Do you believe using the commands “remove” or “delete” is all it takes to remove or delete a file or program from your computer?  Sounds simple enough right? Remove file; delete file; empty trash.  Boom.  All cleaned up. Gone forever. Nice and Tidy.

Wrong.

Because of the way most filing systems work, just about all “deleted” or “removed” information is easily recovered.  Out of site doesn’t always mean out of mind- your computers mind, that is.  Not only is this the exact opposite of what you want to do in the first place (remove items) it’s also one of the hidden little factors that can bog things down and clutter up memory.

WipeDrive is a software utility for securely wiping hard drive data. It is used and approved by the U.S. Department of Defense and has wiped over 20 million hard drives. The US Armed Forces, US Homeland Security, US Postal Service and many Fortune 500 Companies use WipeDrive every day to keep their information from getting into the wrong hands. Not that you have “questionable” information in your computer, but you may have sensitive information that would breach confidentiality agreements or financial information that can be disastrous in the wrong hands.

WipeDrive quickly wipes your computer of all your personal data. Wipe your hard drive clean of Trojan horses, worms, viruses, and other questionable data. After wiping your hard drive, reinstall Windows and start with a clean slate.  They even include step by step directions to the process of reinstalling Windows.

WipeDrive comes in two versions: WipeDrive and WipeDrive Pro.

Here are the features of WipeDrive: Currently on sale for $19.95

• Listed as an Approved Disk Sanitizing Tool by the U.S. Department of Defense.
• Wipe any type of hard drive (IDE, SCSI, SATA).
• Wipe any size hard drive.
• Contains optional command line parameters for more user control.
• Permanently wipe out operating systems, program files, and all file data.
• Wipe ALL data from your hard drive.
• Wipe all partition tables and drive formats – FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and Linux.
• Verify that your data has been wiped clean.
• View individual drive sectors.
• Option to create an audit log to capture verify and wipe hard drive events that can be imported into Microsoft Access® and/or Excel®.

WipeDrive 5 Operating System Requirements

1. All versions of Windows (including Vista and Windows 7)
2. All versions of Mac OS (including Intel-based)
3. PC’s using Linux or Unix

WipeDrive 5 Recommended Requirements

1. CD-ROM, 64 MB RAM, and VGA or higher video support.
2. WipeDrive 5 supports any size hard drive (IDE, SCSI, SATA) and its ease-of-use makes it ideal for both home and commercial users. WipeDrive 5 can be used with all versions of DOS, Windows 3.x, 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, OS/2, and PC-based Linux and Unix machines.

Here are the Features for WipeDrive PRO: Currently on sale for $39.95

• Sanitizes Hard Drives (DOS, Linux, and any other Intel® or AMD®-compatible file system)
• Listed as an Approved Disk Sanitizing Tool by the U.S. Department of Defense.
• Supports any size hard drive (IDE or SCSI).
• Contains optional command line parameters that enable the user to run the program from a DOS batch file.
• Permanently erases operating systems, program files, and your data.
• Erases ALL data from physical drive.
• Erases all partition tables and drive formats – FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and Linux.
• Verifies that your data has been erased.
• Feature to display specified sectors on the drive.
• Constructs a database of overwritten drives that can be imported into Microsoft Access® and Excel®.
• Self-contained DOS bootable CD or diskette.
• Now supports additional IDE, SATA, SCSI and RAID hard drive configurations to erase a harddrive
• Erase a hard drive on all x86 computers, IBM PowerPC servers, and Sun Sparc servers
• Erase a hard drive 200-400% faster than previous versions of WipeDrive
• Erase a hard drive on up to 20 computers
• Includes MediaWiper, which wipes data from external drives, diskettes, USB drives, zip disks, and more.

If you are selling or donating a computer, or if you just need to wipe the hard drive clean to get rid of all the junk your kids have put on the hard drive from playing on the Internet, WipeDrive is the tool for you.

