So, I gave into my 12 year old inner self and spent an afternoon reporting digital delivery violations to eBay. What an incredible waste of time! There are a few vendors who are no longer listing, but the majority haven’t changed a single thing on their listings.

All was not completely wasted time, though. I did find some vendors who are actually selling ebooks on CD; I mean, they’re actually making sales. So I’m taking a closer look at their businesses and plan to emulate what they do.

I did see that there aren’t many offering free shipping. It’s more likely that they’re selling at auction with a beginning $.99, but charging full bore for shipping and handling ($2.95 to $3.95). Their offerings are also much more specifically listed to category, something I’ve not paid that much attention to.  And they don’t sell from stores, they auction their CDs.

I am still working through the eBay Classified Ad manual and will let you know. There have been a couple of personal life issues that got in the way of finishing that book and implementing the concepts. One of the advantages of working online from home is the ability to take that kind of time away.

I just realised that I’m talking about doing research on eBay without talking about the how. I’ve been doing this so long, I forget that what seems easy to me can be confusion to someone.

So here’s what I mean about checking on how other vendors are doing, and what they’re doing. Log into your eBay account, and then click on the “advanced search” spot next to the search box. You’ll see all kinds of ways to do searches; by seller and completed listings are the two I find most useful.

Just be careful. It’s easy to get lost looking at what’s working and not working – useful, for sure, but not to replace action (that was to remind me as much as you!).

I’ve been working on other projects and shamefully ignoring this blog. I guess because I’ve named it eBay Diaries, I tend to overlook it when there’s so little going on at eBay, at least where my business is involved.

Sales are slow, probably understandable with the economy in the shape it is, although there have been spurts of business. I thought the ebooks about making money online might become more popular, but not so. I just took a quick look at completed listings using the “make money” search term, and there weren’t very many sales.

I confess that I’ve not been paying much attention to my eBay biz. As I mentioned last time, I’ve decided it’s a very good idea to try to develop other sources of income. So, I’m working at building small niche sites, adsense and Clickbank sites, with the hope that they’ll generate regular revenue streams, even though they may be small revenue streams. The key is to have a lot of sites, so I’m working at getting a lot of articles. I’m actually finally being forced to look at and organize the gajillion or so article packs I’ve accumulated, as well as all the private label rights books.

I am so far staying away from the internet marketing niche, so that eliminates a ton of the stuff I’ve accumulated, but I have found some useful information in my collections, especially for the natural healing site, and I’m finding that I have lots and lots of the same packs. I’m rewriting some and tossing a whole lot more.

Since my last post I’ve also had some small success with Kindle listings. I’ve only made a few dollars, but then I only have a few listings. I am rereading my Kindle Profits book; I do think Kindle is a good place to put some priority. Amazon is pushing the newest Kindle, and the owners are buying books. I am paying attention to getting the index done right; I’ve seen a few negative comments about messed up or non-existent indexes or tables of content. It takes a bit more effort, but this is a do-it-once and you’re done kind of deal, so worth it.

I’m going back to my article packs and sorting. It’s tedious but has to be done. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of junk. But then when I get to a point of thinking all I have is junk, I find a jewel. So it goes.

Be well and just keep plugging away.

My husband and I went to Las Vegas for a few days, and all I brought back was a major cold. I think I’m well enough now that I can make some sense, but if I sound blurred, please understand it’s because I am!

Speaking of Las Vegas, did you know there is now an eBay slot machine? I found it in one of the downtown casinos, so of course I had to play. Guess what? It didn’t do anything but take my money. Surprise!

Maybe they need the marketing push and income, given this:

The AuctionBytes Newsletter of November 21 reported that “eBay Page Views Drop Off Dramatically in October.” According to the article, Nielsen Online data shows a disturbing 30% drop in page views this past October compared to the same time last year. You can view the article here, and see the charts, if you can stand to look at them.

I do know that my sales have been meager, as have the sales of the other sellers I watch. Certainly the dour economy has a lot to do with this, but I can’t help but wonder if it hasn’t been brought on some by the turmoil of all the changes at eBay. Logic tells me that in bad times folks are going to be looking for bargains – with eBay a logical place to begin. And even with gas prices falling, shopping online should still be more attractive than running around to the mall or several stores.

eBay has contacted store owners about promotions they’re implementing – coupon offers and a cash back partnership with Microsoft Live Search, for example. They’re also pushing store owners to use their email marketing tool. What I’d really like to see, though, is the kind of ad campaign they ran a while back that emphasized the fun and ease of using eBay.

