

Remember the $400k/year parrot ebook? Here's sales figures for another similar site. - bemmu
http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/60429

======
staunch
> _The current owner will provide written instructions on how he earned $100K
> in a year to the new owner._

LIMITED OFFER: Buy snake oil instructions for growing your own snake oil
business.

~~~
graemep
Its fairly typical of the sites that are sold through Sitepoint and the like.
The business peaked in 2006 and revenues fell for two years running - so it
started declining before the owner fell ill.

It looks like it is recovering in the first two months of 2009, but it could
also be a spike.

It also looks like it needs a fair amount of work to make that much money. So
you pay somewhere between $120,000 and $160,000, give up your current job,
take the risks entailed, work hard and you might make $100,000+ a year in
revenues (not profits!). That does not sound like such a good deal.

In general, the difficulty of verifying the profitability of small sites means
that no one will risk paying a high multiple for them. No one with a decent
site will sell it at a low multiple, so if it is for sale, expect it to have
poor prospects.

------
dkokelley
I think I'm going to try something like this. I've always felt dirty when
entertaining ideas of _information marketing_ 'businesses', but if it works,
it works. I'll see if I can do it all with outsourcing (minus the actual
site), so, outsource the marketing copy, the product design, the customer
service, the order fulfillment (or automate it), the marketing/selling.

It looks like the only trick is to A: automate it, B: get a targeted, under
served niche, and C: get a good marketing copy made and an affiliate system.
It will be an interesting experiment.

I'll report back after I'm making > $10k/month and living in Fiji.

~~~
petercooper
_(This isn't entirely directed at you, but is more for general consumption.
Just picking up on a feeling I got from your post, though.)_

You seem, to me, to feel that this is primarily a dirty sort of business. It's
not (even though there _are_ dirty players) and it's becoming a lot less dirty
all the time, since people are becoming smarter at what to buy and not.

If you have specialized knowledge and can help people solve a problem or learn
something they really want to learn, you can honestly and sincerely produce a
product, an e-book, a real book, a video course - whatever - and sell it for a
profit. Nothing dirty about that, and the more sincere you are nowadays, the
better you'll do.

The "information" business is no more dirty than any other business. Do the
majority of sysadmins do it other than for the money? (No) Do the majority of
journalists write pro bono on the side? (Nah) Selling information is no
dirtier than selling your time and, heck, I've seen just as many passionate
and decent people in the info game than elsewhere.

Oh, and don't outsource the "marketing copy." It's your personal voice and the
personal connection your potential customers will feel for you that will
"sell" your product. You don't want to be wasting time "convincing" people to
buy - you want to seem authoritative enough and so trustworthy that people are
begging to see more of what you have.

P.S. You might enjoy looking into something called the "underachiever method."
It'll provide one of the best ways to establish what it is you should be
producing. It was a course once upon a time but you can get all the core ideas
for free with a bit of Googling :)

~~~
thinkzig
I Googled a bit and the "underachiever method" seems to be

1.) Pick niche

2.) Put up survey finding out what questions people most want answered in
niche.

3.) Use Adwords to bring people to survey.

4.) After you've collected results, write eBook that answers questions most
asked.

5.) Sell eBook

6.) Profit!!! :)

Do you have experience with this method, Peter? Does this actually work? It
seems that the recommended sample size of the survey I saw (50-100 responses)
would be too small.

Also, how could you be sure that just because people say they want answers to
these problems that they'd be willing to pay to get them?

I'm fascinated by this whole info-marketing thing in that I can't believe it
actually works yet a lot of folks seem to be doing it profitably. I'd be
interested in any insight you have on this.

~~~
petercooper
I _was_ surprised once, but I think that's a natural reaction for geeks. It's
hard to really get a feel for the general economy and what the average Joe
wants.

Just because _I_ don't buy anything from spam, would never buy food from a
roadside stall, click on banner ads all day, or go do drugs or whatever..
doesn't mean the majority of the world isn't doing all that stuff each day :)
Once realized, it's a pretty powerful thing.. yes, you can produce some really
odd stuff and it will still sell!

The underachiever method is really just a market research technique that
someone gave a name and made money from. As a market research technique,
though, it works. It's just a variation of asking people what they like and
then providing that.

It's better, though, because you've actually picked up people from Google who,
in the main, were _ready_ to buy! (Or at least read what you had to say about
a product.) The opinions of these people are far more important than just
general opinions from the market. These are folks with problems who are ready
to put down cash to read stuff that will help them out.

The number of responses is small in a classical market research sense, but
that's why it's usually done in a very small niche. 50-100 responses to, say,
"Why do you want to learn French?" are going to provide enough of an
indication of the general market groups.. expats living in France who want
jobs, kids at home doing homework, rich guys wanting to pick up chicks in
Monaco, etc. These answers can then significantly direct your product.

The alternative is to just build a product then hope the people clicking on
your ad want to buy it. Doing even basic market research with something like
the underachiever method will put you streets ahead of that point by at least
giving you an indicator of what even a small group is definitely going to want
to buy.

~~~
thinkzig
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate your insight on
this. I've found a copy of "The Underachiever Method" online and plan on
checking it out.

Thanks!

------
bemmu
In the right sidebar there are screenshots of traffic stats, accurate sales
figures. Found this very interesting after wondering if a parrot book site
could really make that much.

~~~
garyrichardson
I wonder if there are more parrot owners or oil painters? And which group
requires the most help?

using <https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal>, 'parrot help'
reported 58 searches in february and a search volume of 320.

'oil painting help' was also search 58 times in February, but only had a
search volume of 73.

Based on those numbers, I'd assume that the parrot site is a bigger niche and
should make more money.

~~~
sobriquet
oil painting techniques: 9,900 oil painting technique: 1,900 painting
techniques: 74,000

I think people would search for 'help' when their parrot is misbehaving, but
'techniques' when they want to learn how to paint.

Also, beginning/intermediate painters may very well be interested in becoming
good enough to sell their work. As such, they might invest in lessons/ebooks,
which could garner better conversion rate.