Task management skills determine whether freelance writers sink or swim. So much of the business relies on using your time effectively and efficiently. With multiple clients, various assignments, and endless deadlines, successful writing hinges on careful organization and time management. There are numerous task management tools available on the web that are marketed as general organizational site that can specifically benefit the busy freelance writer. One such tool is PlainList.

While PlainLists is not specifically marketed towards freelance writers, the site could (in theory) be extremely helpful to busy, self-employed writers. PlainLists provides a comprehensive and easy to use list generator and organizing system. As freelance writers, we have numerous projects going at once as well as several contacts to manage and correspondences to stay on top of. This tool allows you to organize them all in one very simple and straightforward interface. So much about productivity involves organization, having a centralized system to keep track of your due dates, assignments, and client lists is essential. Another helpful feature that PlainLists offers is “cloud” access. You can login to PlainLists from any device that has internet and retrieve your lists. This can be extraordinarily useful for the writer on-the-go. While all of these features have great potential, they just don’t quite fit the bill.

The PlainLists site has the right idea, but falls slightly short of its goal. People (especially freelance writers and individuals who are self-employed) need to organize their tasks and calendars in one easy to use and simple looking interface, which PlainLists certainly offers. And, it is nice to have all of your content off in a “cloud” somewhere on the internet, so that you can access it anywhere. However, I have some trouble seeing how PlainLists is really much more than a digital stack of post-it notes. This is not to say that I think freelance writers shouldn’t utilize the tool, just that they may need to do so alongside other productivity tools. Use PlainLists as a list making tool it is great for its simplicity. But it may be helpful to pair its uses with a tool like Google Calendar.

Organization is key to a successful freelance career. With various task management tools available on the market, many just do not hit the bar. More often than not, the software is too complicated, takes too long to use, and is very messy. This is one area where PlainLists really sizes up the competition. PlainLists is as simple as it is named, just plain lists. Using this tool, you won’t waste time wading through useless ornamentation. If you need something that simply makes lists, PlainLists does it well. From a freelance writing prospective, PlainLists is useful and easy, but just not quite complete.

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for top online universities. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

photo credit: Iain Farrell

As a freelancer, sometimes I am assigned a writing topic, other times I have to come up with one on my own. In either case, I have to write my article if I want to get paid. I recently started using mind mapping and mind mapping software to help me with my writing. In this post I thought I would share with you what mind mapping is and how you can use it in your own work.

What is Mind Mapping? Mind Mapping is a graphical technique for brainstorming and exploring ideas. Users start by writing down one main idea thought in the middle of the page or screen, then write related thoughts and ideas around the outside of it. Writing down basic thoughts about the subject and working out from there often leads to more detailed ideas to explore, growing the map in a hierarchical tree branch structure. It is a great technique for writers but can be used by anyone trying to develop an idea or plan. The most important thing is to get your ideas down on paper, so that you can further organize them later.

What is Mind Map Software? Mind Mapping software generally works the same as using paper, but it is easier to manipulate the map on the screen. Once the initial subject is typed into the center branches can be created off it, and either lengthened with more details on the same branch or with new branches created from the center. The nice thing about the software is that branches can be dragged around the screen for better organization. Thoughts can be combined or separated, without rewriting.

What to use There are plenty of packages out there, which range from free to very expensive. I personally can recommend MindNode and MindNode Pro for the Mac and iOS. The basic program is free for OS X and $5.99 for iOS. The Pro version for OS X is $ 19.99. In addition to the simple, easy to use interface in the basic version, the pro gives you the ability to add pictures and files to a map, as well as the ability to “fold” branches of the map. All versions of this program allow for exporting to other formats, so your maps are not tied down to a proprietary format.

For those using Windows or Linux, or Mac users who would like an alternative there is XMind, which is an open-source mind mapping application which has versions for all three platforms. I have not used this software but it is very popular and has gotten good reviews. Most functionality is available in the free version, with sharing and some other advanced options available in the pro version for $49 per year.

