eBook & Internet Publishing News
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Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you join ClickBank as a vendor. CBMultiLink is our company’s product.

A new version, version 3.10, of CBMultiLink our script that allows ClickBank vendors to offer their affiliates a choice of multiple landing pages is now available.

There are two main features in the new release:

1. For "normal" ClickBank landing pages, ClickBank automatically adds hop= with the nickname of the affiliate to the landing page’s URL. Many affiliates and vendors don’t like this for various reasons, including a feeling that it may encourage commission “theft” (customers substituting their affiliate ID for the actual affiliate’s so as to get some money off their purchases). So, until now, previous versions of CBMultiLink have removed the hop= from landing page URLs. However, it has come to our attention that some vendors have features on their websites that rely on the hop= being present, so we now have an option in the admin screens of CBMultiLink that allows vendors to choose - using a single mouse click - whether or not to include the hop= in their landing page URLs.
2. Although the primary purpose of CBMultiLink is to allow vendors to offer their affiliates a choice of landing pages, one extra feature we have included is an option to generate cloaked ClickBank payment links (so as to conceal the vendor ID, again to discourage commission “theft”). In version 3.10 of CBMultiLink, this feature has been further extended - vendors using ClickBank’s more advanced features such as skins for their payment form, can now include these URL parameters in their cloaked payment links.

IMPORTANT UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS: If upgrading from a previous version of the script, assuming you want to keep your existing settings and landing pages - replace all files in the CBMultiLink installation, except do NOT replace cmconfig.php or cmconfig2.php - as these store your settings!

If all this sounds like double Dutch, don’t worry - these are new features aimed at more advanced ClickBank vendors. That said, CBMultiLink, and all the other tools in what we call the CB Vendor Power Toolkit, really are essential tools for every serious ClickBank vendor. Visit the CB Vendor Power Toolkit website to see why.

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Answers 2000 Limited today released version 5.04 of the Advanced Multimedia Extension for Activ E-Book Compiler. The software is available for purchase from the EBookPower.com, as well being available as a free upgrade to customers who have purchased any previous version of this product.

The Advanced Multimedia Extension for Activ E-Book Compiler, adds a number of powerful enhancements to Activ E-Book Compiler which make it easy to produce attractive multimedia presentations and eBooks. The features of the package include:

* Commands for playing video full screen or in pop-up windows

* Commands for controlling CD audio play back

* Commands for audio and MIDI files, as well as access to other Microsoft Windows media features

* A complete application for videoing Windows screen activity - ideal for recording website and software tutorials

* MIDI sound files in a variety of musical styles, which can be used, royalty-free, in multimedia and eBook presentations.

To find out more about the Advanced Multimedia Extension for Activ E-Book Compiler, or to download a free demo, please go to: EBookPower.com

To find out more about Activ E-Book Compiler, or to download a free trial version of the software, please go to: EBookCompiler.com

CoverFactory, our for software for making eBook covers has been reviewed by FileCluster. Check out their review of CoverFactory - as you can see, from the screenshots etc., unlike some reviewers, they seem to have done a proper test of the program. Thanks guys!

Read their review for yourself, but to summarize, the program received a 5-star ("Excellent") rating, more than 9 out of 10 in all five categories evaluated.

If you haven’t already tried CoverFactory - there’s a free trial version which you can download and try out for free.

Here some examples of the sorts of images that you can easily produce using CoverFactory:

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you buy one of the products mentioned in this blog post, or if you join ClickBank as a vendor.

Here’s a brand new eBook - and we’re giving it away free of charge: “How To Use Your ClickBank Thank You Page To Boost Your Profits” - And it even comes with resell/distribution rights.

Feel free to read it, and to distribute copies if you like! You can give a copy to your friends, or to your customers. You can give copies away on your squeeze page (to get people to join your opt-in mailing list), as bonus with your main product, or even sell copies. Click Here to Download!

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you buy one of the products mentioned in this blog/podcast post, or if you join ClickBank as a vendor.

If you’re looking to start or expand your ClickBank business, whether as a vendor or an affiliate, you will want to check out this new free Podcast, by ClickScoop.com, which features Sunil Tanna (me!) and ClickScoop host Miles Baker. Both of us have been with ClickBank for more than 14 years - in total that’s nearly 30 years of ClickBank experience! In this PodCast, we discuss lots of issues and ideas for powering up a successful ClickBank business. Check out the new free ClickScoop PodCast.

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you buy one of the products mentioned in this blog post, or if you join ClickBank as a vendor.

