up substantially. The refund rate is virtually non-existent, but no new sales are flowing in.
After the frenzy of Warriors and people I knew bought it, it deliverd no new sales (well, very few). I want it to be like my Squidoo eBook - a marketplace product that’s continually being discovered by people from all walks of life. With my Squidoo eBook, I am constantly being contacted by new people about it - from ordinary offline business folks who heard about it and come to me to teach them. Baby boomers who want to use a free avenue like Squidoo to start earning money online.
So I want the same for Building an eBook Empire. I want moms to consider quitting their 8-5 job to stay home with their kids and find my eBook to help them do it. I want retirees to find and hear about my eBook as a way to become financially stable during their golden years. I want professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) to use my guide as their method to increase their earnings and exposure.
What I learned was that my copy was WAY off the mark. I had originally taken a story and conveyed it to my audience. Then along came a few multi-millionaire guru friends who tweaked it and guilted me into putting it on my site. Who was I to say, “No, it’s not my style?” - when they’re the ones raking in millions each year. But it flopped.
The fancy graphics I had - not impressive. The hyped up sales headlines like, “Pulling back the curtain on the gurus,” didn’t impact people the way my own Tiffany tale does.
So I’ve edited and tweaked and am working on it, split testing the copy. But I’m also going back to square 1 - starting with an outline and list of questions/problems my target audience would be seeking. I’m going to completely redo it. If it’s broke, fix it! LOL Don’t walk away and give up. I know my eBook is a good guide - I believe in it - and I’m not willing to abandon it and the people it can help because I don’t want to put the work into it.
So thank you, Craig - for reminding me that we can’t get “too big for our britches,” and must continue learning every step of the way. That one gem of advice will carry me through many rough spots in my career.
Tiff 
Topics: Sales Copy |