Whether you use a computer or paper I highly recommend giving mind mapping a try. Mind mapping has significantly improved my writing process, and it may help yours as well. If you have used mind mapping or mind mapping software, let me know in the comments. Do you use paper or software? How do you use it? What works or does not work for you?

photo credit: openpad

Note Taking: Evernote (Free)

Evernote is a full featured note taking application for iPad, as well as almost every other platform currently available (iPhone, Mac OS, Windows, Android, Blackberry, web, etc). A full how-to article was recently posted in our Tips & Advice column Evernote allows you to capture any bit of information form nearly any source and catalog it for easy retrieval. You can type notes into it, capture all or part of a webpage, email information to it, or scan information you need to recall at a future date. Evernote allows you to organize your notes by notebook and tags, and makes every bit of text, even in photos and PDF’s searchable.

Evernote is great for freelancers because it can store all of your article research, neatly organized for later retrieval. You can also type your articles into it with basic formatting, or simply keep them as plain text and format them in your program of choice. Evernote is free with some account limitations, or you can upgrade to a premium account for $5 per month or $45 per year.

Task Management: 2Do ($6.99)

2Do is a to do list manager that can handle simple lists, checklists, or whole projects. You can tag items for easy finding, attach them to contacts, share tasks with others, and add voice notes. You can add tasks to calendars, share tasks in various options such as email and text, and sync your lists with various services such as Outlook, Toodledo, or MobileMe.

For freelancers, 2Do allows you to list all your writing and business tasks, associate them with tags and contacts (clients, collaborators, etc).and then see your tasks on any platform you use such as phone and computer.

Office Suite: iWork ($9.99 for each of 3 programs)

iWork, which is also available for Mac, is made up of three programs: Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentations. Using these kinds of programs on a tablet does have some drawbacks (lack of a physical keyboard, typing in cells differently than you would on a desktop or laptop), and I did find some common complaints in the reviews such as a lack of dropbox support or folders. However if you really want to move your work to a tablet you are going to need these apps, and you are going to need to make some adjustments to the way you work.

iWork allows freelancers to do some of the most common tasks of document creation, even in places where a laptop might seem impractical. If you need to create papers, proposals, presentations, or capture data in a spreadsheet, this is one of the best ways to do it on a tablet.

Time Tracking: HoursTracker HD ($7.99)

Based on the iPhone app of the same name, HoursTracker HD lets you track clients, pay rates for each client, and the number of hours worked. You can then view your time by date, by job, or by the amount of money made. This makes it easy to enter time while you are out in the field, or in a coffee shop, or any place else you need to track your time and would prefer to do it without writing on little pieces of paper that are easy to lose.

Social Media: Hootsuite (free)

Originally I thought this category was going to be a showdown between Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is easily one of the most popular clients for Mac, PC, and iPhone. However the iPad version does not seem to measure up to the Tweetdeck name.

Hootsuite allows you to have multiple twitter streams open, as well as Facebook. It allows you to set up dynamic searches and view your Twitter lists, all in real time. You can also shrink links and add photos. Perhaps the most important feature for writers and other business people, which I have rarely seen in any other client, is the ability to schedule tweets for another time. This allows you to schedule tweets at the “primetime” for your followers and readers, or for several days or throughout the day for those who check Twitter at different times during the day.

News: New York Times (free)

While most newspaper apps only give a small selection of articles, the Times now provides almost the entire paper through this app. In addition to the articles and pictures, you also have access to video and Times blogs. Content can be shared on Twitter, Facebook and email. A NYT account is necessary to get more than four sections, but those accounts are now free.

Freelancers who write about the news or simply need ideas for commentary on their blogs can get plenty of fodder out of this app. Even if the Times starts charging for this content is worth it for this much information in such a nice app.

