A big part of my job is marketing information...
I write copy for a lot of publishers. There's a fine line between good info and your typical Clickbank make moniez stuff.
A lot of my clients sell things like SEO software, financial newsletters, martial arts training, golf... There's a lot of niches out there that are profitable.
I think the animosity towards info products in this forum in general is the IM scene.
I'm in full agreement that there's a lot of junk out there, and coming to forum like this and selling an ebook on how to make moniez with CPA offers is just dumb.
I have no qualms about marketing good info. There's not a lot of good info in the IM scene.
I wanted to mention one other thing...
I have an aversion to pay for information that I know I can get for free. That being said, I don't like free e-books either. It might have something to do with their length, or their typical PDF format.
I buy the shit out of info products, not necessarily ebooks.
I have about every respectable copywriting/marketing book out there. If it wasn't for things I've learned from guys like Gary Halbert, John Carlton, Dan Kennedy... I wouldn't know how to make a living the way I do.
And if I wanted to get into day trading or real estate, yeah, I'd do some research on Google. But chances are I'd want to learn from someone who knows what they're doing, and I'd pay good money for it.
It makes sense to pay people who are good at what you want to learn to learn from the best.
And that's true for a lot of things.
Golfers will pay big money to shave a stroke or two off of their game.
Guys will pay big money for information that may increase their chances of getting laid by 10%.
Investors pay tons of money to listen to whatever investment guru they listen to has to say about the market.
And if the information is actually good, it's win/win.
The golfers get better. The investors make more money. The guys learn how to pick up a chick without coming off like a total loser.
And the publishers make money selling a product with massive profit margins.
When done right, I think information is a good business.
When done wrong, you have the BST at DP. Or the majority of WSO's on Warrior.
I also think "e-book" is a dirty word, no matter what the niche. An "e-book" is something you buy on Amazon for $5.
Positioning products as a "course" or a "guide" or something other than "e-book" does a lot for perceived value.
But yeah. A lot of guys, especially in this forum where CPA is the name of the game have a negative view on it because the only info-products they've been exposed to are the shitty IM products preying on newbies.
If that was my only exposure to info-products I'd hate them too. But, if you dig a little deeper and research some real markets, it's lucrative.
-Scott