Everything I Know About Making Money Selling PLR Articles (My Ultimate Guide)

I’ve been working on the guide for a number of weeks now (you may remember be mentioning it passing). I realized it’s never going to be perfect, but the following is a guide – more a retelling of my own journey – about selling PLR articles for profit and turning it into a business that earns multiple thousands per month (directly and indirectly). See below if you’re not sure what PLR is yet.

I hope you enjoy the post. I warn you, it’s a long one! It could have actually gone into an eBook instead, but this post is part of my new resolution to share with people. If you find it useful in any way, I’d really appreciate you sharing it with people who might find it useful, or with the social networking links on the left.

A Note About Links

If you really want to say thanks, then I have included my affiliate links and I will receive a payout when you buy through them. That said, this post isn’t designed as a plug for any PLR guides or services that I used – I simply include them to give you the full story of what I’ve done, you may not need them all. I haven’t written this guide to get rich and don’t even expect to make anything from it. This is my own way of giving back to my subscribers – I know many of you are running PLR stores, though some advice will apply to other business models too.

What Is PLR?

PLR stands for Private Label Rights. Sometimes, PLR articles come with the rights for you to use however you want. However, usually, and for the purposes of my own PLR business, PLR articles are those you can edit, use in your personal websites, eBooks, autoresponder series etc and put your name to.

They aren’t unique to one buyer, so the downside of PLR is that many people may end up using the same articles. This is why most (myself included) choose to rewrite, edit, or use PLR as the basis of a new project. The benefit of PLR is that it’s extremely cheap, far cheaper than ghostwriting, and will save you time over writing the content from scratch. I charge $1 per article (or less) for my own PLR.

You can find my PLR sites here:
Net PLR
Product PLR Monthly
Toy PLR Monthly

If you’re interested in buying PLR from the latter two sites, use the code ‘webcareergirl’ (without quotes) in the coupon box when you sign up (it’ll save you 25%).

Introduction To My Guide On How To Sell PLR

Note that, in the title, I said this was “my” ultimate guide. It’s not the ultimate guide for a number of reasons, not least the fact that there are far more successful PLR sellers out there than me, and also because there is more than one way to start a business like this.

That said, I also know there are a lot of people who could learn something from me, so I wanted to create my own “definitive” post on the topic. For those who aren’t in PLR, you’ll also get a very strong idea of how much work is involved and whether it’s a business model for you.

Many people only started to notice my PLR store after Tiffany Dow launched her PLR ATM course and a number of other new sellers started to pop up. The truth is I launched around 6 months before that eBook was released, and saw reasonable success, but left my PLR store on the back burner. Ever since the launch of PLR ATM (from step 7 in this post onwards) I started to treat my PLR store like more of a business, and my success has only grown.

How To Use This Guide

As a framework for laying out the guide, I’ve gone through the steps I took in the order I took them. But I’ve also included extra information. For example, step 4 details my first Warrior Special Offer. It also includes tips I’ve learned from subsequent offers. In this way I’m documenting my whole PLR journey at the same time as including extra relevant tips as I go.

I called it the “ultimate” guide but I have to confess I didn’t go into huge detail about the membership site. I will write a post on that soon, though, so sign up to my newsletter if you’d like to be notified..

 

CONTENTS:

1. How Much Money Do I Make From My PLR Store?
2. Is PLR Right For You?
3. Step 1 – Doing My Research
4. Step 2 – Preparing PLR Inventory & Getting The Site Ready
   Shopping Cart
5. Step 3 – Launching The Website & Setting Up A New Email List
6. Step 4 – My First Freebie Warrior Special Offer (Getting 100+ Subscribers) & Other List Building Activity
   Results Of My First WSO
   Other Tips For Releasing Freebies
7. Step 5 – Launching My First Paid Special Offer
   Results Of My First Paid WSO
   Something More Important Than Sales Numbers… A Buyers List!
   More Tips For Paid WSOs
8. Step 6 – What Next For My PLR Store? A Lesson In Keeping Momentum
9. Step 7 – Getting Re-Motivated After A Few Months of No Activity – Learning From Tiffany Dow and the PLR Experts
   Watching Other PLR Sellers And Trying New Things
   Top PLR Guides I Recommend For All Levels Of PLR Seller
   A Note On Focus
10. Step 8 - My First $1000+ Month From My PLR Store
11. Step 9 – Starting An Affiliate Program
    Shopping Carts & Affiliate Programs
    Launching The Affiliate Program
    Setting Up An Affiliate Notification List
12. Step 10 – Working With – Not Against – My Fellow PLR Sellers & Building Relationships
    The Added Benefits Of Promoting Other PLR Sellers
    Re-Selling Other People’s PLR
13. Step 11 - Launching My First PLR Membership Site & Preparing For The Future
14. My Top PLR Tips
15. Conclusion
16. Resources Mentioned In This Post

How Much Money Do I Make From My PLR Store?

