Simple JavaScript
A week ago I made a very subtle change to my blog. You probably didn't even notice it, I bet. I moved the link on the right side for "Simple JavaScript" from the e-books to the video infoproducts category.
That wasn't a mistake.
I went back and recorded the videos for it. So, do you have any old e-books that you can update for the year 2008 and record some quick videos for?
They don't need to be super great. All I have is an out of date copy of Camtasia 4 and a USB headset. I open my PDF e-book to the beginning of the chapter, read the title and the first couple of paragraphs, then get to work, actually performing the steps the book tells me to, step by step.
I am very liberal with the pause button. I read part of the book and then do exactly as the book says, explaining what I'm doing as I'm doing it. Sometimes I'll ad-lib some comment, or go on a rant, or notice something I didn't notice when I wrote the instructions -- but did notice when I actually performed them. (Yet another reason why videos are such a valuable part of any infoproduct.)
People are lazy. If they can watch something instead of reading something, they'll be more interested in it.
My videos aren't award winning or clever. They really aren't that great. But they're good enough -- remember "it doesn't have to look good, just be good?"
I wasn't even decent in my earliest videos. In the winter of 2005 (I think) I recorded about 20 hours of PHP videos that just stunk. I don't even have them anymore. In retrospect I probably should have at least sold away the rights to them.
But I recorded the videos with the intention of selling them. You shouldn't record videos just for the purpose of wasting time and keeping yourself from building your business.
Video takes practice just the same as it takes practice to write well. It probably took an additional 3 or 4 video infoproducts to get it right. Now I don't mumble, I project my voice as well as I can and I speak slowly enough in the videos that I don't trip over my own words or click my mouse around too much like a babbling idiot.
My videos used to take 25 takes on average to get right, now I get through them in one take. Okay, I'll admit that every now and then I will screw up and have to record a second take.
- You can record videos for your old infoproducts and double their perceived value.
- You can avoid what Willie Crawford calls "The $20 E-Book Syndrome."
- You can create products that include audio, video, physical materials or DVDs that sell for $97 instead of $27... that require only 10% more work for you to make.
No one cares if you sound stupid as long as they understand you and you have something interesting to say. If you "get excited about your topic," that's no big deal.
I find that if I try to record a bunch of videos in a row, I get tired and just try to plow through them. They end up feeling substandard and rushed... not good. If you sound rushed and eager to finish the video, you don't sound like you're excited about your topic.
Instead, record a 10 minute video and then do something physical for 10 minutes (hey, let's not get dirty now).
You need to recharge your batteries.
- Record a 10 minute video then get in your car and drive around the block for 10 minutes.
- Record another 10 minute video then go have dinner.
- Record another 10 minute video, then mow the lawn.
- Record yet another 10 minute video, then buy groceries.
Even if you could only set aside time to record one video per day, you could convert your old boring e-books to exciting video information products. That's what I'm going to do this month.
I haven't blogged all week because I didn't want to talk myself out of doing this, but I have three more old e-books that are ready to be converted into video products. I have them all recorded and uploaded as of last night, I just have to work on the sales letters for them, one at a time.
I'll be re-launching Sales Page Tactics Volume 1 with video within the hour -- it's probably already out by the time you read this.
Do you have plans to record just one video per day to breathe new life into an old product? Comment on this entry below and tell me what you are working on.
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As always, step-by-step you are doing a good job. Carpe diem 🙂
I feel you on the one-takes in regards to video…
When I first started doing videos, I was literally pulling my hair out b/c I was trying to wing it.
Then I scripted it out and that worked for awhile although there were way too many awkward pauses and the occassional, “ummm..you know”s…in there.
But 30 something videos later and I am back to winging it without much problems and yeah, I am doing them in one take as well for the most part.
Hi Rob
Nice post – I think many people will have overlooked the pause button when they are recording their first few videos – I know I did!
It certainly made a huge difference to my products (and subsequently to my revenue streams!).
As always, Robert, you come up with a little different, more special twist on a topic that’s important.
Do you suggest making videos of EVERY ebook you create? What’s your ‘take’ on MRR? I notice that you don’t often offer rights… and I rarely do either, because of the people that instantly devalue it by offering it for below-cost just to make a few bucks…
But the other school of thought is to get it out there, who cares if people sell it for $1 on eBay… you’re building a list…
I’m still on the fence about it most of the time. Again, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom on a very simple way of adding value to our products.