If you have written an eBook, or created another product, gone through the process of setting up a ClickBank vendor account, the question soon arises what to do next? Some people expect that they can just sit back and wait for the money to roll-in, but this rarely happens…

Our company has been with ClickBank for over 14 years, and sold all kinds of different products through their system. The fact is that in all that time, our direct sales have always been vastly more than all my affiliates combined - so the first thing that I would say: You’ve got to do your own marketing.

Some people say that affiliates will find and promote your website if your products are any good. My our experience says otherwise. I simply don’t believe it’s true “affiliates will find you if you’re good”. They may, but they don’t always - we’ve sold thousands and thousands of products, to a highly satisfied customer base, but affiliate-driven sales have always been a small part of our total sales.

I suspect that the same applies for other vendors too. Yes there are some poor quality vendors listed with ClickBank, but there are also tons of really good vendors (look beyond the Internet marketing categories), sometimes selling lots directly or through 1 or 2 affiliates, who fly under most affiliates’ radar because they never reach a critical mass of “gravity”, etc.

Let’s be honest though, from a vendor’s point of view, while it would be nice if affiliates drove tons oif sales, you don’t have to make it that important. A vendor’s real goal is to make sales, and there’s lots of ways to do that - it doesn’t have to be from affiliate traffic.

Some here are the things that I would suggest a new vendor do:

1. Promote your website to drive sales

2. Protect your ClickBank product against Thank You Page and Download theft, as much as you reasonably can without annoying legitimate customers.

Yes, there are some hardcore pirates who will never buy - but these aren’t the people you are interested in. There are plenty more people who will pirate if it’s easy to pirate, but will buy otherwise.

And doing this doesn’t have to be hard - it can be easy for - and completely transparent to your customers - if you use, CB Thank You Page Protector to do this for you.

3. Email every new customer after every sale to (a) say thank you, (b) give them your contact details again, (c) remind them what they’ve bought, (d) remind them that you’re a real person, (e) remind them how the charge will show on their billing statement, and (f) to start to build a relationship which eventually allow you to sell other products to them.

(a) to (e) will help reduce charge-backs and refunds, sometimes drastically so.

(f) will add to your bottom line.

And for the record, you can automate these emails using CB Thank You Page Protector.

4. Always work on improving your conversion rate, presentation, etc. Ideally, you should use split-testing, as shown in the video below, to fine tune your pitch pages so as to maximize conversions.

5. Did I say, promote your website to drive sales….

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you buy one of our products, or if you join ClickBank as a vendor.

One of the coolest things about selling digital products via ClickBank as a vendor, is that after you get your account activated (US $49.95 activation fee for ClickBank DIY), you can sell multiple products - up to 500 different products - using a single ClickBank account. Additionally, you can benefit from traffic provided by ClickBank affiliates, by offering them a commission for each sale - and ClickBank deals with all the hassle of tracking and paying affiliates. However, ClickBank has one limitation - normally you only get 1 single landing page for all your products and affiliates - although fortunately, there are ways around it.

First of all, before telling you the solution, let me explain why this is an issue:

• Imagine for example, you are selling several different eBooks from your ClickBank account. For example, you might specialize in writing books about home improvement, so you might have written books about bathrooms, kitchens, decorating, landscape gardening etc., Now, the best way for affiliates to promote these eBooks is to write reviews and articles on each topic - and try to drive sales of the corresponding eBook. However, since ClickBank normally only allows one landing page for your entire account, every visitor would instead be sent to the front page of your store, and must then find their own way to the appropriate eBook - of course many visitors will get lost, get distracted, lose interest, etc., - resulting in much poorer sales than could otherwise have been the case.
• It gets even worse if the products you want to sell are not closely related. There is no reason why you might not to sell, for example, home improvement eBooks, and also eBooks about fitness, and also perhaps eBooks about pet care. The problem however is that if affiliates can not directly promote specific eBooks in your catalog, and must instead link to the front page of a general store, it is virtually impossible for them to promote your products effectively.
• Finally, there are also situations where one product can appeal to multiple audiences, and you would like to have sales letters (pitch pages) suitable for each audience. For example, imagine you have written a book about eating a healthy diet. In that case, you would probably want to use a different sales letter, depending on whether the reader is a young woman, a new mother, a middle-aged man, etc. And in this event, if you would like your affiliates to be able to link to the best sales letter for them - the affiliate who owns a parenting forum, can link to the new mother’s version of the sales letter, and the affiliate who owns a site about Twilight, might like to the young woman’s version of the sales letter, etc.

