maandag 7 juli 2014

Invest In An eBook Publishing Company For Less Than $1000

A brand new, under 1000 dollar investment opportunity landed in my inbox a couple of days ago; IM Cartel. If it hadn't been for the author of the email, I probably wouldn't have even read it. Luckily for me, I've done business with Ben Shaffer in the past. He's always proven himself to be an honest business man and eager to help his customers, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

This is one of those out of the box investments where you'll be investing in an eBook publishing company. The company is targeting the very lucrative Amazon Kindle market.

Background Info You Need To Know Before Investing


Kindle device
The Kindle, and in particular the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, has been a real game changer in the world of book publishing. All of a sudden indie authors who couldn't get a contract with regular
publishing companies, could publish their books on Kindle for free.

The most popular example of how Kindle changed the world of eBooks is probably author Amanda Hocking. You can read an interesting article from 2011 here. Before Kindle nobody had heard of her, today, 3 years later,  her "Hunger Games" series is being turned into blockbuster films in Hollywood.

Obviously, this is an extreme success story and not all new indie publishers become such a success. However, there is a proven method to publishing and marketing eBooks that will rake in hundreds of dollars a week. Scaled properly, you can even make thousands a week.

Unfortunately, this method involves a lot of work. And if you're not willing to do the work yourself, it will cost you a ton of money to outsource everything. Believe me, I've tried both methods, with moderate success. Even outsourcing every single step ended up costing me quite a bit of time.

With the IM Cartel, the time you have to invest (more on that later) has been reduced to the bare minimum. After all, you're investing in company, not in an "how to publish on Kindle" eBook or training course. Investors generally don't (like to) get their hands dirty, so to speak.

Who's This Ben Shaffer?


In an online world, every Tom, Dick and Harry can start a publishing company, so you'll want to take a close look at who you're getting into bed with. Ben Shaffer of IM Cartel was successfully selling hundreds of thousands of eBooks online, and running a bunch of other businesses, long before Amazon came up with the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

So, not only does he know what people want to read, with 10+ years of online marketing experience under his belt, he also knows how to market his books. And the marketing is, in my opinion, the hardest part of publishing.

The IM Cartel Breakdown


Investing in the IM Cartel is like crowdfunding a new publishing start up. With crowdfunding the investors usually get some kind of reward. This could be anything from a simply thank you note, to a prototype or personalized special edition of a certain product.

The rewards of investing in this start up could be a lot greater, though. Ben Shaffer offers his investors a percentage of the royalties that are received for the published books. You can see a breakdown of the expected earnings here.

As you can see, if you take a look at the conservative expectations (which is what I always do), it would take you almost 2 years to break even. Considering the fact that Ben has an ace up his sleeve, I think the moderate expectations are more likely. These give you almost $500 in profit in the first year alone.

Not too shabby for investing less than $1000.

The important thing to remember here, is that the royalties will keep rolling in, year after year. And as the number of books published in the cartel increases on a weekly basis, so will the royalties.

I mentioned earlier that you do have to invest a bare minimum of time if you decide to join the cartel. Don't worry, it doesn't involve standing on streetcorners pushing books.

Every month, you have to purchase and review 2 ebooks.That's it.

There are plenty of ways to get more involved in the business if you want to, but these are all optional. You'll receive the titles of the books to choose from and you'll receive instructions on how to buy the books if you've never bought on Amazon. All books will cost between $0,99 and $2,99. So at the most, this will cost you an extra $24 a year.

Do you remember my mentioning Ben having an ace up his sleeve? This is what convinces me the moderate expectations are very feasible.

Once the books have become hot sellers, he incorporates a backend sale for every book. You'll receive a percentage of every backend sale, on top of the percentage of the royalties. This quickly adds up as the number of published books increase.

If you're unaware of what a backend sale is, think of it as the options on a car. You don't necesarilly need them to drive the car, but they make your life so much more comfortable.

Spots are limited. Too many cartel members would water down the royalties too much and not make it worthwile. You can find the number of available spots here (scroll down to the bottom).

Conclusion


Do I think the IM Cartel is a worthy under $1000 investment?

Absolutely!

  1. With sales of Kindle eBooks and devices increasing year after year, this investment could bring in a very nice passive income for several years to come.
  2. Ben Shaffer has a good track record as a business partner and in over delivering to his customers. Quality products and excellent customer service are what separate a company from the competition.
  3. During September, people start shopping for Christmas gifts. Just think of how many people will receive a new Kindle device on Christmas day. The first thing they'll do is head over to Amazon and start loading their ereader with books they want to read during the holidays. eBook sales have spiked during the holiday season for several years in a row.

Even if you follow the very conservative earning expectations, that's without the backend sales, you'll make your investment back in two years. Everything after that is just gravy.

Me? From now on when people ask me what I do, I'll tell them I'm part of a cartel.

Click here to discover all the details of earning money as an IM Cartel member.

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