Commission Autopilot - Copy And Paste Is Not A Marketing Method

Hi, I know I don't write on this blog very much but something I saw today online really made me quite upset. I opened my email and was greeted with a message about some sort of free affiliate marketing. Now if your like me then you know that most of these free software programs are just a way to get you to buy the REAL software. I like to check them out though because sometimes they can give you ideas for promoting your site or blog manually (which is what I mostly do).

I get to the download page for Commission Autopilot and download the free software. I then click out of my browser and surprise surprise I'm taken to a "live webinar". I put that in quotes because it wasn't live at all. I don't know if you've seen this there is now some software that will present your video as if it were a live seminar. The idea being that people will not want to leave as they will miss the chance to see a live demo. I know because I was sent an offer for that software as well. Now that didn't bother me that much because those are pretty standard marketing devices so I let him go on a bit.

As the spiel went on we learned that this guy has made a ton of money (don't they all) and that the big secret is a new trend called document sharing. He brings out that a big new trend is ebook readers like Amazon's Kindle and the iPad. And what do people read on those? Ebooks or PDF files. So the basic strategy he comes up with is to share PDFs with links embedded in them to some of the most popular document sharing websites. Sounds fine and good so far but you don't really need software for that now do you. You can easily create a PDF in OpenOffice and share it with some sites to gain a following in the Ebook market and promote yourself. So what does the software do? Well I was shocked to see that it takes people's articles from directories converts it to PDF (a use for which article directories were never intended) and doesn't even give them a link back to the original article. Well maybe this strategy might work right now but when the document sites become as flooded with copied spam documents then the effectiveness will be gone. Not to mention the violation of the of the original writers work.

Here is an idea if you want to dominate the Ebook market take some time and write something original. Copying and pasting is not a marketing method it is spam. If you want to get content from articles go ahead as you'll see I have some articles on this blog that I enjoyed and thought I'd share. And the authors don't mind, why? Because they have been credited as the author and a link has been given to the original work. This is how article marketing is supposed to work. I also write articles and distribute them myself and have gained links this way as well. However someone stealing my article embedding it in a PDF (which has no link value) and attaching their own affiliate links is unethical and clear violation of most article directory TOS and any applicable copyright laws.