RSS Reader: Pulse Reader (free) or Flipboard (free)

Both Pulse Reader and Flipboard are extremely popular as RSS readers for iPad. Both integrate with Google Reader (no having to re-subscribe to all your blogs for the app), both have social network integration, and both take advantage of the larger screen of the iPad with a beautiful interface.

For freelancers, both of these apps are great for following and participating in other blogs and staying up to date with alternative news and commentary. And since they are both free, you can give them each a try without having to go through the iTunes process of getting your money back.

PDF Annotation: GoodReader ($2.99)

GoodReader is an incredibly robust file viewer and organizer. It can handle viewing of most major file types including PDF, TXT, MS Office, iWork, images, web archives, and even audio and video. It also lets you annotate and mark up PDF’s, something most people cannot even do on their desktop computers. It also lets you create folders, move and copy files, zip and unzip files, and send files to other apps.

Freelancers will like this app for the ability to mark up work sent to them by other writers even in PDF format, and to organize their files independently form other applications. The app has many more features and will go a long way to making your iPad work more like a laptop.

Printing: Print n Share ($8.99)

At the end of the day when you have done your research, taken your notes, managed your time, and written your article, you may need to print it out. Apple promised us this ability with the release of iOS 4.2, but the fulfillment of that promise has come up quite short, unless you have a brand new HP printer. Print n Share takes care of this issue by allowing you to print to any wireless printer via WIFI or 3G. It also provides many file management features such as moving or printing documents from MobileMe or another WebDAV account, viewing and printing PDF’s and Office documents, and even turning your iPad into a WIFI hard drive. This makes it easy to show your work to clients or prospects anywhere you can find a printer, as well as manage files from within the same app.

Adding some or even all of these apps will not magically turn your iPad into a full fledged laptop or desktop. However adding these apps will go a long way to making the iPad experience much easier for the Freelancer. Do you or would you use an iPad to get your writing work done? What apps are you using for writing and business? Give us your opinions in the comments.

photo credit: Khürt

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me one of those personality tests that tells you what “color” you are: blue, green, gold, or orange. Well, let’s just say I scored high on the side of lists and all things organizational. As such, you can only imagine how thrilled I was when I heard of Filemaker’s ridiculously detailed database software application Bento 3. Named after those Japanese Bento boxes that compartmentalize food, Bento (the software) puts all your information where it should be—heck, it was almost too much organization for me!

Almost, I said. Almost.

For the home business types, of which freelancers most definitely are, Bento 3 can quite literally do it all. Library templates already exist for business-related categories such as Contacts, Projects, Expenses; there’s even an Hourly Billing template. There’s a template exchange as well, just in case you can’t quite do what you need with one of the provided libraries, or you can choose “Blank” and make your own. You can even customize the libraries or templates that are pre-made to include any info you need. Also, aside from all the business aspects of Bento, users can keep track of their medical history, catalog their home entertainment, or take care of virtually anything in their lives via a list.

Now, with the iPhone and iPad, Bento 3 is even more of a wise investment, as it’s now possible to easily sync your stuff from your home computer to your phone to your iPad to … well … you get the picture. Not only can you do just about anything with Bento 3, you can be just about anywhere when you do it. Instead of dozens of one-off apps that focus on a single task, here you’ve got one easy to use app that keeps everything in one accessible spot.

There are some flaws, to be sure. Formatting of text, etc., is limited if non-existent, and if you’re hoping for an elaborate database with intricate calculation possibilities, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. For freelancers, though, Bento 3 is an affordable solution to all the organizational tasks that tend to slow down our actual workday.