I’m not going to go into a detailed breakdown of my PLR earnings, suffice to say I’m happy with my progress.

I keep track of all my earnings in a spreadsheet, and can tell you this:

• In the first 6 months of my PLR store, I only earned an average of $85 per month,
• In the 7th month I earned more than the past 6 months put together, as I started to take my PLR store more seriously,
• My bestselling PLR pack has earned me over $1,700 so far,
• My best ever PLR packs earn me over $60 per article,
• But I still have a couple of packs that have only earned me a couple of dollars per article!

When I look at what I made when I first started, I’m surprised I didn’t give up. But it still seemed worth the time I was putting in to the content, and I always felt it would be a good way to diversify my income sources.

These numbers may not be amazing by some standards, but I am very happy. My PLR income has only grown in recent months, and I expect it to keep on growing. My PLR income is more than enough for me to live on, excluding other online income I make from my niche websites.

Is Selling PLR Right For You?

I know a lot of people are getting into PLR lately, especially after seeing people like Tiffany Dow make $10,000 every time she runs a sale. I’m not at her level yet, but I can certainly see the potential (as you can see above).

Just because something is profitable, though, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. PLR isn’t for everyone. I am a firm believer that, although we all need to make money, working online means we should mainly be doing things we enjoy. If your heart’s not in it, then you might want to look somewhere else.

I’ve put a lot of hard work into my PLR business, and I don’t want to skirt around that fact. I now have the benefit of hindsight, and it all seems worthwhile. For example, I’ve put out freebies before and had quite a few sign ups but not much extra business at the time. Then I finally launched my membership site and it surpassed my expectations – I see now that all the effort I put into building my list was worth it.

So, yes, PLR is hard work, but it’s also flexible work. If you’re not willing to put in the hours, or if you truly hate what you’re doing, don’t do it. If you are doing it, though, don’t give up! Every effort you put in might not pay off instantly, but it will pay off eventually. I hope this guide will show you that.

Step 1 – Doing My Research

When I launched my PLR store, the guides PLR ATM and Become A PLR Writer didn’t exist. I wasn’t aware of any others, so I did it all off my own back and my own research. I spent a lot of time on this step, and I still believe to this day that it has served me very well. Peggy Baron does go into this in a lot of detail in Become A PLR Writer (which would have helped save me time!), but I looked into the following areas myself:

• Average cost of PLR packs,
• Average word count,
• Any extras included with PLR packs,
• Payment system different sellers where using,
• Topics people were writing on (I initially tried to release topics I saw nowhere else),
• How the PLR writers presented themselves,
• How different PLR sellers were building their lists,
• And anything else I noticed.

I took PLR very seriously when I started. I scheduled my work so that I could dedicate most of the month of January 2010 to writing and researching for my PLR store. In hindsight, it was quite risky to do that. But I took the project seriously from the start and it definitely helped (unfortunately, I didn’t keep the momentum up).

Note that this research never ends. You can pick up small new ideas from everywhere, not just other PLR sellers but internet marketers in general. You don’t have to do everything that everyone else does, just try things for yourself (more about this in step 7).

Step 2 – Preparing PLR Inventory & Getting The Site Ready

My main priority was to write an initial batch of PLR articles. I didn’t want to launch with just one or two – so I made it a goal to write 10 during that month.

My writing process:

• Research topics in demand but that weren’t covered in the same way by other PLR sellers,
• Look for related affiliate programs for those topics,
• Do some keyword research to create individual article titles,
• Find a few main, reliable sources for researching those topics,
• Writing one pack at a time,
• Proofreading and putting it together into a PLR package.

To keep myself accountable, I let my online colleagues know my plan to launch a PLR website. I set a goal of X words per day (I forget the exact number), and it really motivated me to get it done.

Coming Up With Ideas For PLR Packs

My first suggestion would just be to think about what you’re interested in, and whether you think it’d be a good idea to specialize in a specific topic (i.e. beauty PLR or green PLR).

If you have specific things you know a lot about or have a passion for then it’ll be easier to write the articles and they’ll probably be better quality, too. But the ideas you come up with might not always be viable, so you can use these other tips to think about what’s hot and in demand.

Keyword Tools: Sometimes if you have a broad idea you might want to break it down into something smaller. So if I thought I wanted to do a pack on dogs, for example, but didn’t know what specifically, I’d type it into a keyword tool to see what comes up. When you type “dog” into the Google Keyword Tool, lots of things come up e.g. miniature dogs which could be an interesting idea you’d never thought of.

I also use the keyword tool to check that my ideas are viable. I do a search for the niche I had in mind and find related keywords, and will often use these keywords as a basis for what I come up with for the articles within the pack. If there aren’t enough keywords available then sometimes I will forget a PLR pack idea as it may mean not many people are searching for it, so not many affiliate marketers would be looking for PLR on the topic either.