And I, too, forget about that pause button…
Keep up your great work,
Donna 🙂
Donna: Why not make videos of every e-book you create? At the very least you could make a simple PowerPoint presentation (emphasis on simple… 6 words or less per slide) and record it with narration like I have done with a couple of YouTube videos posted on this blog. (The “Breaking into Any Niche” series.)
Even if you don’t want to do that, why not record the book word for word and offer it as a CD or MP3… or if you don’t want to do that, outsource it. Anything to be more than JUST a book.
When you go to the book store, regular print books sell for $10-$20 while audio books are more in the $50 range. Higher perceived value, yet the audio CDs are much cheaper to manufacture.
I don’t really believe in MRR. I have only offered MRR to one product and boy was it a mistake. Marketers don’t seem to know the difference between Master Resale Rights, Private Label Rights, and Full Rights.
Somebody ran a Warrior Special Offer not too long ago. The first half of the sales letter was all her original product, but the second half sounded exactly like my MRR product. Yet she didn’t mention my name or the title of my product at all.
So people were being sold on HER product based on my MRR product (many who already had a copy of mine). Not only that, she was offering MRR to her buyers instead of regular resale rights.
If you ask me, giving away Master Resale Rights are a great way to totally devalue your product into basically a freebie, build other peoples’ lists, make other people money and leave you with nothing. I would definitely go for an affiliate program over any kind of resale rights.
Hey Robert,
Using an “…out of date copy of Camtasia 4…”, eh? 🙂 Heck, I still manage to create good screencast videos with Camtasia 3 (and Camtasia is now in v5)! But hey, a good tool is a good tool is a good tool! If you’ve got a software tool that does just what you need it to do and does it well (and you’re used to it), no reason to upgrade, I don’t care how many more bells and whistles or workflow differences (improvements?) it offers.
Indeed, re-purposing “text” type digital products by converting to other formats is an excellent way to leverage that asset and get more mileage out of it.
Video is here, and it’s the future in terms of conveying information.
That said, bear in mind that different people have different preferences for learning: Some do better reading, other prefer listening (e.g. audio), while others can’t get anything done unless they actually see it – hence, the power of video.
As for creating videos, it’s so true that it can be daunting and frustrating to “get it right”, to get through it in a single take. It takes practice and patience. “Chunking” the workload as you describe, is a great way to accomplish the task.
At the same time, I’ll bet many have some pretty funny moments in their “takes” that don’t make the cut! I know I have!
Since I have a funny video clips site, if anyone has some great “bloopers” or “outtakes” they’ve created, let me know and maybe I’ll put them on my site!
Continued thanks Robert for another excellent blog post!
Dave
Hi Robert
Just to think, this all started because of a pdf manual I found in the depths of my huge hard drive.
“Robert Planks Super Six” dated 2005
You don’t know me but my partner Ted Turner purchased me the Simple PHP Vol’s 1-3 at the beginning of the week and since then I’ve been purchasing as many of your tutorials as I can afford as of late after finding that title “Robert Planks Super Six” deep with in the bowels of my hard drive..
You see, I’ve struggled for quite some time with both JavaScript and PHP; I’ve even gone so far as to install wampserver on one of my five computers so I can learn JavaScript and PHP. In fact I love the trick about the in your Top Secret PHP manual Chapter 7. Boy could I have used that a few months back, sure would have saved me having to put in all the full url links in. I took the original files I began with and stuck that trick in , ran it from my localhost running wampserver and walla every thing worked with just that one change. Its just amazing what great teaching a seasoned programmer like yourself can do for us laymen. I also don’t believe you’re some head-strong smarty-pants like some other programmers I’ve dealt with, they are just.., Well I’d say “I’ll never use them again! Nor recommend them to anyone.
But my reason to write you is “I must say the best videos and manuals I’ve run across”, Let me explain, I’ve spent many hours at the local book store reading the “run of the mill” books, there just so booorinnnggg! , in fact the last one put me to sleep till someone woke me while snoring. How embarrassing :-C,
Your videos and manuals on the other hand cut through all the crap and get to the meat of the subject. Right on! Or should I say You Rock! ,OK I know that dates me. Sorry, but I’m excited!