With all that, we come back to diversifying our online businesses. I’ve found a couple of reports I thought you might find helpful, both gifts from one of my favorite subscriptions, Pirates Of The Public Domain. (Check out the site and free newsletter for a boggling amount of information about using public domain information to make money!)

Click on the images below to download your free pdf books.

Niche Hunter

Public Domain 6 Step Formula

With that I leave you for my couch and blankie and hot tea. Happy and profitable reading.

I’ve certainly noticed a slow-down in my eBay business, so I decided to check on some of the other sellers I know generally do a pretty good business. Not so good for them, either. I only check on ebook sellers, so I’m not sure about folks who sell hard goods.

I kind of thought information products about getting started on internet selling might become more popular, but it isn’t so. I’ll just keep plugging away.

Being in the information product niche, I’m still fumbling around with how to do any substantive research on what folks are buying. Besides checking on the completed listings of folks I know are selling ebooks, I’ll often do an advanced search for completed listings for “ebay business” or “how to make money.” This also can add to the list of buyers I keep track of.

I’m continuing to add books to Kindle, but they’re taking an incredibly long time to get the listings added. Perhaps the book I recommended last time, Kindle Profits Exposed, sold so well and got so many people listing that we’ve gummed up the works.

I am experimenting with formatting for the Kindle listings. One format that’s accepted for uploading at the site is html. I use Nvu as my html editor and have found it to be very easy to insert a table of contents with only the chapter headings and sub-headings, as oppposed to having the page number included, which is pretty useless in the Kindle format. You need to designate the headings from the drop-down menu on the tool bar – heading 1, heading 2, etc., if you go that deep. Then simply insert your cursor above the beginning of your book, use the “insert” drop down and select table of contents. It’s pretty nifty, and I hope the Kindle formatting picks up the linkability. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a Kindle myself to check it. Maybe at Christmas!

I bought Rob Benwell’s Blogging To The Bank 3.0 today. It would be nice to find ways to monetize this site. I’m going through it tonight and will give you my thoughts tomorrow.

Be well.

I have books listed on Amazon! Not books that I wrote, but books that I own the resell rights to. So far, it’s only a few of them, but that’s going to change quickly.

Want to know how I did it? I discovered Kindle, the mobile reader that Amazon has been marketing. I don’t own one myself yet, but I am listing books for others to buy and download from Amazon. Then Amazon will pay me.

Pretty nifty! And now I’m diversified.

I learned about this process because I’m on James Jones’ mailing list, and he sent me a video about how he’s making recurring income from Amazon, a video you can watch by clicking here. (James is a very creative and successful eBay seller.)

The program is called Kindle Profits Exposed, and I give it my highest recommendation. It’s from a woman named Rebecca Cooper, and she really knows her stuff. The package includes a clearly-written manual and 6 excellent videos, plus she’s included another book about listing with Mobi (which I haven’t even looked at yet).

So, I read the book, watched the videos, and started listing books! Once you get this information, you’ll be amazed at how simple Rebecca’s made the whole process. I really don’t think I could have figured it out very easily from Amazon’s own information; in fact, I tried navigating their information for a question I had and ended up frustrated.

I’ve talked before about all the books stored on my hard drive, many that I sell on eBay. However, I also have a goodly number of really good products that explicitly prohibit selling on auction sites. Now I’ve found a way to sell them without the need to put up hundreds of sales pages and trying to figure out how to drive traffic to them. Amazon’s traffic, after all, is mind boggling.

Adding Kindle listings to your business plan makes good sense, and now is a great time to do it. The holidays are right around the corner, and Kindles are going to be on a lot of folks’ gift lists. And it doesn’t hurt that Oprah recently announced Kindle is her new favorite thing!

Take a look at James’ video, look over the sales page, and see what you think. If you’re like me and just haven’t happened on that extra thing to add to your business, I think you’ll like this.

Stay well.

Whether you’re heaving a huge sigh of relief that the little darlings are headed back to school or just note that it’s one of those ‘time passing’ markers, it is time to reflect on the fact that 2/3 of 2008 is gone.