So what is the solution to this problem?

One option is to open another ClickBank vendor account for each product that you want to sell. The problem with this, is that each account has a separate activation fee, you will find you get paid less frequently (because it is harder to hit minimums and customer distribution requirements), may end-up paying more in operating fees to ClickBank (for example check issuing fees, and dormant account fees if one of your products is selling slowly), and the whole thing is a lot harder to manage.

The alternative solution that our company has developed is called CBMultiLink. It lets you offer multiple landing pages to your affiliates, but using a single ClickBank account - saving you hassle and money.

As well as this CBMultiLink also provides a free link generator and link cloaking to your affiliates, helps you increase your account’s ClickBank gravity (which helps you recruit more affiliates and get more sales), and is dead easy to set up.

Here’s a video explaining CBMultiLink in more detail:

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank vendor and affiliate. We may earn a commission if you buy one of our products, or one of the third party products/services mentioned in the article, including if you join ClickBank as a vendor.

CB Thank You Page Protector is a PHP Script for ClickBank vendors available from http://www.marketingrocket.com/tscbsecure.php and http://www.scriptrocket.com/tscbsecure.php

The script prevents unauthorized users from accessing ClickBank Thank You Pages, Downloads, or sharing links to these pages or downloads. It also helps you improve your customer service, build relationships with customers, reduce charge-backs and refunds, and promote additional product sales to your customers.

Each product’s Thank You Page can be customized as much as you want, and can include dynamically customer-specific information such as the date/time of purchase, the customer’s name, customer’s country, the receipt number, etc.

Additionally, CB Thank You Page Protector can send an automatic thank you email to each of your customers. Once again, this can be customized as much as you wish, and can include customer-specific information such as the customer’s name and receipt number. You can use this feature to build relationships with customers, tell them about other products that you offer (and thus boost your sales), and to remind customers of what they purchased, their receipt number, how the charge will show on their billing statement, etc., (which can help reduce charge-backs and refunds).

Finally CB Thank You Page Protector also includes an automatic notification email. You can get the software to automatically send a notification email to an email address of your choice after each sale. The notification email can also be fully customized, and can include customer-specific information. You can use this feature to notify yourself or your staff about new customers, or to interface with external third party systems and software such as autoresponders and customer-service applications.

To find out more about CB Thank You Page Protector, or to get a copy for your website, please go to http://www.marketingrocket.com/tscbsecure.php or http://www.scriptrocket.com/tscbsecure.php

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank Vendor and Affiliate, and has been for more than 14 years. We earn money by selling our own products through ClickBank, as well as earning affiliate commission on other products sold by ClickBank, including ClickBank’s own products/services. Products/services mentioned in this review include products which we are affiliates of, and which we may earn a commission if you buy one of these products after following a link from this review.

One of the clever way for ClickBank vendors to generate more revenue is to create a membership site rather than selling individual eBooks or software downloads. This is because membership sites allow you to make regular recurring sales to your customers, rather than indivudual one-off sales: the customer does not pay once to get your eBook - instead the customers pays every single month to continue to access your private member’s website.

ClickBank includes some really cool features designed to help smooth running your membership site, including most importantly, "Recurring Billing". "Recurring Billing" simply means that your customers enter their credit card or payment details once, but they continue be billed automatically every month until they decide to cancel their membership.

That said however, even with help from ClickBank, you need to still
take care of all the other aspects of running your membership site, including writing an effective pitch page that persuades people to join your membership site, creating content for your membership site that people will pay to see, and some technical/administrative aspects such as maintaining your list of members (although the right software, used properly, can make this task easy).

Here are some tools and resources for creating and running your own membership site:

• Software:
  • Easy Member Pro: This is software that you can install (or have installed for you) on your website that automates the admin-side of running a membership site such as adding new members, removing members, etc. This probably the market-leader, perhaps the most flexible software choice, but it is still fairly technical in terms of setting it up, etc. If you are an experienced webmaster, this should probably be the first package that you should look at.
  • Member Desk: This package offers a really easy and quick way of setting up a membership site. It’s ideal for people who are not technical, or who don’t want to waste time messing with the tech-side. In short, if you are not a technical wizard, or you don’t want to devote much time to the technical side of things, then look at this package first.
• Guides:
  • Membership Site Bible: A guide to setting up a membership site. Includes audio interviews with industry experts.
  • Membership Master Video Course: A video series about setting up a membership site.
• Graphics:
  • Membership Site Graphics Pack: This is a free set of graphics that your company have put together for owners of membership sites. It includes various "Join" payment buttons, as well as lots of attractive membership cards. I will also write a separate post specifically about this package, but you can dwonload it and check out the graphics for yourself. If you want even more graphics for your sales-letters, pitch-pages, or general internet-marketing needs, please check out out low-cost paid graphics packages: Internet Marketing Graphics Pack, and our ClickBank Vendor Graphics Pack ("CB Vendor Graphics Pack").