I’ve learned more in the past two weeks than I did over the past 2 1/2 – 3 yrs. Now, I could do some PHP before, what I mean is I could find my way around in it and make adjustments and such but really stunk at writing my own programs in PHP and JavaScript or all the funny little charters and what they meant, before reading your manuals, your teaching and videos are fabulous.
You’ll have to put me in the show me category then let me have the manuals to back it up type person. Really, you’ve help me to turn on the lights! All those tidbits of information are finally coming together. Now I too can relate to the high school students I use to teach computers to. They use to tell me that all of a sudden the light came on… Anyway, Kudus to you…
However,Its like I’m addicted, Even this old brain of mine is absorbing this like a sponge, already in your videos and manuals you’ve helped answer many of the questions I have had, plus while watching your video’s I pick up things that are not even in the training, just by the way you do things helps me be more efficient and am adapting them to my sites and procedures. However, there is one question I do have and this might not be the place to ask but, “how did the following site do that mouse-over effect?”
http://www.go2web20.net/
Great Job!, and I’m looking forward to your next manuals and videos, and thanks for updating the Simple JavaScript tutorial with Videos. Very much appreciated!
My current titles from you are, Simple PHP Vol 1-3, Sales Page Tactics Vol’s 1-3, Simple JavaScript, then your video series, PHP on Crack, Lighting PHP, Impact PHP, Sonic PHP, PHP Uncensored Version 4, and Top Secret PHP well since my first draft I now have everything except the Affiliate BattlePlan . Plus a number of your free reports..
Again, Awesome Training! Suburb value!
A Role model that other trainers need to follow.
If I know of any one who wants to know or is trying to understand JavaScript or PHP better, then these are the manuals and videos I’ll recommend.
I do vote for at least an affiliate program, and as you said forget the MRR route, these are just to good for that!!
My highest recommendations go to you “Robert”.
Keep up the good works and I’ll watch for you in the warrior forum and hope to see you in InternetMarketingStarOfTheYear for this year and many years to come.
Rick Franklin
Deputy Program Director
http://www.internetmarketingstaroftheyear.com
p.s. great resume too.
Robert, I have several of your products and am well pleased. My programming background goes way back to Assembly Language coding, but I’ve been away from it for a while, so I need some upgrading and for PHP your it.
Your teaching style reminds me of another great teacher “Boogie Jack” who does html and css. The two of you pretty well round out my personal programming education.
I am in the process, with a partner, of setting up an instructional video website, but your blog has given me one more push toward turning some of my product into videos for my current sites.
Your comments on MRR is interesting and may cause me to rethink how we offer our videos on the new site. Thanks again for the great blog.
Jim Mr Idea Green
My Free Weekly Ezine
http://TheGreatIdeazine.com
Hi Robert,
Another thought provoking article! Especially about MRR. What are your thoughts about PLR?
I am about to try out eBay, along the lines of Socrates Socratou and John Thornhill, with some additional (video training) from David Guindon to basically create traffic from a reasonably hungry crowd using some PLR that I have had for a couple of years. Too much to do video to but, maybe that’s the backend sale I’m looking for. I was thinking of using ordinary ‘personal use’ on eBay then having an OTO up to RR then another OTO up to PLR. Any thoughts on this model anyone?
The PLR I plan on using is good quality but could be improved with the addition of audio/video. There would be many hours to do this though. Another thought I had was: Do I create a blog and record audio/video of what I am doing whether it succeeds or fails?
Whew Robert! You’ve got me thinking what do I do. I guess I may have to try it out but I have never used on screen video before such as Camtasia. Is it very hard? Can I get training anywhere or do I ‘suck it and see’?
Just in case I manage to get rolling I’ve got the eBay ID of InfoHow2 and the website InfoHow2.com plus one or two other domains with InfoHow2 as part of the name.
Any thoughts?
Thanks for your ideas you come up with in your blog. As I said previously, yours is the only blog I regularly come to.
Chris
PS Will you be selling Sales Page Tactics 2 separately? I already had SPT3 so bought SPT1 on its own. Now need SPT2.