For me, it’s an “oh my” time as I see I’ve managed to fritter away a bunch of time. It’s going to be really hard to hit my goals for this year. Then again, maybe this is finally the push in the behind to put on that full court press to GET STUFF DONE. We’ll see.

Although I’m behind in the number of books listed at eBay, that pace is starting to pick up. And I had enough listed and sold to do a bit better each month – and that in July and August, slow months for any marketer.

One thing, finally, is that I’m working hard at monetizing my sales. I’m trying to focus more on digging through all the private label rights products I have, branding them, and adding affiliate products that I think enhance the material. I’ve also changed around the offer on my delivered CD product, offering inexpensive PLR and MRR packages. Roughly half of my customers buy books related to eBay or internet marketing, so I think they may want access to these digital products, either to sell themselves or to learn from. Since I just figured this out (a DOH moment), we’ll see.

If you’re interested in inexpensive rights packages, check my offers here.

Speaking of PLR, I found a product today that I’m very excited about. It’s just a little software program that’s very inexpensive, but I think using it is going to be very helpful in managing some of the stuff collecting digital dust – and to make me some money.

I’ve talked before about all the ebooks I’ve managed to collect. Just going through them is a major pain (self-inflicted, of course, since I am the one who let them just sit there for so long). One frustration is finding a great product with private label rights, but that has been given to me in pdf format without the source doc file. Now what? I can either sell it as is, without being able to take advantage of the plr aspect of the product, or I can retype it into a word program myself. Depending on my mood, some were put into a “get back to it later” file, and some of them were just tossed.

Today, I found my solution. It’s a little program called Tiger PDF Convertor, and that’s exactly what it does. You open it, click on the convertor button to load the pdf you want changed, click another button, wait a couple seconds for it to do its thing, then save the generated text file. Sure, you still have some work to do with the text file, but that’s sooo much easier than typing everything just so you can begin the format! Take a look here. The suggested price for it is $17.00, but I’m passing along my good deal and only charging $5. It’s also a resale product, so it comes with images and a sales page. You have to do your own thankyou/download page, and truthfully the sales page can use some work, but it’s a great product at a great price.

And another note about rights. If you get this tool, please remember that you can’t just start tearing apart all the pdfs you have and redoing them. Check the rights of the product before you start mucking around. If you don’t have rights that specifically state you can remake the product or tear it apart for articles, etc., or that you can claim ownership, don’t do it. You might think you won’t be found out because there’s so much out there on the web. And maybe you won’t. Then again, you might. I recently read a post by a fellow who found out the hard way. His mistake was inadvertent, but the original author decided to be a jerk about the whole thing. Some lawyers made a lot of money; the fellow who made the mistake lost a lot of time and money and lived a very stressful life for awhile.

eBay Cheater Update: After a couple more seemingly nowhere messages from eBay, I checked on the seller I’d found doing a booming digital delivery ebook business, and he’s not there anymore. Finally! I have seen other listings that are suspect, but until eBay works out their reporting systems for this, I don’t think I’m going to wade in any more. I did have an interesting exchange with one seller, though. She blatently listed a cookbook as being delivered by email, and she was charging a $.25 delivery fee. I asked why. She told me it was to cover paypal fees and that since she was selling her book for $.99, what with eBay fees, she really wasn’t making any money. Huh? Her sales are mainly hard goods, so I don’t understand why she’d jeopardize her account for this. Funny world. I’m not going to try to report her, but someone else might…

I think that’s enough for today. Be well.

I found something I wanted to share with you about upgrading your wordpress blog. It’s an incredibly clear and easy to follow guide to take you through the process step by step. It’s from a fellow who identifies himself as John The Geek, and if you don’t know about him you should. Here’s the link to get this guide. You do have to sign up for his newsletter, but I think you’ll find it tremendously useful. He knows all the geeky stuff, but more importantly, he knows how to explain that stuff in an understandable way. Check it out here:

http://JohnTheGeek.com/WPUpgrade/Refer.asp

If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing from the gurus that you have to be very, very careful when you upgrade your wordpress blog – that is, unless you buy their book. While I am learning a lot of techy stuff, I was sufficiently intimidated that I figured I didn’t really need to bother with an upgrade… Well, wrong. The upgrades have security aspects that really shouldn’t be ignored. Even if your old version blog works just fine, you should upgrade. And with John’s guide, it will take only a few minutes. So pick it up, then stay subscribed for a while, check out his blog, and see if this isn’t just a tremendous resource. Oh, and did I tell you it’s free??

