[ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud ]
Daryl Grant and her husband Andrew (AndrewAndDaryl.com) started selling e-books online in late 2004. The next year they had revenues of over $250,000 USD selling multiple information products on various niche topics. They now have a proven system for finding niches, conducting market research, outsourcing the production of quality books/information and marketing and delivering the products through the web. Not bad for a couple who barely could do much more than surf and email when they got started.
I found out about Daryl and Andrew after seeing a newspaper article about their success. I got in touch and arranged to do this podcast with Daryl. We ended up talking for nearly an hour so I broke this podcast into two parts. The second part will be released sometime soon.
If you want to hear how Daryl managed to create a $250,000 passive income stream in a year’s time then you will enjoy these podcasts. If you would like further information on how you can start your own information product business take a look at the resources Daryl has provided at her website – AndrewAndDaryl.com
Show Notes
- First up an introduction to Daryl and what she did before starting her current information product business.
- We find out how Daryl manages an Internet business despite her limited technical abilities
- I asked Daryl how she learnt the marketing/business skills to do what she does and she talks about Mal Emery’s mentoring program she joined with her husband
- I ask for specifics about the process of how she sets up each site, how she gets the books produced, how she gets traffic to the sites, etc
Part Two
You can now download part two of this interview here – How To Make $250,000 A Year Selling e-Books – Part 2.
Enjoy the episode,
Yaro
[ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud ]
Brilliant business of theirs, and great podcast Yaro!
Del.icio.us’d this to thank you and help others find this on Yahoo’s search engine.
Great story…looking forward to listening to the podcast.
You should put a warning on the link to Andrewanddaryl.com…that audio with no possible way to shut it off is a bit nasty if, like me, you’ve got the tunes cranked as you surf 🙂
Your best podcast to date, Yaro. Very informative interview. I also ran into the sound issue – if you open the site in Internet Explorer the audio controls show up, but they don’t show up in Firefox.
TThe subject matter and potential value of this ‘Cast is tops, Yaro. But technically it’s not up to your previous standards.
Your voice is very scratchy, as if you were using a very poor quality mic. Previous casts did not seem to have this problem … did you change something?
The levels are way off. Daryl’s voice is very much lower than your level .. If one turns up the volume loud enough to here then when you make a comment it blasts the speakers off the shelf. Sorry to complain about something valuable and free, but I finally had to quit listening before the end, her voice would just trail off to the point I got headache trying to follow her words. Perhaps you could look at re-mixing? Or boost her sound level on part two?
Best regards,
Dave
Hi Dave – Hmm, not sure what’s going for you. It sounds great for me on all my computers both as a streaming file and a downloaded MP3. Typically, this time too, I raise the volume of my voice because it’s more quiet when I do a Skype+HotRecoder podcast interview as this one was and I try to get the balance between the two voices on par – which for me it sounds about right. My voice doesn’t anymore “scratchy” than usual, in fact it sounds pretty good for me, definitely better than phone call quality.
Are other people experiencing problems like Dave mentions?
Hey Simon…hmm, pimping hey, there was a period late last night where I was adding the code for the new streaming media player to work with the podcasts. I had to edit the posts a couple of times in the space of half an hour.
Unless you were actively checking your bloglines account during that half hour it shouldn’t be new any more than once. Of course that includes both this blog and Small Business Branding.
After doing lots of testing I think most of the problems people are having with the podcasts are out of my hands. They are more likely specific problems as a result of your computer set-up. I haven’t received any other complaints besides those listed above either so I suspect most of these are isolated.
It could be based on the browser you use, the audio settings you have on your browser and your sound cards/PC configuration. All stuff that I cannot do anything about, sorry folks!
Very inspiring story. 🙂 Thanks for the podcast Yaro. You should have more of these.
Hey Yaro, can you do me a favour and stop pimping this post (on both your sites) through the RSS feed. I don’t know whether you’re continually updating it or there is a software glitch somewhere but it’s coming up as a new post in Bloglines anywhere from 1-3 times a day. Kinda starting to bug me. (Feel free to delete this comment.)
Cheers,
Simon
Yaro,
Brilliant podcast and I can’t wait for part II. I’ve been fascinated by andrewanddaryl.com and I wouldn’t have found it if not for your podcast. (Which, incidentally, I came to through Dave Jackson’s mention on the SOP.)
Cheers,
Steven
The Rules – the podcast from Sydney, Australia where we tell you how to live your life
Yaro should’ve looked into these people first. Did you know that they had a complaint against them in WIPO, in which they lost, because it was determined they were using porschepartsite.com in bad faith?
Did you know that on pregnantgetting.com they refer to themselves as Carol and Lindsay Andrews?
Are these the type of people we should be taking tips from? It’s dishonest and unethical. Shame on all of your houses!