Rick: I thought you sent an e-mail about that site and I replied. For that site to work, all those boxes have to be exactly the same size. There is a floating rectangular div layer that provides the description for each link and when you hover over each square, it re-positions the rectangular layer on top of it and writes the text. I would get into more detail but I don’t understand why anyone would want to provide navigation in that way… just looking at that page I’m not motivated to click on any of the links and I don’t even know what each site is about until I hover over it.
Jim: I haven’t heard of Boogie Jack. I just checked out his site… you’re right, he is a great teacher. Even though a couple of things on that site are outdated… he has a lot of cool tutorials and products. Heck, he is even a reseller of my Simple PHP book!
Chris: I am also very much against PLR. With resale rights you are losing out on long-term profits but at least you’re getting your name out there… with PLR, you might as well be a ghostwriter.
Hold off on the video and release the product as-is for now if you think it will delay you. You can always go back and add video later, like I’m doing to my older products now.
Camtasia isn’t super hard, you just tell it to start recording and it records exactly what you see on your computer screen, plus it records whatever you say into your microphone. TechSmith (the people who sell it) have lots of video tutorials on how to use Camtasia. As long as you keep it simple, don’t try to be perfect and stay away from the fancy features like adding text, zooming in and out on specific areas, you will be able to pump out videos without a lot of work as long as you practice.
I’m fairly new to blogging, it’s made me more productive because it’s kept me out of time-wasting forums for the most part. Also I’ve felt like, if I don’t have a new product to launch every week, I’m letting people down by not having anything to say.
The thing about blogging is I don’t share what I’m going to do next, I only share what I’ve just done.
As long as your blog isn’t just another way to waste time and keep yourself from creating and marketing products, it might be helpful.
Sales Page Tactics 2 is for sale separately. There’s a link to it on the right side of this blog.
Not sure i follow the whole
” I need 10 comments before I post another ”
Like people dont have to comment as like neither do you have to post, now if you was some millionaire giving some profound statements that couldnt be learned elsewhere i could understand buts its not
Seriously… how are you going to cope if you dont get your 10 comments
Dave, I like having 10+ comments to each post because I want my blog filled up.
I’m sorry I’m not a millionaire but I did make $90,000 last year ($64,000 was from internet marketing) and I’m 23. Last month (January 2008) I made $9,000 in profit and I’ve brought in an additional $2,400 from internet marketing in the past 7 days.
I don’t understand what “profound statements” you are looking for… where are your “profound statements”?
Thanks for your comments Robert.
I suddenly realised I had a free cam recorder software on my hard drive, called RenderSoft CamPlus. Its freeware so i’ve just finished setting up a download for any of your visitors who might like it. The link is below. I am asking for voluntary opt-ins to a list and I will endeavour to keep those people informed of my progress at what I am about to do.
Link is: http://www.infohow2.com/RPlankBlogVisitors
My elderley cat decided to get in on the act, she’s 17 years old, so I took a picture of her waiting to have her tummy rubbed and included it in the zip file! Also a little something else in the pdf also enclosed.
I’ll keep you posted on what happens.
Thanks once again Robert.
So Robert, What inspired you to relax your standards and not worry about having a perfect video? Hehe. Dave
Dave Wooding, you joker. My videos will never be perfect but there were many many things I did wrong in those videos that I only could have known from trial and error.
For example, in those videos I started from scratch and showed every single boring step I took to create the finished product.
Remember that article spinner script you asked me to make for you, years and years ago, before there were article spinners? That was one of the videos I recorded. It took 3 hours.
I still knew enough to use the pause button back then… but 3 hours just for one script? Who would even sit through that?
It’s kind of like those cooking shows you watch on TV… they make it look so easy… and skip ahead 15 to 30 minutes sometimes. You say to yourself, that’s kind of cheap, skipping ahead in time like that. But if they made you sit through every single detail you would lose interest fast.
Robert- Thanks so much for the post- I’m going to try to make a video right now!
Paydex
Hi Robert,
How can we upgrade to your new products when we own
previous versions? I got Simple Javascript for example and would like the newer update…
Thanks,
Riggie Freyer
Riggie, can you send me an e-mail or use the form here: http://www.jumpx.com/feedback.php to send me your PayPal receipt.
I *always* send updates to my products, but sometimes the message either gets in the junk mail folder, or people unsubscribe from the update list (and then come running back to me later when they want product updates… frustrating!!)