One of the advantages of being freelancers is the ability to set our own schedules—sure we have deadlines, but it’s up to us how we meet those deadlines. Sounds simple enough, but sometimes we forget about other people and how THEIR calendars may affect our deadlines—church groups, writing groups, family events, even teams of writers we collaborate or work with. Convenient Calendar aims to solve scheduling conflicts and share information by allowing groups of people to access centralized calendars—this lets you and all the people you know in any particular group:

• Schedule meetings and events
• Share and update contacts
• Share photos and images

As a calendar, the Convenient Calendar Web site is exactly what it says it is. Simply create a group, add its members, name its calendars, and all of the group’s members can easily enter their information and important dates into the appropriate calendar. Even better, there’s no limit to the number of calendars you can maintain, and access to calendars is limited to whomever you provide it; for example, your writing group doesn’t have access to your Bible Study group, and while you keep your social life organized, you can also keep your deadlines and work information and contacts current as well. Keeping your busy days up-to-date and getting all eyes on the same calendar stops the back and forth of, “OK, what days are YOU free … oh, that doesn’t work for Jane.”

Keeping all of your colleagues’ and group members’ contact information current is also as simple as a few clicks. When a co-worker or group member changes their email address, phone number, etc., it updates automatically site-wide and everyone will be able to see all the changes. Again, this eliminates the time consuming drudgery of alerting all your colleagues every time you add a new email address or cell number and keeps everyone working out of the same address book.

Photos and images are also easily shared via the Convenient Calendar Web site, which is especially nice if the file you want to share exceeds your email’s size limit. Images shared on Convenient Calendar can be up to 6MB, which is plenty for photos from an event or gathering that everyone attended and wants to see. Even better, for co-workers deciding on a logo or looking to give feedback on a brochure or Web design layout, everyone involved can view the images at their convenience and send their comments to the team.

Overall, Convenient Calendar simplifies a whole bunch of aspects of a freelancer’s life, merging personal and professional so that all you need to know about your schedule—and everyone whose schedule affects and is affected by you—is available at a convenient and secure central location. Best part? It’s all free! No subscription fee or software to purchase—Convenient Calendar is totally free, no matter how many calendars you create, contacts you upload, or photos you share. So while it’s true that part of the joy of the freelance lifestyle is being in control of our own schedules, it’s also true that if we have any outside interactions, our schedules and deadlines sometimes revolve around 15 other people—Convenient Calendar sorts out the hassle.

Freelancing is a great business to get into because the expenses are low so it’s easy to start. All you really need is a computer and the right programs to do the kind of freelancing that you need to do. Easy! As long as you get a few clients and can deliver your work through email, it’s all good; nothing else is needed. But eventually you’ll start to branch out. You might want to offer:

• Additional services
• A newsletter
• A membership program
• Some kind of recurring income offering
• Downloadable products

You can piece together an empire using some of the products or services online (like Aweber for internet marketing or Clickbank for ebooks and Paypal for payments). This is not a bad way to slowly build your business but you might eventually want to consolidate it all together into one convenient program. That’s where 1ShoppingCart comes in.

1ShoppingCart is a program that does, well, basically everything that you need to do to market your business online and sell your products or services. (Okay, maybe not everything but pretty close!). It’s called an online shopping cart and ecommerce solution and I consider it to be an essential tool for freelancers who want to take their practices to the next level.

• 1ShoppingCart gives you shopping cart and credit card processing functionality so you can sell products, digital products, and services online in a convenient cart. Now you can easily charge customers for the services they want to hire you for.
• 1ShoppingCart gives you email marketing services and internet marketing tools so you can promote your business. Create a newsletter or ezine and offer that to build up your list of subscribers; develop an affiliate program to pay others to recommend your services for you; place links in social media to sell your products or services; get analytics to see who’s buying.

1ShoppingCart is one of the top systems for business owners to use to easily build their business into an ecommerce success. There are four levels of service so you can choose the one that works best for you and move up from there if you’d prefer to slowly grow your business. The lowest level is an autoresponder-only level for $29 per month and the top level is the full suite for $99 per month.

By setting up with 1ShoppingCart, your freelancing business can ascend to the ranks of the most successful freelancers who offer services through their own site (instead of through a 3rd party provider), who offer ebooks and membership and coaching services to augment their freelancing service revenue, and who build relationships with their prospects and customers through a newsletter.