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more

Disclosure: Our company is a ClickBank Vendor and Affiliate, and has been for more than 14 years. We earn money by selling our own products through ClickBank, as well as earning affiliate commission on other products sold by ClickBank, including ClickBank’s own products/services. We are also an AWeber affiliate, and earn commissions from sale of their services.

If you’re not already a member, you will recall that ClickBank is an online retailer that you integrate with your website. In the past there were two ways of joining ClickBank:

1. ClickBank Vendor: You can easily sell your own downloadable products from your website (such as software or eBooks). You also get access to all the affiliate features (see below). There was a one-time US $49.95 setup fee associated with activating a vendor account, as well as some deductions that apply to your earnings, including transaction fees on your own sales, and check issuing fees, etc.
2. ClickBank Affiliate: You can use special links to earn to other vendors, and earn commissions on sales that you refer. Setting up your account was free, but there were some deductions that apply to your earnings, for your own sales, such as check issuing fees, etc.

ClickBank have now revised their site, and there are now four different ways to join:

1. Vendors - ClickBank DIY - this appears to be basically the old ClickBank vendor option. Cost: one-time $49.95 setup fee, plus transaction fees, check issuing fees, etc. You need to provide your own web hosting, but this the most flexible option, and this will be the option our company will continue to use.
2. Vendors - ClickBank Powered - Cost: From $47/month (as well as transaction fees, etc.). With this option, ClickBank provides web hosting and tools to get your site up and running quickly. They also can provide training and support. In other words, it’s ideal for somebody who doesn’t have the skills or ability to setup their own ClickBank site.
3. Affiliates - ClickBank for Affiliates - Cost: Free (but check issue fees, etc.). This appears to be the old ClickBank affiliate option.
4. Affiliates - ClickBank Audience Builder - Cost: $27/month. You join ClickBank as an affiliate and earn commissions on sales of third party products, but ClickBank provide you with hosting, an autoresponder, etc. This option seems to be mainly aimed at novices who are new to affiliate marketing, and who are looking for an easy entry point.

All these options are very interesting, and I’m sure they will allow ClickBank to reach a whole new set of vendors and affiliates. That said, I do hope that ClickBank doesn’t lose focus - they need to remember that their main business is enabling the sale of digital products to end-users (the people reading the eBooks, etc.) rather than taking money directly from vendors/affiliates.

One other point worth considering, which isn’t entirely clear is whether the web hosting, autoresponder, etc., provided in “ClickBank Audience Builder” and “ClickBank Powered” will be as good as the best of breed provided by specialist vendors in these categories - for example, will ClickBank’s autoresponder be as good as that provided by AWeber?

Lastly, one concern that I would have if I was using “ClickBank Audience Builder” and “ClickBank Powered” is that all my eggs are in one basket. If I were ever to fall-out with ClickBank (hopefully not likely, as I’ve been with them for 14 years, and have a good relationship - but I like to be prepared for the worst case scenario), then since my websites are not hosted with ClickBank, I could always switch to another retailer or payment provider. However if I were using ClickBank’s hosting, I might not have that option.

Anyway it will be interesting to see how it pans out - I expect there will be some fascinating stories (including hopefully some big success stories) as people start to explore the new ClickBank capabilities!

Note: All prices in this article are current at the time of writing, but ClickBank may vary them at any time. They do not include VAT or Sales Tax which may or may not apply depending on your geographic location.

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• ClickBank Payment Button Graphics
• ClickBank Vendor Graphics - Turbo-charge your sales letters and pitch pages
• Why you need to secure your ClickBank Thank You Page
• Multiple Landing Pages for ClickBank Vendors
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more
• Using Social Proof to Increase ClickBank Sales

• ClickBank Advice for Affiliates & Vendors - from the ClickBank King!
• What happened to the ClickBank Marketplace? ClickBank hid it, but you can still put it on your site with CBRocket 4.00
• Free Link Cloaker Script
• The Ultimate Ad Tracker - tracking ads, banners, website visitors, conversion rates, and more