A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from Zac Johnson about his new eBook “ging.com/114.html" target="_blank">Six Figure Affiliate Blogging“.

I’ve been reading Zac’s Blog for years, and he was one of my inspirations that helped me to quit working in the corporate world and to launch my own Blog.  He didn’t know this, but he was a big inspiration to me in the early days.

Zac wanted me to review his eBook on my Blog, in exchange for participating in his affiliate program which pays a commission for each person I send to him that ends up downloading the eBook.  The eBook itself is free, and I get $0.10 per person that signs up in exchange.

I didn’t have time to really dive into the eBook because I was busy with the weight loss challenge, but this morning I decided to have a read through it to see what I thought of it.

The Promise

The headline on the front of the eBook says “How You Can Be The Next $100,000 Blogger“.  I always look at headlines as the “promise” in an eBook, blog post, service or product and use that as a gauge to determine if it delivers on that promise.

The eBook first dives into Zac’s personal story of how he grew ZacJohnson.com from zero to a six-figure income Blog.  He also references a 12 month case study he document on his Blog from December 2007 to November 2008, during which time he earned $48,759.78 with his Blog.

He then gives an introduction into affiliate marketing, talks about having a Blogging game plan, how to go live with your Blog, how to monetize your blog and finally how to take your Blog to the next level.  The eBook also has ten bonus interviews with some high-powered Bloggers which include Jeremy Schoemaker, Gary Vaynerchuk, Daniel Scocco, John Chow, Adii Pienaar, Josh Mullineaux, Brian Clark, Timothy Sykes, Al Carlton and David Klein.

After reading through the eBook, I asked myself “Does this eBook really teach people how to be the next $100,000 Blogger?”

As some of you know, I’m currently working on a Blogging course which will teach people how to make money online with a Blog based business, so I couldn’t help but to compare what I’ve been working on in my course with this eBook.

When I originally thought about my course, I briefly considered writing an eBook on the subject but quickly dismissed the idea because I didn’t think it was possible to cover the depth of subject matter required in an eBook.  Also, I didn’t think that an eBook is the best medium to use for the purpose, which is why I elected to use both written content, as well as video and audio for different parts of the course.

Because I’ve already spent hundreds of hours working on my upcoming course, creating written and video content, and since the goal of my course is similar to this eBook, my opinion of this eBook is a bit biased since I can’t help but to compare this eBook with a fully blown 6-month long interactive course.

Having said that, I tried to keep in mind that this eBook is not meant to teach everything in as much depth, and also that this eBook comes with a price tag of “free” so I tried to base my opinion taking those things into account.

So, based on the fact that the eBook is free, it have to say that it does provide some valuable content.  However, each chapter and section is basically just an overview of what is really required to run a six-figure Blog, based on the path that Zac took.

Don’t expect great depth in each section.  It’s more of an overview / road map of one path that one person took, and his recommendations along the way. For some people, there is a lot of value in first understanding an overview like this before diving into something with a lot more depth.

The Hidden Lessons

Based on what I’ve written above, some of you may decide to download the eBook and some of you might dismiss it entirely as just more of the same stuff you may have read before on other Blogs.

There are some hidden lessons associated with this eBook though, that I decided to share – even though I usually reserve this kind of stuff for my inner circle of coaching students.

The reason I don’t usually talk about this kind of stuff publicly, is because it kind of reveals some of the “behind the scenes secrets” of Internet Marketing, and some of it deals with the intention behind certain actions that people take rather than the action itself.  Because we’re dealing with intentions, there is no way for me or anyone else to know what those intentions may be outside of just guessing, so take everything I’m about to say below as just my opinion – based on certain patterns I’ve observed in the Internet Marketing world.

What’s Really Going on Here?

Let me start by exposing the “big secret” that I teach all of my coaching students, which is something that finally helped me to start making money online as a Blogger after a lot of frustration.

Are you ready?  Here’s the secret:

“Read, watch, study, and model the most successful people who are achieving the results you want to achieve.  However, always remember that 98% of the value is in studying  WHAT they do, HOW they do it, and WHY they do it and not just what they SAY they do.

In most cases, people who are successful rarely possess the introspective abilities to identify the real reasons behind their success, so even thought their heart might be in the right place, in most cases they really have no clue about the real reasons why they succeeded.