The advantage of freelancing is how easy it is to become a freelancer. That’s also a detriment because it means that anyone can become a freelancer. But you’ll outpace your aggressive competition by being the provider that can do what your competitors can’t. 1ShoppingCart is an investment into your business and if you are serious about building your business into a more successful one, you’ll have the tools you need to achieve your goal.

Freelancers of all types are called upon to provide feedback on customers’ existing web assets. Freelance web designers might need to reflect on the design; freelance internet marketers might need to review onsite SEO; freelance copywriters might need to review existing content. These reviews often occur on their own even though they could be done much faster and far more effectively if they are done together. 

Notable is a tool that allows that to happen, whether it’s a team working together or it’s a distributed workforce. Notable works like this: The freelancer goes to the website that needs to be reviewed and they take a screenshot using Notable. Notable doesn’t just take a regular screen capture; it actually captures 4 separate elements: The design, the code, the copy, and the SEO. Each one of these elements can then be separately viewed and annotated. 

You’ll end up with a list of helpful feedback and review that interacts with the four different parts of the site. Teams can each contribute and make annotations and review other annotations. 

The result? Faster, more collaborative, and more comprehensive reviews of websites that is also more accurate. 

So, let’s say you run a web design and development shop. A client asks you to review their site. You take a Notable screen capture and you get members of your team – your designer, your developer/coder, your copywriter, and your SEO person – to review their portions of the site’s Notable capture and make notes. Then you can call your team together, everyone reviews the same list, and you can quickly put together some recommendations for your customer. 

Or, if you’re a freelancer who works solo, you can use Notable to offer a value-added service to your clients. For example, if you’re primarily a freelance writer but you want to extend the services you offer, use Notable to show your clients how you can also contribute to their SEO and even how your copy contributes to their design. 

Notable is a powerful tool for freelancers and teams (and teams of freelancers!) 

• It’s faster and contextual because you’re working with a very specific aspect of the site but your feedback is collected together. That means you’ll get more work done faster.
• It’s easier to keep a record of the various perspectives because everything ends up in a list with the contributing party’s names linked to the annotations. That means there won’t be mystery feedback that no one remembers giving or why they gave it.
• It forces feedback providers to be specific by requiring them to highlight and comment on on-page elements that need to be changed. 

There are 5 plans, ranging from free to $119 per month, depending on the number of users and other features like storage space, security, and private URLs, so there is a plan that will likely work for your situation no matter how you work. As well, there is a 30 day free trial if you want to try it out first before paying to see if it’s right for you, and no contracts once you’ve signed up; just pay as you go. 

This is a great app for freelancers who want to save time and be more effective for their clients.

As a freelancer, you might end up showcasing your work on your blog or website, which makes sense, but there are times when you want to showcase it elsewhere. For example if your site design isn’t conducive to the kind of work you want to display or if you want to use your site for providing value while you save your self-promotion for your portfolio and/or CV.

So in this blog post, I want to give you a few different places that you might consider to post your portfolio or CV for prospective clients.

• Drop.io is a free, easy-to-use site that lets you upload many different kinds of content and configure the site to display your work freely or via a password. There’s a fair amount of storage, too: 100Mbs. This is a good place for visual artists, writers, and designers.
• Carbonmade seems a little weird when you first click there but once you check out the portfolios it’s better. This is the place for visual freelancers like illustrators and photographers.
• Figdig is a portfolio site for visual freelancers. It looks pretty professional (although it’s ad-supported in parts). Still, they have some great features and good protection to avoid theft of your content.
• Visual CV is a handy site to create a free resume. It doesn’t give you a lot of display options, but not every freelancer needs or wants that. You can customize your URL. Here’s an example of Guy Kawasaki’s CV
• Linkedin is an often overlooked place to build a CV. And since it’s already a networking site, you’ve got a built-in opportunity to leverage your CV a lot more easily than if you produced one and hand to show it to people. The basic version is free. One drawback is that there isn’t really a place to store samples of your work.
• Squidoo would work as a really easy-to-use portfolio as well. It’s ad-supported, which I’m not a huge fan of, but it’s really configurable and suitable for all kinds of freelancers.
• Don’t forget to check out sites like Guru.com and Elance.com (if you use them), which offer you a place to create and post portfolios.