I have another eBay update, too. Well, actually, two of them. First, if you haven’t seen it talked about, eBay has done a 180 on their previous announcement that they’d absolutely, positively not be allowing links off your pages anymore. They’ve decided to leave everything as is for the time being. So, if you have an opt-in on your About Me page, it’s apparently still okay.

And on my saga with them to try to get just one non-complying seller to play by the rules, well, not such good news. I did get another email from some support person who actually, at least for the first paragraph, seemed to have read my email. Then we got lost again. I was told I should visit the support center (and given the generic link, so I had to click around there for awhile.) They wanted to have a specific complaint about a specific item, but then won’t accept a complaint relating to the item because it’s not an active item. It’s been sold. Well, DUH! That’s my point. I bought it, I was given a download link, and that’s why I’m complaining. HELLO?? Bad enough that none of the complaint categories really fits the digital delivery ban, but I’m supposed to complain about a listing that I can’t prove is non-complying. It’s just nuts! And further proof that their interest in dealing with folks at my level is miniscule, at best.

So, that’s all the energy I’m putting into that mess. I’ll just keep posting my little CDs, keep encouraging folks to visit my website through the CD delivery, and work on growing a many-faceted web biz. Which is what we’re all supposed to be doing anyway.

Stay well.

eBay is making me nuts. No, this isn’t another rant about policy change – well, not directly. It’s about their response to email inquiries. It’s like they don’t actually read anything you send. They find a keyword that goes along with a policy, paste the policy into a response, and send it off.

Specific case this time is an email I sent asking that they take a look at an ebook seller who is delivering his goods digitally, although his auctions say they’re on CD.

I know I’m kind of reverting to that 12 year old: “you can’t do that, it’s against the rules!” But it’s frustrating to have gone through all the changes, working hard to comply, and then see someone breaking those rules.

Anyway, I bought a couple of items to make sure, and then I asked eBay to look into it and do something. The first email included dispute resolution policies, suggesting I contact the seller to work things out. Um, no, not going to happen. The last one quoted the digital delivery rules. Hello? I know the rules, that’s why I wrote, and I did explain exactly – again – what the problem is. Don’t know how they’re ever going to take action when they can’t take a minute to read the entire email. Oh well.

On another note, business is picking up for my ebooks on CD business. The beginning of July was dismal, but there seem to be more buyers lately. And I’ve had some lovely emails from happy customers. Always helps keep me motivated!

This isn’t a leaps and bounds growth by any means. My sales are only about $20 more this month than last, but I haven’t listed as many new titles as I’d hoped, either. It does mean that I’m paying all my fees out of earnings, so definitely life is good! And it’s pretty cool how a few sales can motivate me to get more done.

I’m going back to my listings now. Just wanted to share the latest bit of eBay nonsense.

Be well.

I’ve been busy revamping my eBay ebook sales to comply with the ban on digital delivery. I finally got a system set up and have been getting sales. It appears that many – maybe most – of the sellers of ebooks haven’t made the transition to getting their books onto CD. Demand for the books is there, folks are buying and willing to pay a bit more plus postage. Now it’s a matter of getting my listing numbers up. So, I’m just busy, busy, busy!

I’ve been concerned about the quality of some of the information being put out there on the eBay changes. The eBay rules about links from anywhere on an eBay page – their classified ads, sales pages, about me pages, any page you have on eBay – are now crystal clear. As of July 1 you CANNOT include a link off of eBay to your web page, nor can you have an opt-in box for your newsletter. You can’t even show your web site URL information with no link. One fellow in a forum related how he’d had his listings pulled because the picture of the CD he was selling had his website address on it.

Be very clear. eBay wants no promotion of any business but eBay to appear on their site. Your business promotion to your customers will have to be through included material you send to your buyer.