From my experience, successful people do the right things intuitively and automatically but in a lot of cases they don’t realize the genius behind what they do.  They dismiss the very things that make them successful, because those things come to them naturally and effortlessly, and when they are asked to share their “success secrets” they often dismiss those things.”

Let me explain.

Sure this eBook that Zac wrote has some cool pointers on how to make money as a Blogger.  Yes, it gives an overview of who he is and how he made money as a Blogger.  Yes he teaches some things in it that could help someone to get started as a Blogger.

However, I think the real value and genius in this eBook is not just contained within the pages of content.  It’s contained within the very structure of everything that Zac did in relation to writing and distributing this eBook.

First of all, let’s look at the way he distributed this eBook.  Unlike most people who have written eBooks similar to this, he didn’t just start distributing this eBook on his own Blog to his own readers / website visitors.  He setup an affiliate program that pays people to send him new subscribers.

As I mentioned before, for every person that downloads a “free” copy of this eBook, Zac promises to pay me $0.10/person.  By doing this, he leverages the amount of return he will get for his efforts in creating this eBook.

Meaning, instead of just giving this eBook away to new visitors of his website, as a way to entice them to sign up for his email list, he is now collecting thousands of email addresses from some of the top Internet marketers on the planet who are happily promoting “reviewing” his eBook on their Blogs for a 10 cent cut.

Ten cents may not sound like a lot of money, but if you have 50,000 subscribers like some of the big guys do, that can add up pretty quickly.

So, by changing the way he distributes this eBook, Zac basically just multiplied his return on investment (time required to write the eBook) by a factor of probably 10,000 to 1 – compared to if he just posted it on his own Blog.

Chances are that a lot of the regular readers on his Blog are already email subscribers of his, so this way he gets a chance to collect the email addresses and to connect with all the other Blogger’s subscribers (including mine) by distributing this eBook under an affiliate program like this.

This is an example of studying what a person does and not just what he says he does.  But there’s more.

Why Would The Big Guys Promote It Though?

The next question we need to ask ourselves though, is why would the big guys promote an eBook like this though?  I mean, the 10 cent payout is one reason, but isn’t Zac’s Blog competing for the attention of the very same readers of the other Blogs?

Meaning, shouldn’t I be worried that by promoting Zac’s eBook on my site I am “sending away” my readers to another Blog?  Shouldn’t John Chow and all the other big names be worried?

The reason I’m not worried, and why most others aren’t either is because in reality there is no such thing as “my subscribers” and “your subscribers” online.  That is largely offline world type thinking that stems from lack mentality where businesses try to protect “their” customers as if these customers somehow belong to them.

In the online world, it’s totally different.  Just because someone signs up for Zac’s email list, it doesn’t mean that they automatically stop reading mine for example.  As long as I produce quality content, people will continue to read my Blog, and as long as Zac produces quality content, they will continue to read his.  My personality and his personality are totally different.  My perspectives on things and his perspectives are totally different.

So in reality, there is no “competition” for subscribers online, in that sense, and that means there really is no downside to reviewing/promoting someone else’s product/service in the same niche, as long as the product/service is of good quality.

The Real Genius of the 10 Interviews

The real genius behind the ten interviews in this eBook is two-fold.

(1) Association – By interviewing the “big names” in the market, Zac has associated himself with them.  Automatically, by seeing these big names in his eBook, it creates a kind of “endorsement” for Zac.  It’s kind of like if you came to my house and you saw a picture of me standing beside Bill Clinton, or Tony Robbins, or Oprah.

I could have simply been at an event where I met these people and took a picture with them, but they may not even know my name.  That wouldn’t matter though because any time you associate yourself with someone, people’s minds automatically form a link between the two, much the same way that people can’t help but to form the same link between myself and Joe Vitale when I interviewed him and appeared in one of his books.

When you see big names like that in Zac’s eBook, you don’t know whether Zac just contacted them out of the blue to ask for an interview, or if Zac and these guys go fishing ever weekend.  Our mind tends to lean towards the latter automatically.

People love to be interviewed.  It makes them feel important.  Zac’s a genius for doing this.