Tips

• Choose ones that are appropriate for you: If you’re a freelance writer, make sure you can display or link to your work. If you’re a designer, make sure you can display or link to your work. In other words, don’t just pick one because it’s easy or free. Pick one because it will position you the most appropriately.
• Focus on a couple: It might be tempting to create several for the easy backlinks but I wouldn’t create as many as possible. Instead, I would only build one or two (I personally use LinkedIn and Guru.com, but I also use my own website for some portfolio display) and I would make them really, really awesome.
• Make them congruent: Before building them, solidify your message so you are saying the same things on both.
• Make them sing: Fine tune them to do a great job of positioning you and make sure that the links to your portfolios are on everything.

I’ve just shown you a few. There might be ones out there that are better for your situation. Figure out your needs, search around, and find the best for you.

As you’ve heard me complain from time to time, there are only 24 hours in a day. That’s fine if your hourly rate is tens of thousands of dollars an hour but for most freelancers it isn’t. So to make more money, you need to augment the time you spend writing by selling something that doesn’t take you time to do after someone has bought it. Creating and selling digital products through Clickbank is one way to augment your income.

Understanding Clickbank

Basically, here’s how to sell a product using Clickbank:

• First, you need to sign up with Clickbank and pay their sign-up fee (which is about $50, give or take a smidgeon).
• Then, when you have a digital product you want to sell, you create a sales page and a thank you page. Your sales page might be one of those really, really long sales pages with flashing arrows and “but wait, there’s more!!!!!!” text. Or, it might just be the products page on your website. The thank you page is where you make your digital product available. (For example, you add a link to the PDF version of your ebook or a link to a zip file containing the mp3s of your videos).
• So far so good. Now here’s where Clickbank comes in: The “buy now” button you embed on your sale page is connected to Clickbank so when someone clicks “buy now”, a window opens and prompts the buyer to pay for your product. Clickbank accepts the payment and sends the buyer on to the thank you page where they can download your digital product. Clickbank takes a small cut of the price and you get most of it.
• Clickbank plays more than a transactional role in the process. They also have a marketplace where your product can be listed, exposing it to a larger audience than those who visit your sales page. Additionally, Clickbank also gives you the ability to create an affiliate program so that affiliates can offer your product for sale and earn a percentage of every sale. With the right product and the right payout percentage, you can get an army of affiliates offering your product for you so you don’t have to do much advertising and you can still end up with revenue.

A review of the site

I like the idea of Clickbank a lot. They help entrepreneurs who want to sell products but don’t have the time, money, or technical savvy to invest in a program like 1ShoppingCart (which is very good but might be price-prohibitive to some). You can get up and running fairly quickly with Clickbank and the cost is minimal. That makes it perfect for freelancers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business owners.

I’ll admit that not everything is perfect: When I first started with Clickbank a few years ago, I found their website to be really unwieldy, but I think that has gotten considerably better over the years. Sometimes it can still be tricky to find information but once you become familiar with the site and their lingo, you can find what you’re looking for. Another complaint with Clickbank is with their marketplace, which tends to get a little “schticky” where get-rich-quick programs abound. So I don’t really participate intentionally in the marketplace, preferring to sell my products through my own effort.

In spite of these two relatively minor issues, I’m quite happy with Clickbank to sell digital products. There are a few good options out there, so freelancers should shop around first, but Clickbank is a good, solid option and a trusted name in the field. And they offer you a way to make more money without raising your rates.