Hi Yaro,
In their PowerPoint presentation (MaltalkSydneyMar06.ppt) they have a graph showing their month income. The underlying data for this showed the income for each product: prac rept, skin canc etc. The abbreviations were fairly obvious.
However I couldn’t work out what ‘bp’ was. Would anyone one which product (or eBook) ‘bp’ is?
Cheers – Marcus
Hi Marcus – I’m afraid you know more than I do. I haven’t seen the powerpoint presentation. I’ve decided too for the time being not to pursue an ebook business because I was acting opportunistically. I’m just sticking to my current business projects that are working.
Maybe someone else knows what the “bp” is?
Am I the only one who found this a total waste of my time. One hours is alot of time to loose to find nothing. There was just filler conversation that did not add anything to my knowledge.
No infromation on how many books it took to make that amount of money.
Not enough information on marketing.
I got the impression that everything which needed to be done they had someone do for them, such as writing their books, designing their site, everything…
This is my honest feeling and I hope you do not delete this as it will save others their time.
Plus there is no longer any info on their website. what happen?
Yaro, I do have to say that I love your site with all the wonderful information but that podcast sucked a big fat cockalock. 🙂
You can’t please all of the people all of the time marilyn – perhaps you just knew everything already.
I should note that you are the first person to not find this podcast useful, although there are probably others out there who feel the same as you. It’s currently downloaded at a rate of about 1000 per month – it’s popular!
However besides you, every other bit of feedback I have received on the ebook podcasts have been glaringly positive – some people told me I should be charging for information like this and that this two part series is the best podcast available on my site so far.
But again, you can’t please all of the people all of the time, you are entitled to your opinion.
Yaro,
I dont care what these people say. I though this was a very god podcast and it helped me tremendously!
Thank you for having it here. I wouldnt have known about these guys other wise.
thanks again
TJ
What was the problem with their mentoring program?
Hi Yaro,
Great Podcast.
I saw Andrew and Daryl speak at the Rebellious Lazy Internet Marketers Super Conference.
Best of all I purchased the licence to the Audio and Video of it.
I have made it available on my website http://www.lazy-internet-marketing.com where you can listen to it online for FREE. You just need to join up.
Anyway I hope you drop by as looking at your blog you will find some interesting stuff.
Regards
Justin
Wow, is that 250K a recurring annual sale or just for the first year? Still, it’s damn pretty impressive. I guess that’s why you put up your own Blog Mastermind, huh Yaro?
Hi Abe, that was 250K in their first year selling ebooks. Now they make more money teaching people how to make money selling ebooks, but they still make good money on auto-pilot from their ebook business.
I launched blog mastermind because I love blogging and want to work with people to help them become professional bloggers like me.
Help – can’t download the podcast. When I click on it I get a white IExplorer screen with a play control bar. Right click etc. doesn’t let me download it. I have downloaded the 7/10 podcast via itunes. I didn’t see any other podcasts there. I’m sorry this is basic… it wasn’t even clear that I should ENTER the sum of 10+7 for the spam protection. When I’m a regular I’ll probably see this the way you do.. as a newcomer there are some speedbumps for me.
Susan
Susan – just click the play button at the top of this article or right click the text link and “save as” the MP3 file.
Thanks Yaro. I bought an aged domain name; moneypleasure.info and set up a squeeze page.
So far this is the best podcast to date!
My site: http://www.moneypleasure.info
Selling E-books sounds up my alley. I have a box filled with manuscripts I have written but could actually turn into profit. Thanks for the insight.
Great podcasts Yaro! Andrew and Daryl surely have come a long way and are now reaping the rewards of their hardships. Overall, I think their story is an inspiring read. Once again, thanks for the info Yaro!
Hello. For months I have been looking to start an online ebooks/blog business. There is an ocean of them out there..What makes one site works better than another? does one need to totally ignore the mass and start something anyway??
Thanks..
Yaro,
Your interviews have excellent quality. I’m most of them are Skype to Skype but could you share what software are you using to record and upload to your site? I’ve only found your site recently but I’m hooked now! Tony P
Hi Tony – At the moment I use Call Recorder for Mac to call records and upload them to my server just using a standard FTP client.
If you’re not on mac, Pamela is a good option for recording Skype calls.
Try my friend Mwangi’s podcasting training for tips –
http://www.mypodcastingtutor.com/
Thanks Yaro,
I was thinking of using Power Gramo. But I will look into Pamela. Keep up the great work! Tony P
Hi,
I am constantly scratching my head and asking questions about programs like this ” mentoring program”
I went to the http://www.andrewanddaryl.com site, they have a number of flagship sites listed there ( 4 main ones ) including the skin cancer survior site mentioned in the site http://www.skin-cancer-advice.com/.
What I dont understand is that none of these site have an Alexa ranking over 1,000,000 – in fact the cancer site is 1,500,000 – anyone that know anything about internet marketing knows that that is a low traffic site.
