Using your e-book, e-report or e-course as a give away can make you more money down the line.  When you use your own product as an incentive for signing up for you newsletter list, you have gained a subscriber who will have read and found value in your work.  You can now market future products to him through the newsletter.

However, there are additional ways to make money through giving away this e-book.  When you create the ebook, be sure to include your links to your sales pages and any affiliate products that would be needed by your reader in the process of putting your e-book to use. 

For example:  if you are writing an e-book on baking, you could include your affiliate link to quality baking products, tools, other cookbooks, and such along with good content on how to use them. 

My experience is that when you give this properly book away, nothing will happen immediately except that you will get sign ups for your newsletter when you give the book away.  However, if your content is good, your book will get passed around.  People will read the content and check out your affiliate links.  Eventually, the sales will begin to trickle in.

So how can you make this work for you?  Follow these simple steps to put your viral marketing ebook to work for you.

1. Create a quality e-book.  Be sure to research appropriate affiliate links and include these links in your e-book.  Don’t forget to include information about you and your site.
2. Create a cover graphic for your e-book.  This is not essential, but it definitely helps you to “sell” your e-book.
3. Create a squeeze page to take email information before giving away the e-book.  You should sell this e-book just like it was for profit.  People need to be convinced to give you their information.  Convince them that they are getting a quality product.
4. Advertise your e-book on your site, driving traffic to the squeeze page first.
5. Research e-book directories that will allow you to post your e-book for free.  There are many sites on the internet that keep a directory of “freebies”. 
6. Your e-book has now taken on a viral life of its own and you will begin to see increased traffic to your site and sales pages.  However, don’t stop here.
7. Create an email marketing campaign to market to the new list you are building.

A properly formatted e-book or other give away product  has unlimited viral potential. 

The viral potential of your giveaway is only the tip of the iceberg.  Consider another situation.  Suppose you publish a product and give your affiliates 100% of the profits.  How motivated do you think they will be to sell it?  You make nothing on the sale, or do you?  You can profit by the upsell, or even more important, you collect your customers email information and gain access to your affiliates most valuable possession - their customer list.  More on this later.