Warrior Forum: The Warrior Forum is a good place to go because here you’ll see what’s “hot” with marketers at the moment, and these will be a large part of your customer base. For example, at the moment you’ll probably notice there’s a lot of fuss about selling physical products on Amazon though there are also lots of warriors still looking to make money from high paying niches in Adsense. They will also often mention specific niches, like upcoming launches of products or things that seem hot right now. You won’t want to fulfil every one but some ideas will stick out more to you than others, and if you know that marketers there are working on those topics, you know that there is a customer base for you

Amazon Niches: A good way to find hot products is to take a look at bestseller lists. I think warriors are pretty interested in these and quite a few PLR sellers do it. The good thing is, you’re still not in direct competition as the products are usually different. I.e. I did some bestselling electronics reviews, other people have done bestselling cookware reviews etc. Or you could choose one specific sub niche e.g. bestselling GPS systems.

High Paying Adsense Niches: I have not personally used this tactic but it’s on my list. I think marketers would love some high paying Adsense PLR that was related to some of the niches with the highest cost per click. A good place to find these lucrative niches is SpyFu. Again, although I’ve seen other PLR sellers do this, you can be different by choosing a different niche as there are plenty to choose from.

My Own Customer Requests: Obviously this doesn’t help if you’re brand new to selling PLR, but what you can do from the outset is ask your customers what they want. You’ll see I include a form for this on my site at NetPLR.com so when they opt in for updates, they have the option to send their requests. I have so many requests now it’ll take me a long time to catch up, but it’s good to know you’ll have at least one person who is definitely interested if you take them up on their request! Buyers often email me out of the blue too when they have an idea, so in all my emails and website I always say to them that they can feel free to email me whenever they want.

Look At Other PLR Sellers: Like I said above, I do think it’s a good idea to differentiate yourself from what other PLR sellers are doing. But you can still look at what they’re doing and use it to your own advantage to come up with PLR topic ideas. If you see they’re doing product reviews but no PLR seller is yet offering reviews on a specific type of product, for example, you can fill the gap and use it as an idea for your pack.

Sometimes packs will overlap between PLR sellers, and buyers will often buy all of the packs available. But I would still try to differentiate as much as possible.

Shopping Cart

In between writing articles, I also started to get my cart set up. At this time I really only knew of Easy PLR, PLR Mini Mart and All Star PLR. Of those three, two stores used DL Guard, so my choice was made. Although I no longer use DL Guard, I do have some regrets about moving away from it (probably best saved for another post) and I still thoroughly recommend it. Today I use Premium Web Cart – it’s a lot more expensive, but it has a built in affiliate program and a number of extra features.

Make sure you set up enough time to properly learn your new cart. It takes time, unfortunately, but most good carts are more than willing to help make sure everything’s running smoothly.

Step 3 – Launching The Website & Setting Up A New Email List

I am a firm believer that everything does NOT have to be perfect before you launch your PLR store. I have seen a lot of people delaying because they’re not sure everything’s right. Firstly, you’ll never have anything perfect. Secondly, you’ll never know it’s right until you put your PLR site online and people start browsing and buying.

My website wasn’t and still is not perfect. Although I’ve had it on my to-do list for a long time to make changes, I am still making money from it and that’s what counts!

When I first launched, I made sure I had:

1) An “about” page: I can’t tell you how frustrated I am when I visit a PLR seller’s store, want to know their first name and it’s nowhere to be seen! It technically doesn’t make any difference, but it helps you connect with the customer.

2) Basic category pages: Believe it or not, figuring out which categories to split my PLR packs into is the kind of thing that could easily have lead to me wasting time trying to get it perfect. It really doesn’t matter when you only have a few packs, though.

3) Working buy buttons: Simple, but completely necessary to make money I set some products to $0.01, set up a personal account in PayPal (you’re allowed one business and one personal account), and used that to test the links before I went live. Very important! I’ve tried to buy PLR from some sites before and there was no payment link! They were probably wondering why they weren’t making any sales!

Email List Incentives And Opt In Forms

I had already been building a list for my blog, but really didn’t appreciate the importance of doing so until I had my PLR store. My list is now an asset for me. I release new PLR packs, I make sales from my list. It’s so important, which is why you need a list from day 1!

I use Aweber for my email list but there are a few other providers. If you’d like to compare the main contenders, click here to view a PDF where it’s all laid out at a glance.

I created a simple opt in form to put in the sidebar of my website. It has fields for Name, Email and Optional PLR Topic Request. You’d be surprised at how many people enter a topic here: there’s a lot of demand for PLR and I still haven’t been able to fulfil all the requests (nowhere near). I keep track of them in a spreadsheet, though, and refer to the list when I’m trying to come up with a new topic idea.