Now I dont think that Alexa is perfect – however it is a reasonable indicator of traffic levels – the Alexa ranking of this blog is 166,000 – the alexa ranking of “become a blogger” ( the sister site to this one ) is 96,000 – so you get the comparision point right ?
100 – 150,000 high traffic >>> 1,500,000 low traffic
Mine own site is around 330,000 – now I get around 500 visitors a day which is the number mentioned in the interview.
How do you have 4 sites that dont get more than 1,000,000 alexa ranks and make that sort of money ?
Can someone please explain what I am missing – the maths doesn’t add up for me.
Hey Shane,
Simple answer – don’t look at traffic, look at conversion.
Andrew and Daryl would be first to tell you think. They drive PPC traffic to their sites and even if they only send 100 visitors a day, if the conversion rate is high, they make good money.
And there is the thread that if you pull on it this couples story falls apart.
1, If you had 100 visitors a day ( regardless of where they came from Organic, PPC, refferal ) you would not have an Alexa rating of 1,500,000 – Alexa doesnt consider source.
Alexa is NOT perfect but it is a resonable tool – you yourself recommend using it “become a blogger”
When you interviewed Alborz Fallah and one looks at his site ranking of under 20,000 or yours here of 166,000 there is a huge creditability attachment – he ( and you ) run a successful site.
I have around 30 sites so I know quite predictably what 1,000,000 or 1,500,000 means and it is not 100 people a day try less than 10 ( I am happy to show you 5 or 6 sites on 1,500,000 I have in the oven clients to demonstrate this point )
2, I am using this couples own “maths” in the interview Darryl says
500 visitors ( at 0.10 a click ) with a 1/100 conversion equals 5 sales a day = $150 day – which I would be very happy with especially if you have 4 or 5 sites doing this.
But their flagship sites ( the 4 they reference ) dont get anywhwere near that.
This story has the feel of MML about it, there are people that are making millions encouraging you to be a part of their program and yet thier personal story doesnt add up.
I had a look at their associate Justin Bryce – his site is 1,000,000 as well.
The bottom line here is this – the types of sites that these peolpe are running have conversion ratios of 1 percent – I personally think that is a little high but I will agree with somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent conversion.
But without lots of good quality traffic their selling the dream not living it, Alexa is not perfect but Alborz’s site, your site, my site and every other site I have ever seen stands up to its scrutiny fairly well, I dont believe this couple, I think they are MML’s.
I have to disagree.
I totally agree that Alexa is not in any way ideal, it can be loose at times and i understand the plugin issue – however that is universal – it applies to us all.
However it is about the only tool that we have to work with from the outside looking in and almost every internet marketing guru you have interviewed has a site with a good Alexa ranking.
http://www.butterflymarketing.com/ 72,000
http://www.adsense-videos.com/ 134,000
I have already meantioned your own site is around 166,000
I have a large number sites ( probably too many and should be more focused ) my best is 350,000 so I know first hand that alexa is not perfect but internet marketing experts that don’t have a working site that they can point too under 1,000,000 is suspect for me.
Still good blog, enjoy the podcasts keep up the good work buddy.
Ahh Shane, I wish that was true, but Alexa in my opinion deserves no credibility anymore.
I had an Alexa ranking here of 12000 at one point, then it dived to the 200K, despite my traffic not changing.
Remember that Alexa relies on people using Alexa tools. If you pay for 100 clicks a day from people looking for skin cancer advice, all of whom are not using Alexa tools, then it’s not going to rank.
Regardless of this, I know these two are legit. I’ve been to several of their conferences and watch in-depth how their system works.
If you judge websites by Alexa or Pagerank or any external ranking factor and make a decision based on that, then you’re making a mistake.
Sometime I get confused about how Alexa use their algorithm. While you’ve made some points that cannot be swept under the carpet, I wish to suggest that Alexa Rank alone should not be used as a yardstick to judge those sites. Sometimes it just don’t follow logic. I am saying this from experience. Cheers.
Andrew and Daryl Grant are two of the nicest and most generous people I know of online
Is this information still relevant?
I mean it has been lots of years already and today the buyers are more aware of the marketing strategies, now we have amazon books and kindle and I don’t know, I mean… information products are always going to be there but being realistic, do we have the same chances as before?
Sergio
Its been 6 years since this was posted… Why is this post still here Yaro? Should you be updating us with these couples current business strategies? how are they doing now? what model of business are they working on now?
Cheers
Mr Blogger
It’s still some pretty inspiring stuff in this interview, much of it relevant too. They still have ebooks, however they have moved on to membership sites and coaching programs they sell from the stage which has made them multi-millionaires.
thats awesome this is a great story and many people need to see this
$250K is really cool amount. At the current time, i only dream of this amount.
What type of ebook does this couple sell ?
And thanks for sharing this podcast.
Please tell me there’s a transcript for this? 🙂
Love your info, Yaro!
Hi Yaro,
How do get the shadow behind the images in your eBooks?