If you've wanted to cash in on the latest niche building craze, but think it's too much work to create your own product, the tactic in this article should have you up and running in no time flat and with a minimum of hassle.

A Case Study

Are you familiar with Rebecca Fine's site over at http://www.thescienceofgettingrich.net/ ?

If not, take a moment to surf over and have a look around. Rebecca took a classic public domain work and built an entire site around it. She simply gives the e-book away in exchange for a opt-in list subscription, and builds in the income streams by offering extra value in the form of:

Recorded audio cds of her reading The Science of Getting Rich A special pay what you can training course to enhance the book contents Back end promotions of affiliate products Her approach worked marvelously. Her opt-in list alone boasts over 1,000 subscribers in more than 100 countries. Subscribers and visitors alike rave about her site, and she has one of the most responsive lists around. This is any internet marketer's dream scenario.

Granted, Rebecca was able to capitalize on the public domain early and it's not always easy to find books of this caliber that you could use to follow in her footsteps. This is why I'm going to recommend to you an alternative to this method which is: a) easier and b) should work just as well if you put the proper effort into it.

Dropping Books for Software

Surf over to any freeware or public domain software site and it won't take you long to spot hundreds of niches in the making. All you need to do is pick a program to give away as bait for building your subscriber list, and you're more than halfway there.

In fact, you could spend the next few weeks getting by on nothing more than a landing page. You'll gather your leads while you build out your site or work on creating your product. You can also direct those leads to an affiliate product.

The most work you'll invest will be in writing your follow up e-mail series to keep the prospects on the line.

Let's take a look at a sample scenario to see how this method looks in action.

Step 1:

I've surfed my way to a software distribution site called Snap Files: http://www.snapfiles.com/ I make sure to click freeware in the top navigation tab, and begin browsing categories. In the miscellaneous tools section, there is a sub-category for PDF tools.

I've just found a very promising piece of freeware called PDF Moto. The program not only converts a wide range of documents into PDF format, but it can also create full web sites from those documents at the click of a button.

Step 2:

I upload the software to my server. Now, I need to create a landing page and use that to distribute the software to potential subscribers.

I've done some advanced planning and realized that my target market will be people who search on key phrases like free e-book software and free e-book publishing software. They're likely to be marketing types; and, even if they aren't, they're likely to be interested in the subject of writing e-books.

So, on my landing page, I'll present The Ultimate E-Publishing Newsletter. My copy will presell the tips, tricks, tools and resources every e-book author or publisher needs. In exchange for opt-in, I offer the PDF Moto software and give a full description of its features and benefits.

Step 3:

I now have people opting into my list in exchange for the software and it's time to follow up with them. They receive a 6 part ecourse from my autoresponder which presells How to Write and Publish Your Own Ebook in Seven Days. Obviously, I've got my affiliate id embedded in every link!

Conclusion

Now, that wasn't too hard. There are a variety of other follow up actions I can take at this point. For example, I could invest the profits from e-book sales into creating a full site devoted to e-book publishing. My opt-in list is a source of immediate, targeted traffic I can send to the site once it launches. In order to maximize my efforts, I could poll my entire list for their ideas on what products and information they'd like to see next.

Can you see the power in this approach? I took nothing more than a free piece of software and used it to collect prospects from a very active niche market. I can repeat this system over and over again using other types of freeware everything from calorie counters to auction tools. There's always an e-book or a premium software product which I can build into the back end. Better yet, I can leverage all of my back end profits into hiring someone to create a unique product just for me, further enhancing the value I bring to that niche market.

So, if you're struggling to get started with a site of your own, consider this lazy man's approach to building niches. You'll have the fundamentals in place in record time, freeing yourself to focus on marketing and making sales.

John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net. Subscribe Today and get real information YOU can use to help build your online business today! http://www.TheEzine.Net The Ezine DOT Net RSS feeds are available. (You may reprint this article in full in your newsletter and/or web site)

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