So, if you see a product being promoted that promises secrets and tips for classified ads, approach with caution. If there’s any mention of placing a link or opt-in box or even paypal button, you know the writer didn’t do any homework. Actually, I’ve unsubscribed to a few lists because of these kinds of product offers. How could I possibly trust their information on other subjects? One promoter got quite snippy with me when I pointed out that the product she was promoting was clearly giving information that would get an eBay seller in trouble. After waiting through several issues of her newsletter to see a correction (which didn’t come) I unsubscribed. I think that’s incredibly irresponsible marketing.

There was another package being heavily promoted through teaser videos. In the first video, this guy bragged on how he was able to increase the price of a training package being offered on eBay by $20, simply because of the perceived added value of a physical product. No problem there. He lost me, however, when he also bragged that he was able to add a $6 handling fee. I think that’s going to get him into trouble with eBay, as one of the things they are harping on with the changes is to clamp down on folks overcharging on postage and handling. Again, very bad information to be promoting. On top of that, his course on how to do this was being sold for a whopping $1,500!

There have been a couple of new products offered to help in the transition to getting your products onto CDs, but the focus seems to be on using a packaging/mailing service.  If you’re selling a whoop-e-do package, I can see where you’d want the spiffy jewel case and label. And the cost of $1.75 for processing and additional postage charges would certainly be justified. But I’m not selling those, and I want the control of doing the mailing myself. So I was delighted when John Thornhill, through my Mentorship Monthly subscription, set out a very clear and beautifully put together package for producing my own professional-looking CD package. It includes a great header that I easily modified to include the SmilingPartners name, files and pages that take little editing, a place to put a bonus or two, and even a great upsell offer. This package alone is worth many times the $10 a month subscription.

I spent some time yesterday reading blog posts from attendees of eBay’s gathering in Chicago. Not a pretty picture. There is a great deal of concern about the new feedback rules, especially the detailed seller rating system. eBay admits there’s some work to be done, but the attitude seemed to very much be “this is our sandbox, we make the rules.” Not quite to the point of telling sellers to take their toys and go home, but the presenters didn’t seem to be overly involved with the concerns. Search YouTube for eBay Live videos for some interesting moments.

I’m back to my listing chores. I have something like 50 items in my store and/or auctions, and my goal is to at least double that this week.

Be well – and look out for those eBay gurus who don’t know what they’re doing!

We listen to a lot of CSPN in our house. My husband is retired and feels it’s his patriotic duty to keep an eye on what our National Government is up to. Right now, drug company representatives are being asked about thier televison ads, and it isn’t pretty. Listening to these executives explain how they’re manipulating laws and regulations, skating up right next to unethical or illegal behavior, my dislike of them is intensifying to a level I didn’t know was there! Watching them squirm is fun, but disturbing. It appears to me they know very well they’re skating on thin ice and thought they could get away with it.

How does this relate to us?

I’m sure you’ve seen  products offered that made you feel a little uncomfortable. Systems that sound too good to be true or that carry information you know is borderline, if not plain wrong. I’m not necessarily talking about the products that advertise themselves as “black hat,” although I tend to discard those immediately. I don’t think a marketing method that’s built to convince me I’m going to “get away with something” is a good idea. It may be on the up and up, but I’ll never know because of the presentation.

However, I have seen offers for products that fly in the face of what I believe is ethical. Perhaps they’re even illegal. I don’t pretend to know all the relevant current computer/internet law, but I do know when something smells bad.

I have a friend who’s getting started in internet marketing who is always sending me stuff about how to bend the rules. I’ve tried to tell him that I am extremely not interested, but he continues. I think one of these days he’s going to find himself out of business or in court, probably both. And I don’t think the few dollars he’s making by skirting ethics and regulations will help him very much when he gets a judgment against him.

There are plenty of ways to make money on the internet, but they require work. Listen to the gurus who tell you about the years of effort it took for them to get to the level they enjoy today. Even their offers of helping you cut corners, so you don’t make their mistakes, don’t diminish the need for your attention and diligence in building your business.

I tend to be an optimistic person – except when it comes to breaking rules. I am absolutely convinced that if I try something shady, I am going to get caught. So, I can’t say that it’s a high sense of morality that keeps me on the straight and narrow, so much as it is fear. However it works for you, internalize the thought that taking the low road will offer you a path to trouble.

Enough of the preaching. I’m back to watching extremely high paid drug company executives get their come-uppance.

Be well.