"How To Turn Your Hobbies And Interest Into Extra Income"
by Adam Rafferty © 2002 Crescent Ridge Publishing, All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Adam Rafferty, and I am a professional Jazz Guitarist, residing in the NY Metro area.  Playing the guitar is  main “gig” as they say.  You might be wondering why I’m telling you this about myself since this is a marketing newsletter.

Well, part of the reason I’m telling you I am a guitarist is to show you that even a jazz guitar player can really benefit and earn extra income through knowledge of marketing and the internet.  

If a Guitar Player Like Me Can Use Marketing Tactics
To Earn Extra Income – So Can You – And I’d Like To Show You How You Can Do It Yourself!!

Most of my musician friends are still living hand to mouth – their main income consists primarily off money they earn at restaurant performances and music lessons they give.  Some musicians play at weddings and private parties – but usually have to work through an agent who takes 85% for himself and pays 15% to the musician.

I was sick of being ripped off by agents and being underpaid at restaurants (earning less than the busboys) so I decided to do something about it.

I realized that I couldn’t actually “work” every time I needed to earn money. 

How My First Information Product Discovered Me

I was teaching at the National Guitar Summer Workshop in Litchfield CT one summer, and my guitar students asked me what I practiced for instrument technique.  I showed them the scales that I play every day, and they said “you should write a book on that!”.

And so, my first successful “Information Product” was born!  Since I knew a book on scales and guitar technique was of interest to guitar students, I wrote my own.  My book shows students how to improve their guitar playing, in a step by step easy to follow way.  Just by seeing the enthusiasm of the students up there, and seeing how hungry they were for self – improvement , I knew that my product, once finished, would fulfill their desire!

The next summer I went back to the workshop and brought 20 self published books to the campus bookstore.  They sold out so quickly that I had to somehow get to a copy store to make more.  Book sales sparked people’s interest so then they bought my CD’s as well to see what I sounded like playing jazz guitar.

Now check this out.  I earned about $600 for the week as a teacher.  But, without even lifting a finger to actually do work I sold $1100 dollars worth of books and CD’s from the bookstore.  (This doesn’t account for year-round internet sales) The other guitar teachers were mystified.  “How the h--- did you do that?” they asked.

Buyers Want Benefits!!!

Oh and one other thing – the title of my book is like an effective headline, which stresses a benefit that the buyer will receive and takes the “YOU” approach.  Here’s the title:

“How To Develop Virtuoso Single Line Technique For Jazz Guitar”

People love “How To” books.  The title says in so many words “How YOU Can Develop This Technique”.  Headlines need to talk about the customer, not you the seller or your product.

The other teachers wrote books with titles like “Jazz Guitar 101” or “Jazz Guitar Chord Library”.  Notice how the title is the “ME” approach, not the “YOU” approach.  These other book titles do not promise any benefit at all and talk about the subject of the book, not the reader.

I could have written a book on any aspect of Jazz Guitar – but I chose to focus on something that my “audience” expressed interest in – developing technique.  (No matter what they say, guitarists all want to learn how to play a lot of notes FAST!!!)

Are You Wondering How You Can Use This Knowledge Yet For Yourself?

What are you good at?  What are your hobbies?  What are you interested in?  Chances are that you could come up with an information product that is really fun and exciting for you to develop.  It should be something that you believe in and enjoy since you will be spending a lot of time with it.

Do you like to cook, go fishing, or take pictures?  Have you accomplished anything out of the ordinary, been on TV, won an award, or can you make people laugh? Whatever it is, there are probably people out there who share your interests.  Think about a method or instructional manual that you could write about something you love to do and have some “expert” knowledge of.  You might have a bunch of information that you are sitting on that lots of people would be willing to pay money for! 

Why Sell Information?

Well, it’s really inexpensive to manufacture and reproduce, especially if you deliver the information product electronically!  People will be willing to pay for knowledge, especially if you are helping them solve a problem.  Photocopied manuals are cheap to make and email is even cheaper.  You don’t need a manufacturing plant to produce an information product.  All you need is access to a computer with a word processing program.  At the time of this writing, most of us have PC’s or Macs – you probably even have one yourself! 

WARNING

Before you get started though, make sure there is a desire for your information.  It’s easy to bury yourself in work and feel busy and “potentially” successful, but make sure that people will pay for what you plan to offer before you do the work.

Also, don’t be scared if there’s competition – that means that people are making money selling what you plan to sell and that is good!  Guitar technique books existed previous to mine, but my sales do not suffer at all.  It is a common mistake to think that competition is a bad thing.  No one has the market cornered, so go on in there and improve on what already exists - or offer a quicker, easier or cheaper way to do the same job.

If you are inventing something “brand new” – that’s where I say watch out!  You don’t know that people will need it.

SOLVE A COMMON PROBLEM QUICKLY AND EASILY

This is the marketers law!!!  People will spend money to solve a problem sooner than they would spend to just “get something nice for themselves”.   I’ll buy a winter coat to protect myself from the cold before I’ll buy a jacket that “makes me look good”.

Imagine if you enjoy cooking and write a recipe book as your information product.  You could take a marketing approach like this:

“Here’s A Quick and Easy Way For You To Put Dinner on The Table For Your KIds – In 15 Minutes or Less!!!”

Now do you see how you could turn your interests in to money making problem solver? 

In Conclusion

So for this week, focus on what you enjoy doing and come up with ideas for your own information product.  Next, keep these ideas about headlines and “solving a common problem quickly and easily” in the back of your mind.  We’ll focus on that in future newsletters and figure out exciting ways to tie them into your product.

Warmest Regards,

Adam Rafferty

P.S. If you plan to be marketing your product on the internet, I recommend that you learn about using email autoresponders to put your marketing efforts on “auto-pilot”. 

These will save you incredible amounts of time and hassle, and help you make more money more easily!

To learn about what they do, and to get a FREE autoresponder, without having to spend even a penny click here:

http://www.hot-response.com/

© 2002 Crescent Ridge Publishing, All Rights Reserved.