(2) Ego Stroking for Promotion Purposes – I don’t read Time magazine.  I’ve never bought a copy.  I’ve never considered promoting it on my Blog.  However, if tomorrow there was an interview of me in Time magazine I would plaster it all over this Blog.

Zac’s eBook isn’t the same thing as being in Time magazine, but when it comes to our Ego’s, there’s very little difference.  By interviewing the big names in his eBook, Zac significantly increased his chances of these guys promoting his eBook on their own sites!  Why?  Because they’re IN the book.

When you appear inside someones book (or eBook), you’re automatically more likely to mention it, review it, promote it on your own Blog because you’re already associated with it.  Putting the big names in his book doesn’t guarantee a promotion on their Blogs, but it sure doesn’t hurt!

Combine these two things with an affiliate commission for promoting your eBook, and your chances of getting the big names out there to promote your stuff skyrockets.

How the Book Pays for Itself

The next thing you may be thinking is “Yeah, but how does he pay for the commissions?”

Meaning, if a big name does promote this eBook to a list of 50,000 people and let’s say that all those people get the free eBook, that leaves Zac with a $5,000 bill to pay to that Blogger.  That’s a pretty big price to pay for a “free” eBook, right?

Well, first of all, remember that everyone that downloads the eBook gets on Zac’s email list.  So essentially Zac’s building himself a list at $0.10/subscriber.  It’s not hard to monetize a highly-targeted email list in the “make money online” niche to make more than $0.10/subscriber.  I bet Zac can make that kind of money from the list with his eyes closed.

So, building yourself a highly targeted email list for $0.10/subscriber is already pretty smart, but that’s not where it ends.

What if you could actually get PAID to build yourself a list?

Sounds impossible right?  Well, it’s not.

Here’s the other “dirty little secret” of this eBook.   Besides being an eBook on “How You Can Be a $100,000 Blogger“, the eBook is also a cleverly disguised affiliate marketing campaign.

Meaning, as Zac talks about all the different things you need to do in order to build a successful Blog, he is mentioning and endorsing a whole list of products and services that he’s used over the years, and with a few rare exceptions, every link in this eBook is Zac’s affiliate link.

There are probably 100 different links in the eBook.  So even though Zac has to pay $10 for every 100 subscribers that join his list, I would be willing to bet he’s going to make more than that from affiliate commissions from the subscribers themselves when they purchase products after clicking on his links.  See, if you download the eBook and read it and you click on one of the links inside the eBook, and end up purchasing the product or service – Zac earns a commission from that.  He’s not hiding this, it’s right there in plain sight.  It’s just that most people don’t really look at things like that.

I would be willing to bet that by the time this eBook has circulated itself all over the Internet, Zac will have a MUCH larger email list of highly targeted subscribers, and he will have earned more money in affiliate commissions than he ever pays out to his affiliates.

Pure genius.  He’s positioned himself in a way where he can actually get paid to build his list, and he’s done it in a way that creates a win-win-win-win situation all around.

The reader wins by being exposed and introduced to good quality products / services that Zac endorses. The company’s he endorses win because they get new customers. Zac wins because he makes an affiliate commission, and the Blogger who reviews his eBook wins by making 10 cents per subscriber. Everyone wins.

What We Can Learn From This Book

What we can really learn from this eBook is the hidden lessons behind it.  I just shared some of them above, exposing some things that most people don’t know.  There are other lessons hidden in a case study like this, and you’re going to have to put on your thinking cap and analyze them yourself.

This is the kind of stuff you can really learn from the top marketers out there.  Very often they do things that are absolutely genius, but they don’t talk about them or they don’t even realize they’re doing them.

More important than even the things I shared above though is the idea that you must begin to study the successful people who are achieving the results you wish to achieve, and to understand what it is that they are DOING and how/why they are doing it, and not just what they are saying.

Not to say that what Zac writes in this eBook isn’t important, because it is. I’m not saying that there is no value in it, I’m just saying that there is even more value to be learned from this by seeing the whole picture, and not just what’s inside the eBook.

If you’re interested in downloading Zac’s eBook, click on the picture/link below.  It is free.  And yes, I will get a 10 cent cut for every download.  That is provided that I refer at least 250 people to him, since there is a “minimum payout threshold” so if someone only refers 100 people to him, they don’t get paid out.  Oops, did I just reveal another “secret” list building tactic?

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