There is an argument against including the Name and Request fields, and that is the fact that people don’t want to jump through hoops, so it’s up to you to test this.

And try to come up with a free incentive to join the list. In my experience, free PLR packs work a lot better than guides on how to use PLR, though I give away both. The PLR guide was there before I had time to come up with any freebies (click here if you’d like to buy PLR rights to that guide), and then I added a freebie when I got round to it. The freebie has the added bonus of showing people how you write, so they’re not risking their cash on crappy content.

Step 4 – My First Freebie Warrior Special Offer (Getting 100+ Subscribers) & Other List Building Activity

When I first launched Net PLR, I didn’t have any freebie PLR pack or even a sample of my writing available on the site. I did know some people from forums, and they were my first signups. But I wanted to do something to really kickstart my website, so I decided to launch a Warrior Special Offer.

At this point in time I already had 10 PLR packs on the site. I felt it was a good idea to have some inventory there, just in case people wanted to visit my website and buy as a result of the WSO.

The steps for putting together my first freebie:

1) I was already registered on the Warrior Forum, but I didn’t interact much there. I started a thread to introduce myself and I started to leave helpful replies around the forum to help get my post count up. Thankfully post count isn’t so much of an issue with a freebie WSO (people will download anyway), but it helps establish yourself there.

2) At the same time, I was trying to figure out exactly what to release as my freebie offer. I decided right from the start that I was going to get noticed as someone who over-delivers. For that reason, I released a 5-pack on one topic, a 5-pack of hot product reviews, and keyword research.

3) I then read as many WSO guides as I could find for free. The good thing about joining the War Room, which you have to do if you’re ultimately going to launch a WSO, is that there are some free reports about launching WSOs in there. Now, I was pretty naïve back then and have since realized that not all of these reports are as good as they seem. But they were an excellent way to get started.

4) I worked on my WSO sales copy, trying to introduce myself, and linking it to a simple squeeze page on my website where customers would have to enter their email address if they wanted the freebie. I set up a whole new WSO list in Aweber, and the welcome message to that list contained a link to download the zip file.

5) I then submitted the WSO. When you do this, you have to wait for it to get approved and you can’t edit it the meantime. Once it does get approved by admin, you pay through PayPal and, as soon as you do, the WSO goes live. It’s definitely a good idea to be around (awake!) at this time to fix any problems that are bound to crop up.

The Results Of My First WSO

At the time of my first freebie WSO, it cost $20 to list (it’s now $40). I got over 100 subscribers initially, and they continued to trickle in steadily after that. I made my first sales from that WSO but, more importantly, I now had a list of interested potential buyers for future offers.

Other Tips For Releasing Freebies

1) Notify Your Current List: When I launched my first freebie WSO, I didn’t have much of a list. However, now whenever I launch a WSO I always notify my list at the same time. I give them a link to the freebie (I don’t want them to have to opt in again) but I also give them a link to the free WSO if they want to say thanks. This is good for two reasons:
- I’ve gotten some great testimonials this way,
- More replies on the freebie thread helps it get noticed in the WSO section of the forum.

2) Leverage Your Freebies As Much As Possible: I like to release freebies to my list from time to time just to say thanks to my subscribers. But why not make the most out of that freebie pack? Launch it as a WSO at the same time.

3) Use Freebies To Introduce New Content: Before I launched my product PLR membership, I knew I wanted to release a few standalone product review packs. Before I did, I created a free PLR pack full of different product reviews. This not only helped me to build a list before launching paid packs on similar topics, it also helped to make sure there was an interest in this type of content before spending my time writing up big packs.

4) Put The Freebies On Your Site Too: The first thing to note is that a Warrior Special Offer, by definition, has to be something exclusive for the members of the Warrior Forum. This rule isn’t always followed, but I prefer to keep to the rules. So I don’t add the WSO freebie pack to my PLR site right away, but I do eventually add it up there as an additional way to get opt-ins from those who may stumble across my website rather than the WSO.

5) Add The Freebie Link To Your Signature: Don’t forget to add the link to your free WSO to your signature so that other Warriors will see it when you post helpful posts around the forum.

6) Save Some Freebies For Your List Only: I like to make my list feel special, so I do limit some freebies to them only. This includes “Free PLR Friday”, a weekly email that I decided I would send to reward my subscribers. I notice some other PLR sellers have also started to do this since. If you are thinking of something similar (though you want to make sure you’re different!), remember that it is quite a commitment. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to write the freebie every week! It’s also perfectly acceptable to just send freebies every now and again.

Step 5 – Launching My First Paid Special Offer

I am very glad I launched my first paid offer not too long after my first freebie WSO (it was about 3 weeks later). I feel it really helped to keep up momentum, and it gave me that first taste of success that made me think “this really could work!”

I thought long and hard over what I was going to offer for my first WSO. I was very much aware that not every topic is “hot” enough for a WSO, and that there are certain marketing trends PLR providers are able to capitalize on.

After a lot of research, I chose the topic of eBook Readers. There were a lot of marketers creating websites based on physical products, and this was a topic that was under-served in the PLR market.

SIDE NOTE: I see PLR providers launching WSOs on the same topics all the time. Why copy? I know people look at WSOs and want to see the same success, so try to do something similar. That’s not how it works. All PLR providers can happily co-exist as long as we’re creating unique products! And make sure your sales copy is unique too!

In total, I wrote one 10-pack of general eBook reader articles, and 4 reviews of currently “hot” products. And, like I had done for my freebie WSO, I created a number of keyword research sheets and added them as a bonus to my PLR articles.

I decided to charge just $7 for the whole package – a 50% discount from my website price of $1 per article.

Results Of My First Paid WSO

Initially, I remember making 35 sales of this product. I was so happy! I had made almost $250 from a $20 investment. Now, looking at my PLR inventory spreadsheet that helps me keep track of numbers sold, I see that I have sold 87 copies of that PLR pack. Some sold on my main PLR website, too, meaning I got the full price of $1 per page there.

Something More Important Than Sales Numbers… A Buyers List!

Even more important than the exact sales numbers for that first WSO was the fact that I started growing my buyers list.

I am not a fan of automatically emailing anyone who buys from me, or forcing them to input their email address just to access their download. I do, however, automatically send them just one email requesting they join my buyers list. I try to sweeten the deal with an extra freebie if possible. If they ignore, I won’t email, as my list works only after subscribers confirm they want to opt in.

Most shopping carts can do this – I know for sure that both DL Guard and Premium Web Cart integrate with Aweber and the other most popular autoresponder services.

Don’t leave out this step! Your buyers list is the most important one! I have some people who buy nearly all my PLR. You can’t put a price on that!

More Tips For Paid WSOs/ New PLR Pack Releases

Since that first WSO, I’ve gone on to launch a number of successful WSOs, as well as new PLR packs on my PLR site. Here are a few things I’ve learnt:

1) Get Some Testimonials: If you use the methods listed above on freebie WSOs, then it really shouldn’t be difficult for you to have past customer testimonials all ready for you to go when you launch your paid offer. However, when people do reply with testimonials specifically about the product in your WSO, edit the original post and include quotes for those testimonials to boost sales.

2) Set Up A List: Delivering freebie WSOs depends on people opting in. However, with a paid WSO or product on your site, people simply buy through PayPal and aren’t forced to opt in. As I just mentioned above, it’s very easy to set up a system with your shopping cart. But try to segment your lists for different types of products. For example, I have a general “PLR buyers” list, as well as a Halloween PLR buyers list and a product review buyers list. I haven’t been great at segmenting my lists, but I know it’s worth trying to help create more targeted offers in future.

3) Notify Affiliates: I know that my WSO discounted packs tend to sell better than full-priced PLR on my website, so instead of leaving affiliates to promote the full-priced packs, I make sure I set up an affiliate link that will send their customers directly to their WSO page. I send an email as soon as I release a new WSO so they can promote the discount to their customers (see the affiliate section below for more on this). I also have every single product link to my PLR store available within the affiliate program too.

4) Create More Of What’s Selling: Not every topic is going to be a hit, but if you notice one of your PLR packs going down extremely well then milk it and make more content on that topic!

5) Try Different Things: You never know if something is going to work until you try it. A few techniques I’ve tried include running the WSO for a set period of time, or starting it at a lower price and increasing it after X number of sales. You’ve got to try new things to get a feel for what works. I am still very much experimenting and learning.

6) Give Subscribers A Discount On New Packs: If it’s a WSO, I’ll simply send an email to my current subscribers with the WSO link as soon as it goes live. If it’s a full-priced pack at my PLR store, however, I often give them a special discount, or have the discount available to the general public for the first 48 hours only, to give that pack a kick start.

7) Announce Packs Before You Release Them: I don’t do this every time, but I’ll try to give hints at my next PLR pack in emails before I release it. This is especially true if I know it’s going to be a great deal that I think my subscribers will really want to snap up. A side bonus of announcing packs in advance is that it gives me accountability and forces me to meet the deadlines I set for myself!

Step 6 – What Next For My PLR Store? A Lesson In Keeping Momentum

As a newbie in any online business area, you’d think that $250 from my first WSO would be more than enough to keep me motivated and go on to create additional, more profitable offers.

I am ashamed to say I largely neglected my PLR website at that point. I even had a revelation during this time, which I then went on to foolishly ignore.

I remember writing two 7-article PLR packs at once. I sent out a message to my list (a couple of hundred large at the time) giving them a few dollars off for the first 48 hours after the pack went live. My revelation came as I sat on the beach on my birthday. I checked my iPhone (yes, I am guilty of checking emails even on the beach!) and saw I had sales from a few of the packs on my store. I realised just how important it was to keep up momentum, keep releasing new packs, to remind my list that my PLR store even existed.

But did I keep up momentum? No! I didn’t release any new PLR for months.

Step 7 – Getting Re-Motivated After A Few Months of No Activity – Learning From Tiffany Dow and the PLR Experts

In September 2010 Tiffany Dow started talking about releasing a definitive guide to launching a PLR business. Such a guide may have existed before, but never from someone who I personally saw as a true PLR leader, and from someone I would put my trust in.

When she released PLR ATM, I bought it that day (I can’t say I do that often with an IM product). Even though I already had experience launching my first WSO and my first few packs, I wanted to learn as much as possible. The biggest thing I learned from this guide? That my PLR website wasn’t just a side thing – I needed to treat it as a business.

From that day on I can honestly say my PLR store has gone from strength to strength.

Watching Other PLR Sellers And Trying New Things

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you have to be unique if you’re going to make it in the PLR business. Look at the top PLR sellers: Nicole Dean, Tiffany Dow, Melissa Ingold, Peggy Baron, Alice Seba… they all do things differently! Yet there’s space on the market for them all!

This means I don’t watch other PLR sellers to copy them. I watch them to get ideas that I tweak for my own business. For example, Alice Seba inspired me to create a comparison chart to add to my membership site, Tiffany inspires me to encourage and help other PLR sellers (even though they may be “competition”), and Nicole and others made me wonder whether I should try what they do, and promote other PLR sellers’ stuff too.

So I am subscribed to all of those marketers’ email lists, and more, because I like to watch what they do and try new things. I also like to keep up with PLR sales since I’m a PLR buyer too

Top PLR Guides I Recommend For All Levels Of PLR Seller

As for learning from guides written specifically on the topic of writing and selling PLR, here are the ones I’ve used:

Tiffany Dow’s PLR ATM: As mentioned above, PLR ATM was the first guide I ever read on selling PLR. Up until that point, I’d been doing it all on my own. Tiff has a unique way of doing things, and she encouraged me to treat PLR as a business. If you’re looking for handholding from day one of your business, this is an excellent guide.

Peggy Baron’s Become A PLR Writer: This guide came out a little while after PLR ATM. I didn’t think I would gain anything from it, but I was wrong! Peg and Tiff run their businesses differently, and I liked getting into both of their minds to come up with those ideas I could use and tweak. I still intend to revisit the guide, as there’s so much I haven’t even put into action yet! (Read a comparison of Become A PLR Writer and PLR ATM here)

Melissa Ingold & Nicole Dean’s “Sell PLR Content”: These are two of the biggest PLR sellers on the internet today. This is a brand new course, delivered in the form of teleclasses. I’ll post a full review once I have a chance.

Professional PLR Provider Newsletter: This is also from Peggy, and I love this. It’s always giving me new ideas for my business, whether that means ideas for writing my readme file, ways to profit from competitors, or putting together your PLR sales funnel. Peggy has gone above and beyond whenever I’ve emailed her with questions. This is well worth the $9 a month.

Nicole Dean’s Income CPR: This program isn’t actually specifically about PLR, but she is one of the top PLR providers on the net, and this info can be applied to any sort of online product. I love Nicole’s style, and the way she focuses on very specific elements. Her issue on sales systems made me notice a huge mistake with my cart, and her last month on blogging is worth way more than $10.

A Note On Focus

Following so many PLR providers, and reading a lot of guides, is a sure fire way to get overwhelmed. You need to stay focused, which is why you shouldn’t feel you need to try EVERY single recommendation. For example, I get tons of ideas from Peggy’s newsletter but I may only implement one. That’s ok – I can revisit others in future. If that one idea makes me money, it’s worth it.

And don’t compare yourself to other sellers either! We all do things differently and are at different stages of our career. Don’t make yourself feel like you aren’t doing enough in comparison.

Step 8 - My First $1000+ Month From My PLR Store

Shortly after Tiffany released PLR ATM, and I stepped up my game, I experienced my first $1000+ month from my PLR store. This was around 7 months after I first launched – before this point, I’d been earning an average of $85 per month for the first six months. As you can see, this was a huge jump in income. All because I took things seriously and wrote a lot of content for my store!

Step 9 – Starting An Affiliate Program

I had been thinking about creating a PLR affiliate program for a long time. However, since it wasn’t built into DL Guard, I really put it off. However, after seeing more and more PLR sellers setting up theirs, and listening to the advice of experts like Melissa Ingold, I decided it was about time.

One year after opening my PLR site, I finally set up my new affiliate program.

Shopping Carts & Affiliate Programs

The first thing you need to know is whether you can build an affiliate program with your shopping cart. JROX Jam is one option for those who have DL Guard, and Peggy Baron uses this successfully. Check out this free report that she let Tiffany Dow share with her subscribers for more info. It’s pretty cost effective in the long-term, just requires a bit of cash upfront.

There’s also e-Junkie, which has an affiliate program built right in. It’s easy to set up, but I decided it didn’t give me all the control I wanted over the program.

The solution I chose was Premium Web Cart. This is very similar to 1ShoppingCart, but with some extra features that really swayed my choice. This system is far from perfect, but it gives me a lot of control over my affiliate program and upsells within the shopping cart. It did mean I had to change over all my product links which was a massive hassle, but it was ultimately worth it.

Launching The Affiliate Program

Before I launched my brand new affiliate program, I wanted to make 100% sure that everything was working. I signed up as my own affiliate, paid myself for some test sales, and checked that all the sales had gone through. They did, so I was ready to go!

I didn’t launch to a big fanfare. I believe that I just emailed a short message to my list letting them know they could sign up if they wanted to.

I also created an “affiliates” page on NetPLR.com, including the following info:

• How long the affiliate cookie lasts,
• When affiliates get paid,
• Minimum payout amount (there is none – I don’t believe in minimum payouts),
• Other pertinent information.

Lastly, I helped encourage my affiliates to promote, and my customers to get used to the new shopping cart, by setting up a sale. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I know it was a certain % discount when they spent $X amount in the store. I must admit, I didn’t really get many affiliates promoting at that time! But the number has been growing steadily since that day.

Setting Up An Affiliate Notification List

I know that, as an affiliate of other people’s sites, I find it very useful to receive new offers directly to my inbox. This is why I decided to set up an affiliate mailing list from day one. I don’t use this list for anything other than notifying affiliates of new packs, coupons and discounts they can promote.

The way my shopping cart works means that I can automatically send a request for affiliates to join the notification list when they sign up as an affiliate. If your cart doesn’t have this, just put an opt in form on your affiliate page instead.

I then have a very short series of emails sent as follow ups including affiliate policies and details on how to login and find links, as well as a couple of free articles affiliates can use to promote my website. It’s on my to-do list to add more to those follow ups eventually!

I try to encourage my affiliates to contact me if they need anything. Some have requested specific page links which I have added. If people are trying to promote me, I definitely believe I should do everything I can to help them.

Step 10 – Working With – Not Against – My Fellow PLR Sellers & Building Relationships

I am not sure when, but after launching my own affiliate program I decided to join the affiliate programs of other PLR sellers. I thought it could be a good idea to promote special offers, and I wasn’t too worried about the competition. The truth is that I can’t write all the PLR on all the topics out there, so why not try to promote different packs to my own?

SIDE NOTE: If you ever want to promote Net PLR or my memberships, see the Net PLR affiliate page here, and the Product PLR Monthly affiliate page here

I am still learning how to strike the balance between useful promotion and too much promotion. I don’t want to use my list as a cash machine, but at the same time I have buyers thanking me for letting them know about huge PLR sales. I make sure I only promote content I know to be high quality.

All I know is, this has added a very nice additional profit to my PLR business. These are what I call my “indirect” PLR earnings. I highly recommend slotting PLR deals into your emails as long as they’re relevant, high quality and a good price.

The Added Benefits Of Promoting Other PLR Sellers

Money isn’t the only reason to promote other PLR sellers. By promoting other sellers, I’ve often gotten in direct touch with them for the first time. I may have emailed a question about their affiliate program, and it opened up the lines of communication. Who knows what will come of that in future? All I know is that some PLR sellers I promote have also ended up promoting me!

Re-Selling Other People’s PLR

I thought I would include a little here about buying PLR to resell. Although most of the PLR content I personally use does NOT come with the rights to pass on PLR, some sellers have created resell packs that mean you can sell the PLR rights to your own customers.

The two places I bought resell PLR from are:

1. All Star PLR
2. All Resell Content

The quality of my PLR website is very important to me, which is why I would only buy resell PLR from high quality sources. The two sites I mentioned are exactly that.

The first PLR I bought was from All Star PLR. Since I say on my site that I write all my own content, I added the packs to my site with an extra note stating that these were not my original articles. I did modify them slightly, though, and added some keywords to the packs.

I have made my investment back with these PLR packs, and I always think it’s a good idea to bulk up your PLR site with as many pages as possible at the beginning (it helps attract more traffic). That said, these packs are not my bestsellers and I probably won’t use any other resell PLR (I haven’t even gotten around to adding the packs from All Resell Content to my site yet!)

I think resell PLR is most useful for those who want to quickly add new pages to their PLR store when first getting started, or as a way to add some high quality bonuses to a PLR bundle pack.

Step 11 - Launching My First PLR Membership Site & Preparing For The Future

I am not sure how long I’d been planning to launch a membership site for, all I can say is that it was a long time. But I’d always been held back by fear that I had nothing truly valuable to offer.

As July approached I was thinking seriously about my finances and how I was going to earn money on the road. I thought it was a good idea to set up some recurring income. Although not guaranteed, a membership site gives me more stability than random PLR releases. That must have been the push I needed, as I finally decided to stop thinking about it and just do it!

I could write a whole new guide on starting a membership site (in fact, I will be do a couple of weeks), so I won’t go into every detail here. Sign up here if you’d like to know when the post goes live…

 

Here’s a brief overview of the steps I took:

1. Research: I conducted a survey, searched for competing membership sites, and thought about my most successful PLR packs to date in order to come up with my offer.
2. USP: To come up with my unique selling proposition, I thought long and hard about how I could deliver value in a different way to other PLR membership sites.
3. Membership Software: My current cart wouldn’t cut it for what I wanted, so I bought Amember and learnt how to use it.
4. Sales Letter: I’d never written a full sales letter before, so I read a lot on the subject as I put mine together. I used OptimizePress to create the sales letter and members area.
5. Launch: To celebrate the launch, I set up a WSO to give people 50% off the member price. I also send a coupon to my subscribers which went down very well!
6. Adding More Value: I continue to add more value to the membership by uploading new guides, a free PLR pack, and I have more planned.

Like I said, there’s so much to be said about starting a membership site, I’ll write about that in a few weeks. Don’t forget to sign up to the mailing list so you know when the post goes live.

My Top PLR-Selling Tips

* Be Original: I can’t stress this enough. As someone who has had my whole freebie PLR guide ripped off (yes, I now sell legitimate PLR rights to it, but didn’t at this time) and more, I have strong feelings on this one. From the start, I knew I had to be different to be a success. Now there are more new PLR providers than ever, it’s even more crucial you set yourself apart.

This not only means the topics you write, but the way you write, the kind of PLR packs you put together (e.g. some providers do video, some do checklists, some do articles), and even your WSO text. I hate to see people copying my WSO format – it just makes us both look unoriginal. You have to try and test things for yourself, not just assume that what other PLR providers do is the best way. Put some effort into being different and it will pay off – believe me!

* Be Consistent: One of the benefits of having a PLR store is that you don’t have to work to a timetable, like you would with ghostwriting. That said, if you put up five packs on random niches and leave your site, it’s unlikely it’s going to do much for you. Every time I release a new pack, I remind people to browse my PLR store and end up making more related sales as a result. I also try to send my emails consistently so people expect to hear from me.

* Don’t Measure Your Success Against Others: I am always guilty of doing this, whether in the PLR business or otherwise. However, it takes time to build a successful PLR business, time to build a following, and it’s all dependent on how much work you put in. Some people have time to work on their PLR business all day long, others don’t. And don’t worry that other PLR sellers are taking all the customers – as I mentioned in step 10, there’s space for everyone.

* Know It Takes Time: I was amazed at the response I had to my membership site. It may seem as though I instantly added thousands to my monthly income, but nothing about it was instant. I see it as a culmination of all the hard work I’ve put in to build my list, to over-deliver, and to learn as much as I can about what my customers need. This took me over a year but I can now see it was worth it.

* Think Carefully About Your Topics: If you’re writing small packs to stock your store then you’ll likely have a huge variety of niches, which is great for bringing in as much search engine traffic as possible. That said, if you want to launch a special offer, then you’d best make sure the topic is in demand. I always think carefully about what I release, I try to predict what marketers are looking for, and fill a need. Like I said before – don’t just look at what I’m doing and do the same! Look for gaps in the market and fill them.

* Launch Your Affiliate Program: Really, don’t delay on this step. We PLR sellers are the kind of people who like to promote our competition! So make sure you get it set up as soon as possible so that others can start putting in the work to market your website for you!

So, here you have my mammoth post all about writing and selling PLR for profit. I’ve tried to go through every stage of my business, though I admit I may have forgotten something. If you have a question or comment, please leave it below!

I’d also really appreciate it if you could share this post using the links to the left, if you found it useful

Resources Mentioned In This Post

PLR Guides/ Marketing Newsletters:
PLR ATM
Become A PLR Writer
Sell PLR Content
Professional PLR Provider Newsletter
Income CPR

My Own PLR Sites:
Net PLR
Product PLR Monthly
Toy PLR Monthly

If you’re interested in buying PLR from the latter two sites, use the code ‘webcareergirl’ (without quotes) in the coupon box when you sign up (it’ll save you 25%).

Tools I Use:
Aweber
DL Guard
e-Junkie (use this code for 4 months free: MEVIO)
Premium Web Cart
Amember
OptimizePress

PLR You Can Resell:
All Star PLR Resell Content
All Resell Content

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Other posts you may be interested in:

1. Looking Back On One Year Of Writing And Selling PLR Articles