I’ve never been happier to see $50 than the PayPal payment I got on Sunday.

If you have the 2009 edition of Desperate Buyers Only then you know that I talk about an e-book I’ve been giving away. I don’t sell anything in the e-book. No affiliate links and all that jazz. I just give it away like free hugs.

I decided to give it away because it’s a spiritually based topic. And people seem to think that it’s difficult to make money from spiritual topics. Well at least that’s what I’ve heard for the past umpteen years.

Well you know me… I don’t believe jack shit until I’ve put all the theories on the chopping block and, well, minced the suckers with my stainless steel machete. Because I know from doing this stuff and watching all the chit chatting in the forums that marketers can be, well, kinda irrational – you know.

One person has a sob sorry, and all of sudden it can’t be done. All of sudden this doesn’t work, or that’s outdated.

But success – or even lack of success – means nothing to me. I have to see things for myself, because, well, we all have different strengths. So I needed to know… are spiritual topics a waste of time? Hmmmm… where the heck is my machete?

Anyway I started giving this e-book away a while back. And in it I share some Law of Attraction methods that worked for me. Some secret weaponry type stuff that I use on a regular basis. A wee bit woo-woo, but it works for me.

There are no affiliate links in the e-book. I’m not hawking any upgrades because quite frankly I don’t have much more to say about the topic.

But I do ask for a voluntary donation. And therein lies the secret to my success with this particular e-book.

Set It and Forget It

I wasn’t sure if the whole donation shenanigans would pan out for this particular title. But I know that I’ve donated to a bunch of sites that I’ve gleaned information from. And I figured I couldn’t be the only micro philanthropist on the Net, so I decided – “Why not?”

And that brings me to my $50 on Sunday.

I normally receive $5 or $10 donations… sometimes an occasional $20. And the donations come in fairly consistently. It’s like lunch money from the Universe.

But on Sunday one of my readers donated a whopping $50.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “$50 for me? A $50 donation for me-e-e-e-e?!?”

Now you’re probably chuckling to yourself, “Oh that Alexis… she gets so excited over the little things, tsk-tsk. Show me a picture of her on top of a Rolls with a pair of thongs on, and I’ll be impressed.”

You’re right, I do get worked up.

It means that you can share the things that you’re passionate about, be a lazy ass and not write a sales letter, give away your e-book, and still enjoy financial benefits.

And look, your e-book doesn’t have to be a big production. It took me all of 2.5 days to write that 38-page ditty. I let it sit on my hard drive for a good six months before I even started giving it away. I couldn’t decide what the heck to do with it.

Is that YOU?

Here’s the big ho-ho message that I hope you’ll take me up on.

I know that many of you have stuff that you’ve written that you’re not doing anything with. I know it because if you’re reading this blog you’re probably like me. You start a whole bunch of projects and you finish maybe some of it. So you’ve got something in the percolation stage to work with.

Dig it out. Dust it off. Get a photo off of iStockphoto and make a quickie cover. Set up a donation page in your e-book. Set up a donation link through PayPal. PDF it. Get a domain. Upload it. Make a quickie landing page. Promote it the DBO way.

And this is important… don’t spend more than a day doing all of this. I mean except for the marketing. You can be consistent with that.

So honestly, I don’t get $50 donations all the time. I may not ever get another one. And hey, let’s not be coy here… even ten bucks a day is pocket change. But if you’ve got some leftover goodies and they’re not earning you anything, then ten bucks a day is genuine, spendable-everywhere-you-go income.

At least that’s the way I look at it, and I’m as capitalist as they come.

What do you think? I’m curious to know if anyone else has made the donation model work for them.

BTW… here’s the e-book that generates donations.

I get a 4-figure Paypal deposit every month from a web site that I’m an affiliate for.

Besides the checks I get from Clickbank, it’s the only affiliate program that I’ve consistently profited from.

Best of all, it’s two-tiered. So those affiliates who signed up under my link are now beginning to generate more money for me than I’m actually making from the same site.

Now here’s the thing. I’m really and truly an AWFUL affiliate marketer.

Seriously! I am. At least in the traditional sense.

But I know how to sell an ebook like a bee knows how to make honey.

And that is how I get a big affiliate check every month.

Here’s the secret…

I built a ebook around a web site with a good affiliate program.

Okay I didn’t intentionally plan it. But now looking back at my steadily increasing payments, I see the absolute brilliance of the strategy.

You see my Get-In-Google-Now.com ebook teaches readers how to advertise on specific web sites, so that your ad gets a top 10 rank.

In the ebook I mention a handful of sites that work for this strategy. One of those sites is very, very popular with my readers because it produces the most consistent results.

So they advertise on that site. And every time they buy an ad, I get a commission. A small one. Maybe just a few dollars.

When they see that my strategy works, they keep on buying ads. Month after month after month.

So it’s not a one shot deal. I get paid from the same customers over and over again.

Like I said, I also get a kickback from those affiliates who signed up under me. That commission is relatively small. But again, it’s not a one time sale. It’s residual.

And finally, I sell the ebook for $97. So I’m profiting all the way around. Front end and back end all in one.

Did I get your wheels a turnin’?

Build your ebook around an affiliate program and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes

A reader e-mailed me yesterday with this exact question. (I accept questions, by the way. So don’t be shy.)

She’d read Desperate Buyers Only and knew how anti-typical marketing I am. Yet here I am blogging my arse off a whopping 4 days a week.

And even though I wouldn’t call myself a bonafide expert on the topic – (I’ve only been blogging on a consistent basis for the past month and some change) – I would have to say yes… blogging does affect book sales.

It’s NOT oodles and oodles of cash. Maybe 17 new sales for DBO and Get In Google Now in the month of September.

Which really ain’t a bad deal for less than 3 hours of work a week. (Technically I make more blogging than some of my 9-5 worker bee friends.)

I won’t know the true bottom-line affect of this blog until I release a new ebook. Which I’ll be doing very soon.

The new ebook?

Well I think the first one will be all about hot topics and where to find them. It seems that many readers have a difficult time finding good, salable topics.

Anyway I digress… Back in July this blog had 760 total visits. This means the same people might have been visiting over and over again.

As of today, I’ve had 1,759 visits for the month of September. 466 of those were first timers. So I get a lot of repeat visitors, which is awesome. And I’ve had 6,511 page views.

I don’t promote this blog in any blog directories or anything.

I don’t purposely use any targeted phrases in my messages to rank well. (You don’t have to be an optimzing machine all the time!) And still I get a fair share of traffic from Google and Yahoo.

Everytime I post a new message I get anywhere from 4-9 new blog feed subscribers, which I’m able to track through Feedburner.

And even though I do have an option allowing readers to subscribe and receive the blog messages via e-mail – (see the sidebar) – I only have 6 e-mail subscribers.

A lot of Internet marketers say the money is in the list.

Perhaps I’m being a winky head because I have fewer than 10 e-mail subscribers, but isn’t it better to have people willingly visit your site over and over again, than trying to compete with 500 other e-mail newsletters?

I think so. (So thank you my foxy and incredibly smart repeat visitors!)

The bottom line?

I like this blogging thing. I will definitely continue. And I would highly recommend it.

Blog and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes